On 17-12-2013 20:08, David Given wrote:
> The brown dog on the brown road with the brown shadow of the tree on it
> is a little unfortunate; it might be worth moving it into the sunlight
> so it's more obvious... (The tree is also brown.)

The dog is a kind of place holder for now, the foreground will be 
developed more in due time.

>
> How are you doing the clouds? That's what I'm struggling with at the
> moment, and yours look good.
>


The clouds are generated by the FastClouds macro by Zeger Knaepen. He 
has been promising us for years to release an update ;-) but the 
original version works quite well.

I think this is were it originally came from:
http://news.povray.org/povray.binaries.scene-files/message/%3C410eaffb%40news.povray.org%3E/#%3C410eaffb%40news.povray.org%3E

with the images
http://news.povray.org/povray.binaries.images/message/%3C410a892f%40news.povray.org%3E/#%3C410a892f%40news.povray.org%3E

Thomas

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Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
> On 17-12-2013 17:09, Stephen wrote:
> > Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
> >> I went back to the drawing board and took up TomTree more seriously with
> >> the Docs at hand. The result is here, in a fair weather view of the
> >> scene, and the stone pines as I intended them.
> >>
> >
> > Ah! so that is what the waves in the road were.
> > To me the original image looks as if the road is flooding.
>
> You are not wrong. When it rains, the tracks flood indeed with water
> puddles. :-)
>

The macro is forming waves in the high spots, though.
Would it be possible to run the macro with different settings dependent on the
slope of the ground?



> >
> > I think that if you wrote a tutorial, it would be much appreciated.
> > In your own time of course. :-)
> >
>
> Not a bad suggestion maybe. I guess there are many who do like me: just
> mess around without reading the available documentation properly ;-)
>

I just read enough to get these things to work.  :-)


> I think I could do some additional writing to the documentation written
> by Tom Aust, and some shell about it to link the tomtree macro more
> comprehensively to POV-Tree and in a more useful way.
>
> I'll have to see the boss about my own time... ;-)
>

Of course. ;-)

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On 18-12-2013 11:49, Stephen wrote:
> The macro is forming waves in the high spots, though.
> Would it be possible to run the macro with different settings dependent on the
> slope of the ground?

Sorry, there must be a misunderstanding here. There are no waves formed. 
The surface of the road with its tracks is a mesh; when the rain falls, 
a plane surface is added inside the tracks to simulate water puddles.

>>>
>>> I think that if you wrote a tutorial, it would be much appreciated.
>>> In your own time of course. :-)
>>>
>>
>> Not a bad suggestion maybe. I guess there are many who do like me: just
>> mess around without reading the available documentation properly ;-)
>>
>
> I just read enough to get these things to work.  :-)

Yes, I recognize that attitude ;-) but in the end some more serious 
study often becomes unavoidable.

I shall seriously think about a tutorial. There are a couple of things I 
still do not understand and some that do not really work as I would 
expect them to do, so there is still some work to do but in time I shall 
note everything down comprehensively (I hope).


Thomas

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Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
> I went back to the drawing board and took up TomTree more seriously with
> the Docs at hand. The result is here, in a fair weather view of the
> scene, and the stone pines as I intended them.
>
> My experience now shows that it is better to work first on a TomTree
> file, with a proof render to see how modelling progresses, and only
> after that read it into POV-Tree for a mesh export. Second, only use the
> mesh export for distant views and use the blob version for the foreground.
>
> Thomas

Nice and luminous landscape, remind me some 1800's painting (can't remember
who).
Goog work. With the same backgound image you can compose two different
ambiences, one dark and sad, the other sunny and happy.

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Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
> On 18-12-2013 11:49, Stephen wrote:
> > The macro is forming waves in the high spots, though.
> > Would it be possible to run the macro with different settings dependent on the
> > slope of the ground?
>
> Sorry, there must be a misunderstanding here. There are no waves formed.
> The surface of the road with its tracks is a mesh; when the rain falls,
> a plane surface is added inside the tracks to simulate water puddles.
>

In the wet image, it looks to me as if there are waves where the ruts in the
road are. Where the edge of the road is, a surge of water has formed, following
the mesh's surface.



> >
> > I just read enough to get these things to work.  :-)
>
> Yes, I recognize that attitude ;-) but in the end some more serious
> study often becomes unavoidable.
>

True, I just keep putting off the day.


> I shall seriously think about a tutorial. There are a couple of things I
> still do not understand and some that do not really work as I would
> expect them to do, so there is still some work to do but in time I shall
> note everything down comprehensively (I hope).
>

:-)

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On 18-12-2013 14:37, Stephen wrote:
> Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
>> On 18-12-2013 11:49, Stephen wrote:
>>> The macro is forming waves in the high spots, though.
>>> Would it be possible to run the macro with different settings dependent on the
>>> slope of the ground?
>>
>> Sorry, there must be a misunderstanding here. There are no waves formed.
>> The surface of the road with its tracks is a mesh; when the rain falls,
>> a plane surface is added inside the tracks to simulate water puddles.
>>
>
> In the wet image, it looks to me as if there are waves where the ruts in the
> road are. Where the edge of the road is, a surge of water has formed, following
> the mesh's surface.
>

Interesting. The power of illusion :-)

Thomas

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On 18-12-2013 14:13, Fractracer wrote:
> Nice and luminous landscape, remind me some 1800's painting (can't remember
> who).
> Goog work. With the same backgound image you can compose two different
> ambiences, one dark and sad, the other sunny and happy.
>

Yes, it is all a matter of switches. When it rains, extra water bodies 
are created and textures turn on their reflections.

Thomas

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Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:

> >
>
> Interesting. The power of illusion :-)
>

Indeed!

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Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
> I went back to the drawing board and took up TomTree more seriously with
> the Docs at hand. The result is here, in a fair weather view of the
> scene, and the stone pines as I intended them.
>
> My experience now shows that it is better to work first on a TomTree
> file, with a proof render to see how modelling progresses, and only
> after that read it into POV-Tree for a mesh export. Second, only use the
> mesh export for distant views and use the blob version for the foreground.
>
> Thomas

I'm amazed at how complex Gancaloon has become, this is great! With it's
fantastic backstory you could produce your own high quality graphic novel based
in this place...

After seeing these trees I just downloaded tomtree so I can give it a try
myself, thanks for that.

-------------------------------------------------
www.McGregorFineArt.com

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On 24-12-2013 15:43, Robert McGregor wrote:
> I'm amazed at how complex Gancaloon has become, this is great! With it's
> fantastic backstory you could produce your own high quality graphic novel based
> in this place...
>
> After seeing these trees I just downloaded tomtree so I can give it a try
> myself, thanks for that.
>

Thanks indeed, Robert. Gancaloon is slowly taking body, yes, while the 
story behind it is partly in my head, partly noted down in sketchy bits 
of text, and a growing corpus of images of course.

Gently prompted by Stephen :-) I am working on an elaborate extension to 
the tomtree documentation. In due time it will appear here.

I have also been looking critically at the code. One of the things that 
does not work well as it should are the pseudo random rotations. I would 
like them improved but the code is extremely complex :-( and even if 
succeeding, there would be the matter of a new POV-Tree version to 
consider. Unfortunately Gena disappeared from the POV-Ray world...

Thomas

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