That's awesome!

Was the rendering time ok?
(Considering you said something about using cones.)

Should be neat flying past an animated field blowing in the wind like that.
:)

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Rendering time wasn't great 'cause I need high anti-alias settings and the 
scene takes a few seconds to parse, so it took about 7 hours for 200 frames. 
Not ideal but certainly useable.

The problem with flying past is that the area is relatively small, what 
looks like the crest of a hill is actually the limits of the grassy area 
I've created, so when I rigged up a version that would move that area with 
the camera (so we never get closer to the far edge as we fly through the 
field) you can really badly see ground popping in at that distance. To hide 
this effect I'd need many times more grass, which would make it render many 
times slower... sigh...

-- 
Tek
http://evilsuperbrain.com

"RusHHouR" <gee### [at] mailnu> wrote in message 
news:web.4534eae6ab8d2f9647d3ae5e0@news.povray.org...
> That's awesome!
>
> Was the rendering time ok?
> (Considering you said something about using cones.)
>
> Should be neat flying past an animated field blowing in the wind like 
> that.
> :)
>
>
>

Post a reply to this message

"Tek" <tek### [at] evilsuperbraincom> wrote:
> Rendering time wasn't great 'cause I need high anti-alias settings and the
> scene takes a few seconds to parse, so it took about 7 hours for 200 frames.
> Not ideal but certainly useable.
>
> The problem with flying past is that the area is relatively small, what
> looks like the crest of a hill is actually the limits of the grassy area
> I've created, so when I rigged up a version that would move that area with
> the camera (so we never get closer to the far edge as we fly through the
> field) you can really badly see ground popping in at that distance. To hide
> this effect I'd need many times more grass, which would make it render many
> times slower... sigh...
>
> --
> Tek
> http://evilsuperbrain.com

Ah, I see.. :/
How many grass cones/units are there then in this version?

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"RusHHouR" <gee### [at] mailnu> wrote in message 
news:web.453677b1ab8d2f9647d3ae5e0@news.povray.org...
> How many grass cones/units are there then in this version?

it's a 128x128 grid, so 16,384.

-- 
Tek
http://evilsuperbrain.com

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Tek nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 17/10/2006 11:56:
> Rendering time wasn't great 'cause I need high anti-alias settings and the 
> scene takes a few seconds to parse, so it took about 7 hours for 200 frames. 
> Not ideal but certainly useable.

> The problem with flying past is that the area is relatively small, what 
> looks like the crest of a hill is actually the limits of the grassy area 
> I've created, so when I rigged up a version that would move that area with 
> the camera (so we never get closer to the far edge as we fly through the 
> field) you can really badly see ground popping in at that distance. To hide 
> this effect I'd need many times more grass, which would make it render many 
> times slower... sigh...

Maybe you can hide that with some fog. Another avenue would be to make the 
ground much larger and use some faked grass outside the area actualy covered by 
your grass.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
Impressionism: From a distance, shit looks like a garden.

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I think fake grass would be the best option, otherwise I'd need fog so dense 
you could only see a distance of 128 blades of grass, which in real world 
terms would be maybe a couple of meters, now that's foggy! :)

-- 
Tek
http://evilsuperbrain.com

"Alain" <ele### [at] netscapenet> wrote in message 
news:4536cc6d$1@news.povray.org...
> Tek nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 17/10/2006 11:56:
>> Rendering time wasn't great 'cause I need high anti-alias settings and 
>> the scene takes a few seconds to parse, so it took about 7 hours for 200 
>> frames. Not ideal but certainly useable.
>
>> The problem with flying past is that the area is relatively small, what 
>> looks like the crest of a hill is actually the limits of the grassy area 
>> I've created, so when I rigged up a version that would move that area 
>> with the camera (so we never get closer to the far edge as we fly through 
>> the field) you can really badly see ground popping in at that distance. 
>> To hide this effect I'd need many times more grass, which would make it 
>> render many times slower... sigh...
>
> Maybe you can hide that with some fog. Another avenue would be to make the 
> ground much larger and use some faked grass outside the area actualy 
> covered by your grass.
>
> -- 
> Alain
> -------------------------------------------------
> Impressionism: From a distance, shit looks like a garden.

Post a reply to this message

What about spreading the grass out just a little with fake grass in between? 
Or thin it out towards the edges, fading to dirt/gravel/whatever was you 
leave the grassy area? Like a small grassy areas forgotten & idle in the 
middle of suburbia? Or those creek areas we all used to play in as kids ;)

"Tek" <tek### [at] evilsuperbraincom> wrote in message 
news:45375c50@news.povray.org...
>I think fake grass would be the best option, otherwise I'd need fog so 
>dense you could only see a distance of 128 blades of grass, which in real 
>world terms would be maybe a couple of meters, now that's foggy! :)
>
> -- 
> Tek
> http://evilsuperbrain.com
>
> "Alain" <ele### [at] netscapenet> wrote in message 
> news:4536cc6d$1@news.povray.org...
>> Tek nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 17/10/2006 11:56:
>>> Rendering time wasn't great 'cause I need high anti-alias settings and 
>>> the scene takes a few seconds to parse, so it took about 7 hours for 200 
>>> frames. Not ideal but certainly useable.
>>
>>> The problem with flying past is that the area is relatively small, what 
>>> looks like the crest of a hill is actually the limits of the grassy area 
>>> I've created, so when I rigged up a version that would move that area 
>>> with the camera (so we never get closer to the far edge as we fly 
>>> through the field) you can really badly see ground popping in at that 
>>> distance. To hide this effect I'd need many times more grass, which 
>>> would make it render many times slower... sigh...
>>
>> Maybe you can hide that with some fog. Another avenue would be to make 
>> the ground much larger and use some faked grass outside the area actualy 
>> covered by your grass.
>>
>> -- 
>> Alain
>> -------------------------------------------------
>> Impressionism: From a distance, shit looks like a garden.
>
>

