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General => Terragen Animation => Topic started by: Hannes on October 03, 2016, 09:17:09 AM

Title: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Hannes on October 03, 2016, 09:17:09 AM
At the moment I am trying to animate the scene I used here:
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=22193.0
I already made a camera move and want to animate the cars and the people. I attached a little test for some sort of crowd simulation. I imported a 31 frame object sequence of a walking character and used seven populations with different texture maps and different offsets of the walking loop. In 3ds max I measured the exact distance the character is walking within 100 frames and used this value to animate the population area. So there is no sliding back or forth, but if you look closer, you can see, that the feet are penetrating the ground sometimes. It's the imperfection of the skinned character. No big deal im my eyes.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Kadri on October 03, 2016, 09:40:36 AM

Looks good Hannes.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: archonforest on October 03, 2016, 10:14:18 AM
Looks pretty cool!
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Dune on October 04, 2016, 03:23:57 AM
Wonderful. How about lowering the patch size to get the feet not penetrating the ground?
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: DocCharly65 on October 04, 2016, 04:28:19 AM
Amazing! and cool!
I think with additional camera movement, animated cars and all the stuff in the city environment the feet not penetrating the ground will not be really visable.

(after I read that I looked closer and found a man pushing his elbow into the stomach of another man  ;D )


Hope I will learn the character animation some day in blender. At the moment too much for me ;)
Is 3DS Max easier to learn? 1900€ rental costs for only one year is not cheap! And when I think that I just scratched the surface of TG 3/4 after 3 years... I would never even touch 3DS Max!  ::) ???
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Hannes on October 04, 2016, 09:21:58 AM
Quote from: Dune on October 04, 2016, 03:23:57 AM
Wonderful. How about lowering the patch size to get the feet not penetrating the ground?

Thanks, Ulco.
This won't work, because the "imperfection" is in the object"s animation. It's a motion capture movement and the model isn't detailed enough, so that the feet react to the ground perfectly. So occasionally the feet are slightly below the pivot. As I wrote, no big deal, this won't be visible in my final animation.
Nils yes, some instances are penetrating others. Unfortunately there's no collision detection (yet). There's instance editing, so if there's an obvious penetration, I could fix it, but hopefully it won't be
visible from that distance.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Dune on October 04, 2016, 09:30:30 AM
I was just experimenting with global opacity (trying to mix two antler sizes by PF) but that doesn't work globally yet (I've put down a request a year ago or so). That could also helpa bit (exclude where the other occurs), but you also can't 'opacitate out' a total part, even if it would work, so you always end up with a loose arm (kicking the stomach of the other guy)  ;D
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Hannes on October 06, 2016, 07:01:20 AM
I decided to show you my results so far. I rendered 94 frames (9 min. rendertime per frame), and then realized that I used a V3 cloudlayer for the haze. Using V2 clouds instead reduces the rendertime to approx. 5 minutes per frame. I knew this before, but I wasn't aware which sort of cloud I was using... >:(

Unfortunately some people walk into (and through) each other or other obstacles. I don't know how to avoid that, since there is no way to guide single instances around objects. However I don't care too much about that. The camera is far away.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Dune on October 06, 2016, 07:42:16 AM
Awesome! The car turning that corner is a really nice touch.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Hannes on October 06, 2016, 07:57:15 AM
Thanks Ulco!
I just started the rendering from the start. I decided to use the advantage of faster rendertimes to increase the resolution. Now for a resolution of 1280 X 720 px it takes twelve minutes. I think it's worth it.
I'm trying to use the premade GI cache. It was done in 800 X 450 px, but it's the same ratio, so there shouldn't be a problem. The quality should be sufficient as well. The only thing I'm not sure about is the new cloud layer. Will there be flicker? I'll test it as soon as possible. If it's flickering, I'll create another GI cache and start all over. Hopefully not....
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Kadri on October 06, 2016, 08:01:23 AM

Absolutely worth of a HQ render.

"Unfortunately some people walk into (and through) each other or other obstacles.
I don't know how to avoid that, since there is no way to guide single instances around objects."


Curious if a warping of a crowd node is possible?
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Matt on October 06, 2016, 02:07:27 PM
Super stuff, Hannes!

For some reason I'm paying attention to some oddities in the traffic. First, I think in real life most drivers would be closer to the centre line and not so close to the kerb (curb). Second, the left-turning car looks like he doesn't know how to drive (very tight turn, very slow for no apparent reason). However, his driving position would be more appropriate if he had been waiting for an oncoming car just prior to the beginning of the shot, so perhaps you could add one and then the animation would work without any changes?

