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From: Thomas de Groot
Subject: Stranger Moon
Date: 13 Mar 2017 05:00:14
Message: <58c65f9e@news.povray.org>
A scene I have been working on for some time, with different 
interruptions. This is a first final version; possibly, some changes 
will take place.

The background star field and the landscape are based on Apophysis 
images http://apophysis.org/, the first as an .exr file, the second as 
basis for the height_field. The scene is a subtle play with different 
light_groups.

The vegetation was modelled with Dryad, a little free application from 
stanford.edu 
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/dryad-010908.html that seems 
to have disappeared from the net.

-- 
Thomas


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From: Mr
Subject: Re: Stranger Moon
Date: 13 Mar 2017 06:15:01
Message: <web.58c670a1bc728e716086ed00@news.povray.org>
Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
> A scene I have been working on for some time, with different
> interruptions. This is a first final version; possibly, some changes
> will take place.
>
> The background star field and the landscape are based on Apophysis
> images http://apophysis.org/, the first as an .exr file, the second as
> basis for the height_field. The scene is a subtle play with different
> light_groups.
>
> The vegetation was modelled with Dryad, a little free application from
> stanford.edu
> http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/dryad-010908.html that seems
> to have disappeared from the net.
>
> --
> Thomas

Hello, I feel compelled to criticize to be constructive and always look for
improvement, but I Love the picture, geometric and tonal composition... now to
the nitpicking:
The image works much better in small preview than at a bigger scale. This
reveals a good potential, and lack of some details:
* The tree trunks are too straight
* The trees have not enough color variations (how many different tree models?
maybe changing some of them for a new one with slightly different color would
solve this)
* Though this may be realistic, the water appears too dark , that is probably
because the view angle is too high, with Fresnel not allowing the sky color to
get reflected enough, lowering it might also let us see some of the surface
waves to add some nice detail that probably are already there.
Be careful not to loose that type of background rock you have, it's beautiful
and makes much of the point of the picture.

* isn't scale of the clouds too small? making them bigger would create larger
holes where the "moon" could be let visible and still get some occlusion from
the clouds, because as it is, the moon looks closer than the clouds.
*beaches are too vertical, ideally a small fringe of the terrain with lower
slope would make them less linear, but I guess it must be difficult depending on
how procedurally the height field was generated... If not possible then I would
try to make the sandy yellow line much thinner to make up for that.

Great work and a hard subject to depict !


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From: Thomas de Groot
Subject: Re: Stranger Moon
Date: 13 Mar 2017 08:29:10
Message: <58c69096$1@news.povray.org>
On 13-3-2017 11:12, Mr wrote:
> Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
>> A scene I have been working on for some time, with different
>> interruptions. This is a first final version; possibly, some changes
>> will take place.
>>
>> The background star field and the landscape are based on Apophysis
>> images http://apophysis.org/, the first as an .exr file, the second as
>> basis for the height_field. The scene is a subtle play with different
>> light_groups.
>>
>> The vegetation was modelled with Dryad, a little free application from
>> stanford.edu
>> http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/dryad-010908.html that seems
>> to have disappeared from the net.
>>
>> --
>> Thomas
>
> Hello, I feel compelled to criticize to be constructive and always look for
> improvement, but I Love the picture, geometric and tonal composition... now to
> the nitpicking:

I am always happy when people nitpick. I like to do it myself too with 
others and believe it is to everybody's good :-)

> The image works much better in small preview than at a bigger scale. This
> reveals a good potential, and lack of some details:
> * The tree trunks are too straight
> * The trees have not enough color variations (how many different tree models?
> maybe changing some of them for a new one with slightly different color would
> solve this)

Absolutely true on both points. Those are some of the planned 
improvements. Dryad needs a bit of massaging to give better results and 
I only used two models here, which of course is way too few.

> * Though this may be realistic, the water appears too dark , that is probably
> because the view angle is too high, with Fresnel not allowing the sky color to
> get reflected enough, lowering it might also let us see some of the surface
> waves to add some nice detail that probably are already there.
> Be careful not to loose that type of background rock you have, it's beautiful
> and makes much of the point of the picture.

