Just answered my own question. Set the refractive index to 100 and the dark spots go away. These are PE TA renders. Just to prove the point, here's a render with no dark spots and no refraction in the glass. It's just a WIP not a contest entry (not that it matters, just trying to make Pam's job easier)
I'm guessing your 'dark spots' problem is down to the render settings. If you re-apply the refraction to the glass and then in your render settings increase the Maximum Ray Depth to 8 and maybe turn Total Internal Reflection on and set it to 2 or 3, the dark spots will go away and you can have the glass refracting in a more natural way.
A very old Welsh folk song, which sounds beautiful when played on the Welsh harp.
Llwyn Onn means Ash Grove, and as I had bought some Ash trees I loaded up a few , and then added a meandering streamlet, as per the lyrics. Of course as I then had water I decided to also add a weeping willow from Xfrog, which probably caused the long render times I had when rendering this premium render with soft shadows.
However I did have one problem because it needed a focal point. I was going to add ducks or swans or something similar, but the changed my mind and added some eye candy instead, in the form of RM Jared from the store, posing as a melancholy poet skinny dipping and contemplating. I thought Trish would appreciate that more than ducks LOL
Very nice work folks... here are my three entries.
The first might not be quite what you're looking for, and I'll understand
if you don't want to take it lol. It's an abstract, but the only items in it are
a symmetrical lattice w/one of David's water materials and the surrounding
mirrored spheroid, so I thought it might fly. [Or float? :D]
Here is the final of my entries for the H2O challenge. Lots of fun and crashes for the last week and half doing this one. Rendered in Bryce. Animals in scene from DAZ and exported to Bryce. Minor touchup of some shoreline and where 2 terrains used as water did not match up as I would have liked done with PSP9.
Hope everyone had a great weekend. Best Wishes to all on the challenge - As usual, there are lots of great entries.
Guss: that's ok...Thank you
TLB Klaus: The last one is my choice ...I like the kitty and the metal person
Bruce: very nice water...I like the log also in there...That bird has something to eat.....LOL
yellow pen: I like your flying fish and all of the animals
@TLBKlaus - nice entries. The first looks like a cave. The mermaid scene looks nice. The person in the boat has quite a good stand considering how the boat rocks in these waves.
@ Everybody:
wow! I will just have to carpet bomb compliments to everyone posting! so many awesome renders!!
learning to animate water was and is very intense and i have a ways to go, and much more to try along these lines.
here is my last version of the water wall with the flow coming down the glass in horizontal-ish waves
@yellow Pen: Really like your latest scene. Water looks really nice.
@dana: Watched the video, but couldn't really tell something was falling. It might be good if you increased the reflection so a bit more light is seen on the water.
Just answered my own question. Set the refractive index to 100 and the dark spots go away. These are PE TA renders. Just to prove the point, here's a render with no dark spots and no refraction in the glass. It's just a WIP not a contest entry (not that it matters, just trying to make Pam's job easier)
I'm guessing your 'dark spots' problem is down to the render settings. If you re-apply the refraction to the glass and then in your render settings increase the Maximum Ray Depth to 8 and maybe turn Total Internal Reflection on and set it to 2 or 3, the dark spots will go away and you can have the glass refracting in a more natural way.
Hope this helps.
Thank you Savage64 - In the interests of learning, I tried your suggestion. In general, upping the max ray depth and TIR reduced the dark spots only slightly if the material is set to a high refractive index, but at the cost of increasing the render time significantly. I'm guessing that the multiple curved layers of glass combined with the strong lighting from the opposite side make these shadows hard to avoid if the material has a high refractive index. Perhaps this is realistic -- I don't have any crystal Klein vases around to experiment with.
The most natural looking result is still from setting the material refractive index at 100 or very close. For those materials, increasing the max ray depth and using TIR did effectively remove dark shadows in the glass. BTW, turning off the refraction in the render settings had a totally different effect than setting the material refractive index to 100 or very close (e.g., 102).
@yellow Pen - the water splash with the droplets look excellent.
@dana365 - the animation shows it better than the still. In nature, it is difficult to get a water curtain look invisible; and in 3D CG it is difficult to make it look visible. The ripples can be seen clearly on the floor in your render. Perhaps a light with specular output only, no shadow casting and only including the water sheet shining on it from a very narrow angle. I think you already have a light source on top of the wall. By the way, the purple flowers in the pots are a nice detail.
Sorry for the repeated postings of the same image, but I guess it is permissible in a WIP thread. Please make this rendering the final, and ignore the others of the same composition. There is no difference between the submissions except for the render and material settings. Thanks!