Matt
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Matt on October 06, 2016, 02:11:09 PM
You could get more detail on the road and faster render times by replacing the ground with a built-in Card (not Plane), or an imported plane. I only say this because it looks like the texture is rendered with micropolygons... but maybe that's just the texture?
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Hannes on October 06, 2016, 04:03:42 PM
Quote from: Matt on October 06, 2016, 02:07:27 PM
However, his driving position would be more appropriate if he had been waiting for an oncoming car just prior to the beginning of the shot, so perhaps you could add one and then the animation would work without any changes?

Thanks a lot, Matt! I already thought about a pedestrian crossing the street. I'll see. Thanks for the suggestion!

Quote from: Matt on October 06, 2016, 02:11:09 PM
You could get more detail on the road and faster render times by replacing the ground with a built-in Card (not Plane), or an imported plane. I only say this because it looks like the texture is rendered with micropolygons... but maybe that's just the texture?

Not quite sure, what you mean. I used an image map shader for the road texture in between the city blocks. So actually the texture is on the planet's surface. Do you mean I should make the planet invisible and use a card instead?
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Oshyan on October 06, 2016, 04:16:43 PM
Yes. Matt is saying that the planet, being a displaceable object, renders with the micropolygon renderer, which needs much higher Detail settings to render textures well vs. the ray tracer that works on objects. If you use a Card for the ground it will render with the ray tracer and thus give you higher quality ground and perhaps even shorter render time.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Hannes on October 06, 2016, 05:35:22 PM
Cool! Thanks a lot!!
Although I tried to avoid starting over again, I'm glad about your suggestions, Matt. In the meantime I repositioned the cars and created a pedestrian. It was a bit tricky to get the timing right. He already had to be almost on the other side, because the car accelerates very soon. I could have changed the car's animation, but like this it was easier.

And I replaced the planet's surface (planet made invisible) by a card. The texture looks indeed a lot better. And I think it renders faster as you said.
I'll render out a sequence without the haze in 800 by 450 px to see if everything's OK.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Dune on October 07, 2016, 03:06:42 AM
I was just about to suggest the same about the ground, but you guys are ahead of time  ;)  If it's all objects, you can possibly lower detail setting even to zero? At least very low.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Hannes on October 07, 2016, 03:53:56 AM
Quote from: Dune on October 07, 2016, 03:06:42 AM
If it's all objects, you can possibly lower detail setting even to zero? At least very low.

??? Honestly? I'll try that!
Unfortunately TG refused to work after 59 frames in the night. This scene is really demanding...
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Hannes on October 07, 2016, 04:12:57 AM
Wow! That really works. It has to be greater than zero, because at 0 you only get some weird large shapes. I tried enabling the cloud layer to see, if that works too with that setting. It seems I have to turn on defer atmo/cloud. However, the rendertime per frame at 800 X 450 px with cloud layer enabled is now three minutes and a few seconds instead of five minutes!
Cool!!
C'mon, guys, give me some more tips, until there is no rendertime at all!! ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Oshyan on October 07, 2016, 04:56:25 AM
This is the magic of the new ray tracing optimizations in TG4. When you're dealing with pure objects, things are very fast! Even for clouds! If you don't already have "Receive shadows" enabled, turn it on. It won't hurt performance much in an object-only scene. :D

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Hannes on October 07, 2016, 05:04:34 AM
Quote from: Oshyan on October 07, 2016, 04:56:25 AM
If you don't already have "Receive shadows" enabled, turn it on. It won't hurt performance much in an object-only scene. :D

That's amazing. Yes, I had "receive..." on, but now for testing if the cars and the people are OK, I disabled the cloud layer. I'll render all 300 frames, and if everything looks good, I'll create another GI cache and start the HD render.
When my test animation is done, I'll post it as soon as possible.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Dune on October 07, 2016, 08:18:55 AM
Soon we'll get rid of the whole planet and all that micropoly stuff  :D
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Kadri on October 07, 2016, 02:05:15 PM
Quote from: Dune on October 07, 2016, 03:06:42 AM
...If it's all objects, you can possibly lower detail setting even to zero? At least very low.

