On 5-6-2013 19:53, Shay wrote:
> Nicely done. Techniques?

Thanks. Some explanation is indeed in order.

Height_fields:
The landscape is a GeoControl tga export, rendered as a function 
height_field. To fill the gaps towards the horizon (and extend the 
landscape) the height_field is mirrored and copied to right, back and left.
The foreground rock is a tiny part of another height_field that lies 
hidden behind the camera.

Landscape textures:
A greyish gradient y pigment (limestone and shale) and a reddish 
gradient y pigment (sandstone) are combined in a slope/altitude texture, 
together with a couple of bluish green pigments to simulate vegetation 
on the flatter (and lower) parts of the landscape. Not visible on this 
version of the image (see coming up one) is a gradient y slope_map 
normal added to the rocks, in order to simulate some additional rock 
layering (as suggested by Sam). The foreground rock uses Sean Day's rock 
texture with a green one for the base vegetation.

Vegetation:
200,000 trees are planted  on the landscape using a macro that I adapted 
from one by Kirk Andrews. It makes use of a virtual object (a flat 
boxlike object in this instance, rotated with one edge towards the 
camera) over the landscape. Random points ( VRand_In_Obj() ) in this 
object are traced down towards the landscape and written to file after a 
couple of tests, for instance the steepness of the slope, but also an 
additional visibility test, using the Visibility Test macro by Gilles 
Tran. The written location point are subsequently read for planting the 
instances of one (1) tree (POV-Tree) which harbours a macro giving a 
slight foliage texture variation for each tree.
The foreground trees are free ones made with Xfrog. The grass patches 
(4000) are planted using the same technique as the landscape trees. 
Eight different patches are randomly used. The patches came with Poser 
7, iirc. As suggested by Sam, I added a background diffuse to the grass 
(not in this image) but as the light comes from behind this is not going 
to be too visible.

Haze and mist:
A general haze is obtained by the combination of two ground fogs, one 
for near distance, the other for the far distance.
The ground mist is obtained by a media with boxed density_map using a 
granite pattern.

Clouds:
Thanks to Zeger Knaepen's FastCloud macro.

Sky and Sun:
I used sunpos.inc for the Sun's position and CIE.inc for the Sun's 
light. The sky_sphere makes use of the Sun's position too adapt the 
horizon's color.

Victorian gentleman:
This is a simple Poser figure for which I made a frock coat and a top 
hat in Silo 2. Gave him a cane too. Posed in Poser 8.
In order to find rapidly a correct position on the foreground rock, I 
made use of Norbert Kern's Position Finder macro.

Birds:
Poser crows were randomly posed within a virtual object (VRand_In_Obj 
once more) and translated to the correct position over the landscape.


I think I got everything.

Thomas

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