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Well if I was creating a scene to look totally real I'd have started with 
something better than this, which would be capable of filling a scene 
without needing huge render times. The reason this isn't very efficient is 
it was created for the short code contest and then I animated it out of 
curiosity. Short code tends to require brute force solutions. So what I'm 
saying is that despite the speculation in this discussion I have no desire 
to find an efficient way to do this effect, because the basic effect is not 
intended to be any good in the first place!

Anyway, if I were to start from scratch I'd probably modify the turbulence 
function to repeat itself, then generate a square patch of grass blowing in 
the wind (as a mesh of triangular blades, for speed), then create multiple 
instances of this spread through the world since that takes almost no 
processing time. This also lets me use a trick I've done before of shading 
the blades so they have fuzzy edges, meaning anti-aliasing is less of an 
issue. Only problem is a tiled pattern can look a bit obvious, so I'd need 
to break it up with a few non-repeating features dumped in on top...

hmm... that's sounding quite tempting now...

-- 
Tek
http://evilsuperbrain.com

"Data Banks" <da_### [at] ihugcomau> wrote in message 
news:4537f4e8@news.povray.org...
> What about spreading the grass out just a little with fake grass in 
> between? Or thin it out towards the edges, fading to dirt/gravel/whatever 
> was you leave the grassy area? Like a small grassy areas forgotten & idle 
> in the middle of suburbia? Or those creek areas we all used to play in as 
> kids ;)
>
> "Tek" <tek### [at] evilsuperbraincom> wrote in message 
> news:45375c50@news.povray.org...
>>I think fake grass would be the best option, otherwise I'd need fog so 
>>dense you could only see a distance of 128 blades of grass, which in real 
>>world terms would be maybe a couple of meters, now that's foggy! :)
>>
>> -- 
>> Tek
>> http://evilsuperbrain.com
>>
>> "Alain" <ele### [at] netscapenet> wrote in message 
>> news:4536cc6d$1@news.povray.org...
>>> Tek nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 17/10/2006 11:56:
>>>> Rendering time wasn't great 'cause I need high anti-alias settings and 
>>>> the scene takes a few seconds to parse, so it took about 7 hours for 
>>>> 200 frames. Not ideal but certainly useable.
>>>
>>>> The problem with flying past is that the area is relatively small, what 
>>>> looks like the crest of a hill is actually the limits of the grassy 
>>>> area I've created, so when I rigged up a version that would move that 
>>>> area with the camera (so we never get closer to the far edge as we fly 
>>>> through the field) you can really badly see ground popping in at that 
>>>> distance. To hide this effect I'd need many times more grass, which 
>>>> would make it render many times slower... sigh...
>>>
>>> Maybe you can hide that with some fog. Another avenue would be to make 
>>> the ground much larger and use some faked grass outside the area actualy 
>>> covered by your grass.
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Alain
>>> -------------------------------------------------
>>> Impressionism: From a distance, shit looks like a garden.
>>
>>
>
>

Post a reply to this message

Tek nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 20/10/2006 08:47:
> Well if I was creating a scene to look totally real I'd have started with 
> something better than this, which would be capable of filling a scene 
> without needing huge render times. The reason this isn't very efficient is 
> it was created for the short code contest and then I animated it out of 
> curiosity. Short code tends to require brute force solutions. So what I'm 
> saying is that despite the speculation in this discussion I have no desire 
> to find an efficient way to do this effect, because the basic effect is not 
> intended to be any good in the first place!

> Anyway, if I were to start from scratch I'd probably modify the turbulence 
> function to repeat itself, then generate a square patch of grass blowing in 
> the wind (as a mesh of triangular blades, for speed), then create multiple 
> instances of this spread through the world since that takes almost no 
> processing time. This also lets me use a trick I've done before of shading 
> the blades so they have fuzzy edges, meaning anti-aliasing is less of an 
> issue. Only problem is a tiled pattern can look a bit obvious, so I'd need 
> to break it up with a few non-repeating features dumped in on top...

> hmm... that's sounding quite tempting now...

You can then use a few different tiles (2 to 4), randomly select, rotate and 
mirror them before you translate them to the final position.
Those tiles can have some fuzzy edges and the placement overlaps in those areas.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
Gravity is a Myth.  The Earth Sucks!

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Alain wrote:

> You can then use a few different tiles (2 to 4), randomly select, rotate 
> and mirror them before you translate them to the final position.
> Those tiles can have some fuzzy edges and the placement overlaps in 
> those areas.
> 

You have to be careful with the movement of the wind, though.

To look _really_ good, you'd apply the wind after the placement of the 
tiles, which would of course eliminate the usefulness of the tiles. 
Applying the wind _before_ placement means you can't rotate every which 
way...

It's a tough one.

...Chambers

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