That is interesting to know Ulco.
Wish TG4 came out 2 years ago.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Hannes on October 07, 2016, 05:34:33 PM
So, here is the result of the last rendering session: no GI caching, no haze, no HD.
In the meantime I tried to correct some things. As you can see in this movie here the newly created pedestrian walks across the street towards the building and then suddenly jumps three meters to the right and carries on walking. I tried to fix that for the next rendering. Not too easy in TG...
I then desperately tried to edit some of the instances of the walkers to eliminate the interpenetrating a bit (does that sound weird? ???). Not sure if that worked. I'll see.
During the last hour I created a GI cache file. So now I am going to render the whole thing in HD. Since this is really very RAM consuming my computer occasionally decides to stop working. So hopefully tomorrow morning I'll have at least some newly rendered images!!
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Kadri on October 07, 2016, 06:00:45 PM

Looks nice Hannes.
Not sure if it is the same related problem you mentioned;
there are some problems with other guys near the place where the fast walking guy is (they kinda pop up).
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Dune on October 08, 2016, 02:31:25 AM
I wouldn't really bother about certain issues. You really have to watch it several times and very attentive to see some interbumping. You can also say that everybody moves at the same speed, which may be weird. No lazy bastards or joggers around. Actually I don't know what happens if you edit pops in a series of objects. To me this looks great as is, though you might throw some people out that really misbehave.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Hannes on October 08, 2016, 06:05:44 AM
Thank you, guys.
I really like how the animated people look like here, but as you said, all have the same speed and they bump into other instances and into other obstacles. This is nearly impossible to avoid, since you can't really preview the animated objects without repopulating each frame, which is quite inconvenient to say the least.
And there are 51 populations with animated people! So, in this case I don't really care. It would be nice to have the walkers behave more natural, but it's just not possible at the moment. As far as I know!
Right now I'm rendering frame 63 of the HD animation. The quality is good, no flicker. It's going to take some more time, since, as I wrote, TG is refusing to work from time to time. It's not crashing, it's just because 16GB RAM isn't really enough for this...  :(
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Dune on October 08, 2016, 10:10:07 AM
You don't make it easy on yourself  ;)
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: j meyer on October 08, 2016, 11:31:24 AM
Cool animation. Especially the brake lights on the turning car and
at least one other taxi are great details.
Agree with Ulco about the pedestrians.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: DocCharly65 on October 08, 2016, 12:20:11 PM
Absolutely great animation, Hannes!

I think the little problems with the humans populations are only visible if you play the animation in an endless loop and watch detailed again and again.

Otherwise you see an amazing and realistic looking scene  - anyway I did. Thumbs up - great work!
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Hannes on October 08, 2016, 05:38:30 PM
Quote from: Dune on October 08, 2016, 10:10:07 AM
You don't make it easy on yourself  ;)

You may be right!! :-\

Quote from: j meyer on October 08, 2016, 11:31:24 AM
Cool animation. Especially the brake lights on the turning car and
at least one other taxi are great details.
Agree with Ulco about the pedestrians.

Thanks, Jochen. Yes, I love such little details.

Quote from: DocCharly65 on October 08, 2016, 12:20:11 PM
I think the little problems with the humans populations are only visible if you play the animation in an endless loop and watch detailed again and again.

Thanks, Nils,
unfortunately this is exactly the way I use to watch this kind of animations. Especially my own ones...

However, my system just gave me another error message after frame 109 ("not enough RAM, close some programs, why not TG 4?, your scene is too demanding, your computer is going to explode, you idiot...), so I'll reboot and carry on. As long as it takes. I think, I'm a hero.   ;)



Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Oshyan on October 08, 2016, 10:02:01 PM
Have you done everything you can to minimize memory use? Combine duplicate texture references, etc?

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: bobbystahr on October 09, 2016, 12:29:22 AM
Well I'm gob smacked. watched it with loop off first and it seemed cinematic to me...and I guess you've not been to NY NY..they do bump into each other a bit downtown....heh heh..thought it was intentional.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: luvsmuzik on October 09, 2016, 08:41:40 AM
I thought for sure the sunbathers would surely turn over to settle the debate. :P Or at least one fight. ;D

Typical,...if there are vehicles involved...get em moving! Very good animation. To do this without features available in other programs is astounding!
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: archonforest on October 09, 2016, 09:51:15 AM
Great stuff. Yes it looks like a movie!
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: bobbystahr on October 09, 2016, 11:17:16 AM
Quote from: Hannes on October 08, 2016, 05:38:30 PM
Quote from: Dune on October 08, 2016, 10:10:07 AM
. I think, I'm a hero.   ;)


Well you're one of mine!
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Hannes on October 10, 2016, 04:18:26 PM
OK guys, here is the final HD movie.
Oshyan, I already tried to combine some texture references, but there's a lot more I guess. And since I was already rendering, I decided not to change anything and eventually the frames were completed. Next time I'll be smarter!!

