Vista 2.0 questions
14 messages in this thread
VRLI,
I just got Vista 2.0 today and it is great!!! I've loved Vista ever since
it first came out, and I really like your upgrade policies. It is nice to
see that you are producing a version for the PC, not that I love the PC so
much, it's just good to let THEM see what they've been missing for a change
:).
I have to ask you if you can give me any details on how to produce an image
like that on the cover (and ad) of Vista 2.0? I'm really interested in
getting that texture that appears on the rock face. Could you please post a
step-by-step instruction on how to get that texture, if you don't mind? I
would really appreciate it :).
One more thing. when I upgraded to VP2.0, I sent in my original VistaPro
disks with a note to send them back to me. I want to sell VistaPro to a
friend and I need the original disk to do so. I called today and told this
to someone and she said she'd send me the disks, so this is just to confirm
that transaction.
Anyway, back to creating the world.
====> Tony <====
– via Whap!
Tony:
I assume that you mean the Devil's Tower picture on the back of the
box. John Hinkley (author of VistaPro) created that image, and I will
detail as close as I can his description of what he did.
First he set his Landscape Size to Huge, and loaded the Devil's Tower
DEM file. Then he fractalized the landscape and Enlarged the portion
containing Devil's Tower. He repeated this a second time so that he now had
the Huge landscape all filled. Then he continued to repeat this process
until the tower itself filled about a third of the landscape. Then he
rendered with Texture set to "H" and GShade on. I only have enough memory
on my system to do Large scapes, and I can get similar but not as detailed
results. I think that extra step allowed with the Huge scape gives the
really sharp shale-like quality to the rock.
Let me know if your disks don't arrive by Monday or so, and I'll track
it down. Have fun with VistaPro!
Clint <VRLI>
Clint,
Thanks for the info. Are you sure that you render this with GShade on? I
though if you did this, it would smooth out the details? When the landscape
was fractalized, what were the fractal settings and were these same
settings used for the multiple fractalizing? Anyway, VP2.0 is finding
itself operating everytime I turn on my machine. I cannot get enough of
this program.
====> Tony <====
– via Whap!
Antonio:
You'd be amazed at what Gouraud Shading does when combined with
Texture. You get alot of detail while the polygon boundries disappear. I
think that John chose "Duplicate" rather than "Interpolate" when using the
Enlarge function. That would give the large 'fractures' in the rock face.
Clint <VRLI>
CLint
Okay, I'll give it a try. Funny, I find myself watching the rendering of a
VP2.0 scene and really liking it. Put some headphones on and listen to some
John Serrie or Patrick O'Hearn music and watch my landscape generate.
Ahhh…. most relaxing. Thank you for some relaxing software. Most
satisfying 🙂
====> Tony <====
– via Whap!
How did you watch VistaPro 2.0 render? All I see if the numbers roll by.
-mark=
– whappity whap whap… whap whap!!
Mark:
The Firecracker version writes directly into the Firecracker's memory
giving you a 'view as you render' display. Normally the rendering is done
to a 24 bit buffer and translated into screen format after the entire image
has been rendered.
Clint <VRLI>
Antonio:
I've been playing with Devil's Tower this weekend. The closest I can
get using only Large landscapes is to initialize a Large topo space, load
Devil's Tower, set Rough to about 250, Enlarge (Interpolate, not as I had
said earlier), Fractalize at '1', Enlarge, Enlarge, Enlarge, reset the
Rough to 200, position the camera east of the tower pointing west at about
4000 meters (the tower should be about 5500 meters tall now) and the target
on the tower at 4000 meters. Turn OFF GShade (on it gives more of a granite
look) Set your color map to a shade of dark grey for all of the Cliff
colors, medium grey for the Bare colors, and light grey for the Snow
colors. Each set of 4 colors should be set the same. Set the light to about
60 degrees coming from the southwest. Shadow and Exager ON. Zoom set to
about 48. I think if I had room for a Huge landscape I could have
duplicated his results, but this comes close. Oh yes, lighten Exposure to
about 2/3rds of the way up the scale.
Clint <VRLI>
Greetings!
Boy do I love my VistaPro 2.0… but I have a question…
How do I create roads and houses? Also, how do you create those nifty
multicolored sunset type skies?
-mark=
– whappity whap whap… whap whap!!
Mark:
For roads and houses, select a landscape, do a Col->IFF (it will run
through the color cycle), take that IFF image into a non-ham paint program,
and using colors 28-31 (last 4 on the palette) place dots where you would
like buildings to be. Using color 7 (8th color in the palette) draw roads
where you would like them to be. Save this from the paint program, reload
VistaPro, with the same landscape file, and then do a IFF->Col. Select CMap
and turn the Beach color Black. Now when you render you will see buildings
appear wherever you placed colored dots and roads wherever you used the
beach color. This can also be done to place individual trees.
The sunsets are created by setting the SkyHaze color to red or orange,
and selecting a Haze value of about 100. If you are Zooming into the
landscape, you will want to turn the haze value down or you will end up
with a red sky. Also turning the sky color to a darker blue helps.
Clint <VRLI>
Suppose I would like to include one particular building in a scene. I have
a vision of an anim flying through a valley coming upon a cabin in the
woods with smoke curling out of the chimmney.
I suppose some sort of switch to a 3D object program for the last few
frames would do the trick. Is it possible to export the Vista view at some
point as a 3d object? How would you accomplish this? Thanks. — Art
Art:
There are two ways to approach that. First would be to save the
landscape or a portion of it as a Turbo Silver object and use TS or Imagine
to render the last few frames, or you could turn off the building (reload
the landscape) and keep rendering in VistaPro and load the last few frames
into Imagine as background images. The latter would probably give the best
results.
Clint <VRLI>
Clint-
A funny thing happened to me today. Yesterday I ordered the VP2.0
upgrade, MakePath, TerraForm, and and the upgrade to DS4.0. I was delighted
to find a package from VRLI when I got home from work. (amazing response
time)When I opened it up, much to my puzzlement, it contained the Jackson
Lake and Jackson Hole landscape disks. Is this a mistake or is this a gift
for a loyal fan to play with while he waits for his other materials to
arrive?
– Richard
Richard:
It was probably an error on our part as orders have been coming in
surges and sometimes a paperclip works its way loose. Email me the correct
contents of your order and I will do a search and find out what happened,
as well as making sure your order gets processed ASAP. Keep the extra disks
and have fun with them.
Clint <VRLI>