Guss and Horo:
Thanks for checking it out, those are some great tips to try, I will give them a go and show the results here in a day or two, thanks again!
Oops! I totally forgot to check this thread somehow. Time to get back and see the wonders everybody has made.
@yellow Pen. Great models making that building! And a very nice fountain in the garden too.
Your flying whatever (bird?) scene looks much better in full view. I just feel that the sizes of the animals and mountains (knolls?) are not in proportion. The water, however, is great and I like the splashing effect.
Your knight and his horse will be glad with that great tap!
@JStryder. You have really been active. I like your double water (fish in bowl in see) a lot. You might have actually put the bowl more IN the sea for an even more strange feeling.
Very nice vase (bottle) too. Actually, I like the one with the black and red (then 'wrong' refraction) very much. Just can't really see the water in the vase very well, but, who cares. Anybody understands a flower needs to have water.
But then you come with the last one and yes, I see the water! Great job.
@chohole: Irish water too: very green (due to the greenery around the pond, I understand). Would have liked a mermaid in the water, instead of this Greek god-type. But, that's just me!
@TLBKlaus. Waiting till the end and then coming with three at once! Great achievement. I appreciate the first one very much! Fits the theme, I would think and it is somewhat out of the ordinary, but beautiful. I'm not so sure about the last one. I really like the title and the robot girl, but the boat could have been more woodlike and the sea appears to be frozen to me. But then: ice is H2O, so we now actually have the same theme twice in a row!
@goshtac. In this case, the small view works better for me. I thought the tree trunk in the water was a giant shrimp!
@dana365. Not sure about your new watercurtain. It would have fooled me for a mirror.
Beautiful renders from everyone. Once again judging will be difficult.
Getting my second and third entries in before the closing time.
I had lots of fun with this one. Not a realistic whirlpool but a Bryce one, using only terrains. The materials are from the presets tweaked a bit. The ship is from Archive 3D. Since I would not decide which one to enter I’m entering both as my 2nd and 3rd.
This was not the render I wanted to enter into this contest, but I have run out of time for my more ambitious plans. I will likely come back to the other idea which was cool indeed.
Anyhow, what we have here is a shot of a volcanic island surrounded by water. The water surface is generated by terrains with standard with some clever noise filtering. Feedback is appreciated. Good luck to all.
Here's my entry - sorry it's a little late. The render took a lot longer then I thought.
The water is a volumetric cube around the scene with a water plane above it.
Sea-hab created in Groboto and detailed in Modo.
Great White shark by DAZ3D.
Fish by Toucan.
Kelp by Lisa's Botanicals. Poly reduced by 90% in Modo and instanced 150 times (with a little random rotation and sizing) in Bryce.
15 hours to render mostly due to volumetric "stacking" artifacts at lower volumetric quality levels.
Great job to all that entered and thanks for looking!
Rashad: beautiful job on the water so glad you made the deadline even if it was not the render you wanted...still very nice...Trish
Dan: sure would hate to be out there with that shark....LOL great render
This was not the render I wanted to enter into this contest, but I have run out of time for my more ambitious plans. I will likely come back to the other idea which was cool indeed.
Anyhow, what we have here is a shot of a volcanic island surrounded by water. The water surface is generated by terrains with standard with some clever noise filtering. Feedback is appreciated. Good luck to all.
This water is looking so nice! I like the archipelago too. It's a stunning render Rashad. Hope you'll won a price with it but for now I must say : good luck to everyone!
Thanks everyone, for taking part. This is now closed and I will put the judging thread together either later today or tomorrow and set my judging panel loose on it.
I am a bit backabehindwards this month, I seem to have lost 2 or 3 days somewhere, has any one found a couple of days laying around anywhere.
@Pam - you really have the knack for that sort of renders. Simply beautiful.
I have also a mouthful of water for my 3rd entry.
Title: Black Rock II
Products used: Bryce 7.1 Pro.
Great looking sea, Horo. The foam really ties it together. Trying to get a similar look on a Mordor terrain, having difficulty getting anything similar. Looked for a tutorial, couldn't find one. Do you know whether a tutorial or tip sheet exists, or is in the works?
Comments
I'm guessing your 'dark spots' problem is down to the render settings. If you re-apply the refraction to the glass and then in your render settings increase the Maximum Ray Depth to 8 and maybe turn Total Internal Reflection on and set it to 2 or 3, the dark spots will go away and you can have the glass refracting in a more natural way.