There's still a lot of people running into each other and every obstacle they're heading to, but I can live with that. For now.
Since there are not too many people trying to create some sort of crowd simulation or animation at all here in the forum, I guess there will be no collision detection with the appropriate behavior in the near future in TG.

Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: DocCharly65 on October 10, 2016, 04:40:34 PM
Hannes, on my Amazon fire it looks perfect!

With less dense populations you could perhaps avoid collisions but if you don't tell anybody, nobody will see the mistakes.and I won't tell anybody too ;)

...wow! I didn't know how much I hate writing on a tablet...  ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Kadri on October 10, 2016, 04:47:01 PM

People running into each other or not it looks great Hannes :)

51 population? Except for special cases 4 or a little more populations could be enough maybe?
1 population that you cloned 4 times and transform rotated, masked with a walk line image mask for all populations for example?
Curious which method you used?

As earlier said i doubt that anybody would see any problem in this especially with one watch at all.

Nice work. I saw "the looking man" on the roof too. Sweet :)
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: bobbystahr on October 10, 2016, 06:04:28 PM
WOW...I know I've said that before...here's another for the TG4 webpage eh Oshyan?
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Dune on October 11, 2016, 02:09:37 AM
Super! That many pops astounds me as well. And 'walk line', Kadri? I don't think that works in TG, I'm sure it doesn't really. That would be awesome of course, if you could draw a path for a pop to follow, with the instances turning where they should. Some way to influence the 0-360 rotation by function would be nice, though I wouldn't know how that could work. I have the same with a herd of reindeer; and that's just one still herd in an S-shaped line, I'd like them to rotate according to that line.
Well, I really love your finished project again, great work.

And the guy on that roof is abbout to do something he won't be able to regret  :'(
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Kadri on October 11, 2016, 02:20:25 AM
Quote from: Dune on October 11, 2016, 02:09:37 AM
... And 'walk line', Kadri? I don't think that works in TG, I'm sure it doesn't really...

Just think of an image mask with some straight black and white lines for one direction and the negative for the opposite walking ones Ulco.
Nothing fancy.The intersecting would be minimal in this way too.
Or you could use a "Shader array" node too as a mask for this maybe.
Some guys manually walking around the corners would be enough to give the illusion without the need for a population.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Dune on October 11, 2016, 04:01:20 AM
OK, I thought you meant some fancy masking. But still, what happens if a pop crosses the white line into black, do the instances disappear? I have no clue about setting up moving pops, mind you. I would think you can only use the pop size and Y angle to keep them in, not a mask.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Hannes on October 11, 2016, 04:58:38 AM
Thanks a lot again, guys.
I lied. It's only 50 pops. The 51st is the pedestrian crossing the street, and he's a single object. Now, there's 50 pops, because I created five areas where people are walking. Each area contains five pops with offset animation loops walking in one direction and five pops in the opposite one. Unfortunately I hadn't thought of Kadri's idea to create masks at least for the identical pops that march in the same direction. It probably would have saved some RAM-usage, I guess. Apart from that there are eight pops with standing (Xoio-) people. See attached image (it's a PS-mix of RTP and regular preview).
Creating masks to avoid colliding instances would have been possible, but like that all the pedestrians would walk more or less in rows, which would look a bit unnatural. And think of all the obstacles: there are street lamps, bins, trash and canopied busstops. Each thing would have to be taken into account.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: inkydigit on October 11, 2016, 08:05:05 AM
holy moly! 8) 8) 8) 8)
I had this on loop for ages... my coffee went cold...
this is awesome!
anti-collision would be amazing!
some more sunbathers would be enough to distract anyone from the ghost/bumpers!
I am dropping the camera and traveling around this in my imagination...
waiting for the climax point... what is going to happen next?
I dof my cap!
:)
Jason
 
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: bobbystahr on October 11, 2016, 11:15:17 AM
Quote from: inkydigit on October 11, 2016, 08:05:05 AM
holy moly! 8) 8) 8) 8)
I had this on loop for ages... my coffee went cold...
this is awesome!
anti-collision would be amazing!
some more sunbathers would be enough to distract anyone from the ghost/bumpers!
I am dropping the camera and traveling around this in my imagination...
waiting for the climax point... what is going to happen next?
I dof my cap!
:)
Jason
 

Well said Jason, well said. Did the same on loop....mesmerizing it is.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: j meyer on October 11, 2016, 12:19:34 PM
Really well done man! 8) :)
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Oshyan on October 11, 2016, 02:02:22 PM
This is why there is dedicated crowd simulation software... ;)

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: luvsmuzik on October 11, 2016, 02:38:47 PM
Knows that someone soon will have a herd of caribou diving into a raging river, wrestle with a croc (or that other thing he made), and emerge safely on the opposite bank, all done with a mask of course. I bet Nico can figure this out Dune.