There is matter for some thoughts here. The water is a media with 
absorption and scattering densities. The surface itself has too little 
reflection indeed and could be improved.

>
> * isn't scale of the clouds too small? making them bigger would create larger
> holes where the "moon" could be let visible and still get some occlusion from
> the clouds, because as it is, the moon looks closer than the clouds.
> *beaches are too vertical, ideally a small fringe of the terrain with lower
> slope would make them less linear, but I guess it must be difficult depending on
> how procedurally the height field was generated... If not possible then I would
> try to make the sandy yellow line much thinner to make up for that.

I was expecting this! ;-) The point is that those as /not/ clouds but a 
starscape, maybe somewhere closer to the galaxy's hub. Star clusters and 
groupings are supposed to represent this aspect. Of course, the 
image_map used of an Apophysis flame is not really star-like nor 
realistic but I liked this nonetheless for an alien sky, and why go all 
the realistic way after all?

As far as clouds are concerned, there is a scattering media present 
which expresses the heat of this planet but no clouds are formed at this 
hour of the day.

>
> Great work and a hard subject to depict !
>

Thanks!

-- 
Thomas


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From: Bald Eagle
Subject: Re: Stranger Moon
Date: 13 Mar 2017 10:25:01
Message: <web.58c6aadcbc728e7c437ac910@news.povray.org>
Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:

> >> The vegetation was modelled with Dryad, a little free application from
> >> stanford.edu
> >> http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/dryad-010908.html that seems
> >> to have disappeared from the net.

If it's at all possible, that would be a great application to share with folks,
since vegetation is whole area of its own, that can be a HUGE time sink.  Since
it was being given away for free at the time , I don't know if you need any
other permission from the author to share the version you have.


> I am always happy when people nitpick. I like to do it myself too with
> others and believe it is to everybody's good :-)

Indeed.   Constructive nitpicking, like "This here has a problem, which can be
fixed if you do X, Y, or Z...." helps people learn to look at their scenes with
a more discerning and critical eye, and most importantly, LEARN how to avoid and
fix those problems.  This makes for a stronger raytracing community.  :)

> > * The tree trunks are too straight
Maybe.  They're alien trees.  I'd perhaps say "they're all too uniform /
similar."

> > * The trees have not enough color variations (how many different tree models?
> > maybe changing some of them for a new one with slightly different color would
> > solve this)

Coding good looking variation is definitely a tremendous skill.


Once again Thomas - great landscape, and a very nice atmosphere.   I always
enjoy looking at your scenes, and have something to learn, and a level of
accomplishment to strive for in my own work.  I really like the higher-contrast,
crisper, clearer foreground to the right which really adds a sense of depth to
the scene.   Perhaps having some of that on the left might help the scene "pop"
more...


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From: Stephen
Subject: Re: Stranger Moon
Date: 13 Mar 2017 11:23:45
Message: <58c6b981$1@news.povray.org>
On 3/13/2017 2:21 PM, Bald Eagle wrote:
> Thomas de Groot<tho### [at] degrootorg>  wrote:
>
>>>> > >>The vegetation was modelled with Dryad, a little free application from
>>>> > >>stanford.edu
>>>> > >>http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/dryad-010908.html  that seems
>>>> > >>to have disappeared from the net.
> If it's at all possible, that would be a great application to share with folks,
> since vegetation is whole area of its own, that can be a HUGE time sink.  Since
> it was being given away for free at the time , I don't know if you need any
> other permission from the author to share the version you have.
>
>

But if you use the Wayback machine it can be found here.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090123034022/http://dryad.stanford.edu/download.php?os=windows

There is a Mac version available.

License

Dryad is free for you to use for any purpose, including commercial 
applications. However, Dryad is provided entirely "as is" and without 
warranties of any kind. Please note that, for our research, we collect 
some anonymous usage statistics about Dryad.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen


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From: Bald Eagle
Subject: Re: Stranger Moon
Date: 13 Mar 2017 12:15:00
Message: <web.58c6c462bc728e7c437ac910@news.povray.org>
Stephen <mca### [at] aolcom> wrote:

> But if you use the Wayback machine it can be found here.
>
https://web.archive.org/web/20090123034022/http://dryad.stanford.edu/download.php?os=windows
>
> There is a Mac version available.