Hope this helps.
Llwyn Onn
A very old Welsh folk song, which sounds beautiful when played on the Welsh harp.
Llwyn Onn means Ash Grove, and as I had bought some Ash trees I loaded up a few , and then added a meandering streamlet, as per the lyrics. Of course as I then had water I decided to also add a weeping willow from Xfrog, which probably caused the long render times I had when rendering this premium render with soft shadows.
However I did have one problem because it needed a focal point. I was going to add ducks or swans or something similar, but the changed my mind and added some eye candy instead, in the form of RM Jared from the store, posing as a melancholy poet skinny dipping and contemplating. I thought Trish would appreciate that more than ducks LOL
Looking really nice - even with Jaret. ;-P
Pam: LOL... yes you are right on... that is a lot better than ducks....Trish p.s. nice render....sorry... was busy looking at the male
nice Picture Chohole..... :-)
here's my second entry. (Bryce crashed at the end every 5 Minutes... I need now something for my nerves, lol)
@Horo: Thanks for the information. I see now why the waves look as they do.
@yellow Pen: Really nice scenes you've posted.
@JStryder: Love the fish in a bowl in surrounding water. Really like the shape of the vase.
@Pam: Another very fine scene.
@yellow Pen - very nice. I like the animals and the plants. Best is the horse because it gives a cue about the size of the mountains. Well done.
Very nice work folks... here are my three entries.
The first might not be quite what you're looking for, and I'll understand
if you don't want to take it lol. It's an abstract, but the only items in it are
a symmetrical lattice w/one of David's water materials and the surrounding
mirrored spheroid, so I thought it might fly. [Or float? :D]
Hi Folks;
Title: "THE RIVER"
Here is the final of my entries for the H2O challenge. Lots of fun and crashes for the last week and half doing this one. Rendered in Bryce. Animals in scene from DAZ and exported to Bryce. Minor touchup of some shoreline and where 2 terrains used as water did not match up as I would have liked done with PSP9.
Hope everyone had a great weekend. Best Wishes to all on the challenge - As usual, there are lots of great entries.
Bruce
@Trish: I wonder how I missed your latest scene, but I did. Love the look, especially the water.
@TLBKlaus: Those three are really nice. I was thinking the first one looks like the inside of the stomach.
@Bruce: Lovely scene.
Guss: that's ok...Thank you
TLB Klaus: The last one is my choice ...I like the kitty and the metal person
Bruce: very nice water...I like the log also in there...That bird has something to eat.....LOL
yellow pen: I like your flying fish and all of the animals
@TLBKlaus - nice entries. The first looks like a cave. The mermaid scene looks nice. The person in the boat has quite a good stand considering how the boat rocks in these waves.
@Bruce - nice scene, that's quite a wild river.
beautiful Pictures all :-)
So I have my last entry here.
Thank you all for your nice comments.
@ Everybody:
wow! I will just have to carpet bomb compliments to everyone posting! so many awesome renders!!
learning to animate water was and is very intense and i have a ways to go, and much more to try along these lines.
here is my last version of the water wall with the flow coming down the glass in horizontal-ish waves
the video of the animation can be found here:
http://youtu.be/UM_tqfql5Iw
@yellow Pen: Really like your latest scene. Water looks really nice.
@dana: Watched the video, but couldn't really tell something was falling. It might be good if you increased the reflection so a bit more light is seen on the water.
I'm guessing your 'dark spots' problem is down to the render settings. If you re-apply the refraction to the glass and then in your render settings increase the Maximum Ray Depth to 8 and maybe turn Total Internal Reflection on and set it to 2 or 3, the dark spots will go away and you can have the glass refracting in a more natural way.
Hope this helps.
Thank you Savage64 - In the interests of learning, I tried your suggestion. In general, upping the max ray depth and TIR reduced the dark spots only slightly if the material is set to a high refractive index, but at the cost of increasing the render time significantly. I'm guessing that the multiple curved layers of glass combined with the strong lighting from the opposite side make these shadows hard to avoid if the material has a high refractive index. Perhaps this is realistic -- I don't have any crystal Klein vases around to experiment with.
The most natural looking result is still from setting the material refractive index at 100 or very close. For those materials, increasing the max ray depth and using TIR did effectively remove dark shadows in the glass. BTW, turning off the refraction in the render settings had a totally different effect than setting the material refractive index to 100 or very close (e.g., 102).
@yellow Pen - the water splash with the droplets look excellent.