This is great, Hannes!
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Hannes on October 11, 2016, 03:50:59 PM
Thanks mates, this is very encouraging!!!!!
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Kadri on October 11, 2016, 03:52:59 PM
Quote from: Hannes on October 11, 2016, 04:58:38 AM
...
Creating masks to avoid colliding instances would have been possible, but like that all the pedestrians would walk more or less in rows, which would look a bit unnatural. And think of all the obstacles: there are street lamps, bins, trash and canopied busstops. Each thing would have to be taken into account.

Yes it gets complicated after a while Hannes.
I think you could probably used a half or less populations maybe at most.
It would still be hard.

Ulco i said "mask" but think about the density shader in the population.
The end result is the same whatever method or name we use.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: inkydigit on October 11, 2016, 06:29:26 PM
Quote from: Oshyan on October 11, 2016, 02:02:22 PM
This is why there is dedicated crowd simulation software... ;)

- Oshyan
Just spotted this, looks interesting for free...
http://www.cgchannel.com/2016/09/crowdmaster-is-a-free-crowd-simulation-tool-for-blender/
:)
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Kadri on October 11, 2016, 06:44:40 PM
Quote from: inkydigit on October 11, 2016, 06:29:26 PM
Quote from: Oshyan on October 11, 2016, 02:02:22 PM
This is why there is dedicated crowd simulation software... ;)

- Oshyan
Just spotted this, looks interesting for free...
http://www.cgchannel.com/2016/09/crowdmaster-is-a-free-crowd-simulation-tool-for-blender/
:)

Looks like my "yearly Blender install and uninstall time" is coming.
Hopefully without another uninstall part this time. Thanks for the link :)
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Oshyan on October 11, 2016, 10:42:01 PM
Looks promising. Anyone know if Blender 2.8 is still planned to be a massive UI overhaul?

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: bobbystahr on October 11, 2016, 10:48:42 PM
Quote from: Oshyan on October 11, 2016, 10:42:01 PM
Looks promising. Anyone know if Blender 2.8 is still planned to be a massive UI overhaul?

- Oshyan

That'd be pleasant as long as they don't go all brycean...loved that program hated the UI
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: DannyG on October 14, 2016, 12:57:31 PM
I'm late on this one, plenty of eye candy in this
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Dune on October 15, 2016, 02:24:16 AM
Be sure to take a look at the streets as well  ;)
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: zaxxon on November 15, 2016, 10:36:22 AM
A stunning feat to pull this off in TG! Beautiful and crazy at the same time. Though I am curious, as a user of 3DSMax as well, did you try any of this in Max? There you have collision detection and any number of fast-preview and render options. Once again - Amazing!
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Hannes on November 15, 2016, 11:07:47 AM
Quote from: zaxxon on November 15, 2016, 10:36:22 AM
A stunning feat to pull this off in TG! Beautiful and crazy at the same time. Though I am curious, as a user of 3DSMax as well, did you try any of this in Max? There you have collision detection and any number of fast-preview and render options. Once again - Amazing!

Thanks!!! I know this could have been done in Max, but I thought it might be a challenge to do something like this in TG.
In Max I have a fast preview as you said, but as far as I can tell, TG handles vast amounts of objects and textures better. I once created a very complicated model in Max and was barely able to change anything without a crash. After I managed to export this model and to import it into TG I could easily handle it. It was even possible to create populations with this model.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: bobbystahr on November 15, 2016, 11:37:14 AM
Quote from: Hannes on November 15, 2016, 11:07:47 AM
Quote from: zaxxon on November 15, 2016, 10:36:22 AM
A stunning feat to pull this off in TG! Beautiful and crazy at the same time. Though I am curious, as a user of 3DSMax as well, did you try any of this in Max? There you have collision detection and any number of fast-preview and render options. Once again - Amazing!