Thanks Stephen!  :)

And...  "Click on the dice button to get a new tree that is like your current
one but slightly different."
Super useful.


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From: Stephen
Subject: Re: Stranger Moon
Date: 13 Mar 2017 12:31:42
Message: <58c6c96e$1@news.povray.org>
On 3/13/2017 4:10 PM, Bald Eagle wrote:
> Stephen <mca### [at] aolcom> wrote:
>
>> But if you use the Wayback machine it can be found here.
>>
https://web.archive.org/web/20090123034022/http://dryad.stanford.edu/download.php?os=windows
>>
>> There is a Mac version available.
>
> Thanks Stephen!  :)
>
> And...  "Click on the dice button to get a new tree that is like your current
> one but slightly different."
> Super useful.
>
>
>
Selecting a tree and moving the mouse over the RH window is super dooper. :)


-- 

Regards
     Stephen


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From: jhu
Subject: Re: Stranger Moon
Date: 14 Mar 2017 01:00:00
Message: <web.58c7780cbc728e7194284cc0@news.povray.org>
Image colors look a little washed out and could use some saturation.


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From: Thomas de Groot
Subject: Re: Stranger Moon
Date: 14 Mar 2017 03:47:50
Message: <58c7a026$1@news.povray.org>
On 14-3-2017 5:56, jhu wrote:
> Image colors look a little washed out and could use some saturation.
>

That is the atmospheric media.

-- 
Thomas


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From: Thomas de Groot
Subject: Re: Stranger Moon
Date: 14 Mar 2017 03:59:31
Message: <58c7a2e3$1@news.povray.org>
On 13-3-2017 15:21, Bald Eagle wrote:
> Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
>
>>>> The vegetation was modelled with Dryad, a little free application from
>>>> stanford.edu
>>>> http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/dryad-010908.html that seems
>>>> to have disappeared from the net.
>
> If it's at all possible, that would be a great application to share with folks,
> since vegetation is whole area of its own, that can be a HUGE time sink.  Since
> it was being given away for free at the time , I don't know if you need any
> other permission from the author to share the version you have.
>

I had not thought about the Wayback Machine. Fortunately, I have Stephen 
to take care of those details ;-)

>
>> I am always happy when people nitpick. I like to do it myself too with
>> others and believe it is to everybody's good :-)
>
> Indeed.   Constructive nitpicking, like "This here has a problem, which can be
> fixed if you do X, Y, or Z...." helps people learn to look at their scenes with
> a more discerning and critical eye, and most importantly, LEARN how to avoid and
> fix those problems.  This makes for a stronger raytracing community.  :)

I totally agree. I guess that about 70% of my POV-Ray skills come from 
the examples and help from others. And my learning curve is still quite 
steep.

>
>>> * The tree trunks are too straight
> Maybe.  They're alien trees.  I'd perhaps say "they're all too uniform /
> similar."

Probably, those trees will remain straight, but there needs to be much 
more variation in tree/bush types.

>
>>> * The trees have not enough color variations (how many different tree models?
>>> maybe changing some of them for a new one with slightly different color would
>>> solve this)
>
> Coding good looking variation is definitely a tremendous skill.

I have been lazy (like so often) and postponed that work to phase 2. ;-)

>
>
> Once again Thomas - great landscape, and a very nice atmosphere.   I always
> enjoy looking at your scenes, and have something to learn, and a level of
> accomplishment to strive for in my own work.  I really like the higher-contrast,
> crisper, clearer foreground to the right which really adds a sense of depth to
> the scene.   Perhaps having some of that on the left might help the scene "pop"
> more...
>

Thank you very much indeed. :-)

The media at the left of the scene is a bit thicker than on the right. 
Partly because the shore is a tiny bit farther away but mostly because 
of the turbulence of the media, like mist shrouds thinning out or 
thickening locally. It was important to me that at least some part of 
the scene were crisper.

-- 
Thomas


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