@dana365 - the animation shows it better than the still. In nature, it is difficult to get a water curtain look invisible; and in 3D CG it is difficult to make it look visible. The ripples can be seen clearly on the floor in your render. Perhaps a light with specular output only, no shadow casting and only including the water sheet shining on it from a very narrow angle. I think you already have a light source on top of the wall. By the way, the purple flowers in the pots are a nice detail.
Sorry for the repeated postings of the same image, but I guess it is permissible in a WIP thread. Please make this rendering the final, and ignore the others of the same composition. There is no difference between the submissions except for the render and material settings. Thanks!
Guss and Horo:
Thanks for checking it out, those are some great tips to try, I will give them a go and show the results here in a day or two, thanks again!
Oops! I totally forgot to check this thread somehow. Time to get back and see the wonders everybody has made.
@yellow Pen. Great models making that building! And a very nice fountain in the garden too.
Your flying whatever (bird?) scene looks much better in full view. I just feel that the sizes of the animals and mountains (knolls?) are not in proportion. The water, however, is great and I like the splashing effect.
Your knight and his horse will be glad with that great tap!
@JStryder. You have really been active. I like your double water (fish in bowl in see) a lot. You might have actually put the bowl more IN the sea for an even more strange feeling.
Very nice vase (bottle) too. Actually, I like the one with the black and red (then 'wrong' refraction) very much. Just can't really see the water in the vase very well, but, who cares. Anybody understands a flower needs to have water.
But then you come with the last one and yes, I see the water! Great job.
@chohole: Irish water too: very green (due to the greenery around the pond, I understand). Would have liked a mermaid in the water, instead of this Greek god-type. But, that's just me!
@TLBKlaus. Waiting till the end and then coming with three at once! Great achievement. I appreciate the first one very much! Fits the theme, I would think and it is somewhat out of the ordinary, but beautiful. I'm not so sure about the last one. I really like the title and the robot girl, but the boat could have been more woodlike and the sea appears to be frozen to me. But then: ice is H2O, so we now actually have the same theme twice in a row!
@goshtac. In this case, the small view works better for me. I thought the tree trunk in the water was a giant shrimp!
@dana365. Not sure about your new watercurtain. It would have fooled me for a mirror.
Beautiful renders from everyone. Once again judging will be difficult.
Getting my second and third entries in before the closing time.
I had lots of fun with this one. Not a realistic whirlpool but a Bryce one, using only terrains. The materials are from the presets tweaked a bit. The ship is from Archive 3D. Since I would not decide which one to enter I’m entering both as my 2nd and 3rd.
The 2nd is –“A Terrible End” and
The 3rd “Down I go”
Best wishes to all.
mermaid: very fun renders....
I just wanted to wish everyone good luck....all the renders are very nice....Trish
This was not the render I wanted to enter into this contest, but I have run out of time for my more ambitious plans. I will likely come back to the other idea which was cool indeed.
Anyhow, what we have here is a shot of a volcanic island surrounded by water. The water surface is generated by terrains with standard with some clever noise filtering. Feedback is appreciated. Good luck to all.
Here's my entry - sorry it's a little late. The render took a lot longer then I thought.
The water is a volumetric cube around the scene with a water plane above it.
Sea-hab created in Groboto and detailed in Modo.
Great White shark by DAZ3D.
Fish by Toucan.
Kelp by Lisa's Botanicals. Poly reduced by 90% in Modo and instanced 150 times (with a little random rotation and sizing) in Bryce.
15 hours to render mostly due to volumetric "stacking" artifacts at lower volumetric quality levels.
Great job to all that entered and thanks for looking!
Rashad: beautiful job on the water so glad you made the deadline even if it was not the render you wanted...still very nice...Trish
Dan: sure would hate to be out there with that shark....LOL great render
This water is looking so nice! I like the archipelago too. It's a stunning render Rashad. Hope you'll won a price with it but for now I must say : good luck to everyone!
Thanks everyone, for taking part. This is now closed and I will put the judging thread together either later today or tomorrow and set my judging panel loose on it.
I am a bit backabehindwards this month, I seem to have lost 2 or 3 days somewhere, has any one found a couple of days laying around anywhere.
@mermaid010: nice idea and good execution. I like the second one best (probably because of the colours)
@rashad: Wow. wonderful water! great island too. It is clear you are a very good Brycer.
@dan whiteside: Very nice to has a real underwaterscene. Very interesting lights and dangerous shark!
Everyone has been very active and I've seen some great rendes. Glad I am not the judge!
I use a panel of judges and then tote up the scores. They are all volunteers, Community Volunteers.