Thanks!!! I know this could have been done in Max, but I thought it might be a challenge to do something like this in TG.
In Max I have a fast preview as you said, but as far as I can tell, TG handles vast amounts of objects and textures better. I once created a very complicated model in Max and was barely able to change anything without a crash. After I managed to export this model and to import it into TG I could easily handle it. It was even possible to create populations with this model.

well that settles that...I'll stop dreaming about max right now...Happy TG out performs it on model handling....3 cheers and a tiger for TG
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Ariel DK on December 01, 2016, 11:57:31 PM
Quote from: inkydigit on October 11, 2016, 08:05:05 AM
some more sunbathers would be enough to distract anyone from the ghost/bumpers!
I Follow both topic of Hannes in silence, but this... You are diabolic Inky  ;)

@Hannes Your work like always is inspiring, I almost lost this thread... keep going
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Hannes on December 02, 2016, 09:26:01 AM
 ;D ;D ;D
Thanks a lot!!!
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: dorianvan on December 03, 2016, 11:53:56 AM
Quote from: Oshyan on October 08, 2016, 10:02:01 PM
Combine duplicate texture references

- Oshyan

What is meant by this? Something you do in Max before importing?
Also, did you create a ground "card" of the streets only? Then you just laid it down in place?
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: bobbystahr on December 03, 2016, 12:04:37 PM
Quote from: dorianvan on December 03, 2016, 11:53:56 AM
Quote from: Oshyan on October 08, 2016, 10:02:01 PM
Combine duplicate texture references

- Oshyan

What is meant by this? Something you do in Max before importing?
Also, did you create a ground "card" of the streets only? Then you just laid it down in place?

He's referring to a PoseRay trick where you find all the objects that use a particular texture, apply to the first one and Copy it. Then select all the rest of the items and, Apply to all selected items...saves a lot of time.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Oshyan on December 03, 2016, 02:28:03 PM
Yes, you can also do this in TG by creating (or using a pre-existing) single Image Map Shader, and then just referencing that one shader for any single objects or object parts that use it. So as an example let's say you have a huge single-object city model with 100 buildings, each of which uses a fairly generic "concrete" texture, but all are UV'd separately so you can retexture each model on its own if desired. You would probably have 100 references to a single texture. In many cases that would load into Terragen by default with 100 copies of the image! Which wastes a lot of memory. If you can spend the time to go through and re-reference each Part Shader's Default Shader to look at a single Image Map Shader for the color image info, that will save lots of memory. Granted that is a fairly extreme scenario I described, but I do know that some Poser models and other publicly available models do have some duplicate texture issues that can be solved in a similar way.

I should also say that this does point to something of a deficiency in how TG handles texture loading currently. In theory we should be able to detect duplicate references and only load one copy of the texture and handle that transparently instead of requiring all that rewiring of the node network by hand. But that would be something we'd have to implement in the future...

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: bobbystahr on December 03, 2016, 02:35:39 PM
Quote from: Oshyan on December 03, 2016, 02:28:03 PM


I should also say that this does point to something of a deficiency in how TG handles texture loading currently. In theory we should be able to detect duplicate references and only load one copy of the texture and handle that transparently instead of requiring all that rewiring of the node network by hand. But that would be something we'd have to implement in the future...

- Oshyan


That would be a major improvement for sure.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: dorianvan on December 03, 2016, 06:21:45 PM
Well, you can certainly use the same material for many objects that you create in Max before importing to TG. I think that's about what you're talking about.
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Dune on December 04, 2016, 02:32:51 AM
QuoteGranted that is a fairly extreme scenario I described
I did that with one of my city renders a few years back. Indeed probably a hundred objects or so that needed to be opened and all the default shaders being 'replaced' by a link to previously loaded generic textures. Would be great to have an automatic scan of previously loaded image files and links as soon as a new one is being loaded. You shouldn't however delete the initial object then, or you can start allover!!! Warning in place!
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: KyL on December 04, 2016, 10:20:24 AM
depending on the way you name things, you can always edit the .tgd in a text editor and replace all the duplicated shader with one instance using the default search & replace.

As shaders inside an object can have the same name, you can for example do search for "/duplicatedShader" (that would be inside an object) and replace it with "/shaders/masterShader" (that would be at a scene level)

But it all depends on the naming freedom you have within the application you export from!
Title: Re: Urban scene animated WIP
Post by: Dune on December 05, 2016, 02:08:20 AM
You're right. I'm always very reluctant to rework a tgd in a text editor, as I like to see what I do, but if done careful should indeed work fine.