Hi all,
What I am going to do now is to explain how to achieve this kind of render:
Want to make such an image yourself? Here is what you need! ()
Click here to view it Full Size
Chapter One - The terrain
First of all, you need a very simple terrain. So just click on «Terrain» then «Add Terrain» and now click on «Power Fractal». I don’t want something very complicated so… Just select «Perlin Billow» as Power Fractal flavour and change the noise stretch to 2 for x (first value).
I’ll leave it as it is for now ! Ok, you should see something like this:
Now, find a POV that fits your taste… I’ll choose something very conventional, but as I am a 16:9 lover, I chose 600x338 for the render size:
Done ? Good !
First of all go to your shaders and double click on the «Base Colour».
Click on «Colour Tab» and select a light brown colour for the «Apply High Colour», leave black for the «Apply Low Colour» (both colours must be ‘on’). That must be almost good looking… Now go to the Scale tab of the Base Colour shader and change the values :
«Feature Scale» : 0.1
«Smallest Scale» : 0.01
Play with your sun orientation right now and place the sun in your upper right corner.
Now that’s looking good!
That’s all for the terrain! I told you I wanted something simple!
What now? Stones !!! Lot’s of stones !!!
Chapter Two - The Fake Stones
Go to the shader tab and click on «Add Layer» then «Displacement Shader» and «Fake Stone Shader».
I want them to be big so put 10 for «Stone Scale» and 0.05 for «Stone density», then go to the «Shape» tab and enter these values :
«Stone Tallness» : 1
«Pancake Effect» : 2
Take a look…
Ooooh big rounded shape stones!
We have to give them some more realistic shapes though… so we are going to add a Power Fractal (Right Click in the node screen, «Create Shader», Displacement Shader», «Power Fractal shader V3») and plug it into the «Surface Shader» of the «Fake Stone Shader». Double click on the «Power Fractal Shader» and key in these values :
«Feature Scale» : 10
(same as our fake stones size)
«Lead-in Scale» : 100
«Smallest Scale» : 0.01
Go to the Colour tab and chose 2 colours that fit your taste (grey and black will be mine) and ensure that both checkboxes are on! As for the Noise Flavour, I’ve chosen «Perlin Billow» but you can chose whatever fractal flavour you want…
Take a look :
That looks ok…
Now, you’ll have to repeat exactly the same thing as above, but keep decreasing the «Fake Stone» scale… and increasing their density ;)
That should look like this :
As I want stones everywhere, We are not going to use a mask or anything… leave it as it is !
What now?! Atmosphere!
Chapter Three - The Atmosphere
This is the most important thing to give to your render a look that many other renders are lacking... To express something with your image and not show some technical abilities… As you saw on this tutorial so far, no need to be a functions lover or Einstein to do this kind of render!
Go to your Atmosphere node, and as I want a «Big Fat Atmo», put in these values :
«Haze Density» : 4
«Bluesky Density» : 2
That already looks better…
Now click on the «Height Control» tab and increase the «Haze exp Height» to 4000. Now go to «Tweaks» tab and increase the «Bluesky Density Value».
1.33 is a good start but I put 1.351 for this shot.
Take a look…
Aaaah That’s good!
Big Fat Atmosphere ;)
But, you still need some clouds!
Go to «Atmosphere» tab, «Add Cloud Layer», «Low Level: Cumulus 3D»
Set them to 3000 m, and change «Cloud Depth» to 3000 too.
Now, you must edit the «Density Fractal» of these clouds:
«Feature Scale» : 4000
«Lead-in Scale» : 12975
«Smallest Scale» : 0.35
Then :
Done? Ok take a look now:
Yes !!!
Chapter Four - Some Water and Details
What do we need now ? Some water of course and something to make the intersection between earth and water looking more real…
So… Click on the «Water» tab, «Add Water Object» then «Lake» and bring it to a desired altitude.
Decrease the «Roughness» to 0.01 and the «Wave Scale» to 7
That’s a good looking water.
Now, Click on the «Shader» tab, «Add Surface Layer».
- Click on «Altitude Constraints» tab and «limit the altitude» to 260 then «Max alt Fuzzy Zone» to 3.5.
- Click to «Slope Constraint» and «Limit the maximum Slope» to 60 («Fuzzy Zone» to 20).
Create another «Power Fractal V3» and change the «Feature Scale» to 0.1. Go to the «Colour» taband chose whatever colour that fit your taste (green for me)… plug this Power Fractal to the «colour function» of this «Surface Layer».
Go to your «Lighting» tab and increase the «sunlight strength» to 4.5 and select «Soft Shadow»
Take a look…
That’s it!
Doesn't it look real (well almost)? Now, you can add some vegetation (check Xfrog free samples for example)
And some postwork if you like it…
If you want to do some postwork, I suggest you to download Paint.net… It’s free and very easy to use…
Just look what you can do in 20 secondes with this free software…
I hope that this "making of"-tutorial helped you a little bit to understand that good looking images doesn’ t mean complicated nodes screen connections.
My 2 cents advice will be to
- «do what you want, the easiest way you can !»
- Don’t forget to rename the most needed nodes…
- You’ll save pretty much time not looking into each «Fake Stone» if you want to change only the sized 5 ones…
Thanks for reading this "making of" tutorial!
And keep on the good work!
I hope to see some results of this tutorial on the Planetside’s Forums ;)
Franck Doassans.
7th Circle
Website: http://www.7thcircle.fr/index.html