Backgrounds
24 messages in this thread
I'm trying to setup an outdoor scene in Lightwave, with some objects in
the foreground and an image map of clouds in the background. I'm having
trouble with figuring out how to set up the background of clouds. I've
tried making a huge rectangular plane in Modeler and using that to map the
cloud image on. Of course, if I make it big enough so that I can move
around in the scene and not run out of background, the cloud image is too
big and pixelated ('zat a word ?). If I use "Background Image" in the
effects menu, it's no good because the image follows the camera around.
Any ideas ? Thanks.
You might try making a sphere around the scene, and putting the clouds on its
inside. If the image gets too blocky, try adjusting the blending (I think)
attribute of the texture to smooth it out.
My $.02,
–Dan Maas
Thanks, Dan. I'll give that a try. As I recall I tried that before and got
a lot of blockiness, but maybe the blending will do the trick.
If your cloud map is seamless at the edges you can map it to a hemisphere
and increase the width and height tiling to 4 or so. That is the
traditional way of adding clouds. Fractal Transparency mapping works well
too :}
Grant Boucher – Amblin Imaging
"It's hard to believe grown-ups do this for a living."
Thanks, Grant. The times I tried to tile it my image was a bit less than
seamless. What I'm trying to ultimately do is have a sequence of cloud
frames in kind of a time-lapse motion in the background, which means
tiling is out, and fractals won't look as good. I guess I'll have to limit
my camera motions.
Jim,
You can make hemisphere/sphere and use tranparency mapping with fractal
noise to get a nice looking moveing cloud pattern. I created a scene for
use as a background for flying some logo's around that was two planes of
'sky', one above the camera and one below, with the logos flying around in
between. (It was faster rendering to actually render the sky images
seperately then use them as a backgtround sequence.)
Anyway, I'll Email you the scene. You may have to play with the ssize and
speed values for your sphere, but at least you'll have a starting place.
wmc – via Autopilot!
Great, Wayne. I really appreciate the sky scene. I'll give it a go. Thanks.
Jim,
Your problem wa so interesting I've wasted all day today and half last
night creating different sky scenes. Even contemplated (judt for a second
though) a Lightwave Sky Generator. Define the kind of sky you want, (day
nigh stormy, cumlulous, stratus, cirrus, …) and it will generate a sky
for you.
Anyway, once I get this latest version with a sky dome done I'll Email it
to you as well. Probably tomorrow or Wed.
wmc – via Autopilot!
Wayne,
I rendered your sky scene. Real nice !! It looks as good as some of the
real cloud images of the So. Cal. skies I've grabbed from my camera. I
guess the good thing about fractals in this case is you can make the cloud
object almost as large as you want without getting any blockiness. Maybe
I'll try giving the procedural some velocity and see how it animates.
Thanks again.
Jim,
If I recall it should already have velocity for that time-lapsed look.
BTW where in CA are you (I ain't feeding my competition, am I? ;^}
wmc – via Autopilot!
Wayne,
Why not upload that scene to the 3D library over in AmigaArts?!?
Jerry
Well, I suppose I could, but I didn't think there would be that many
people interested.
I'm also just about done playing with another one using a dome instead of
a plane. It gives the freedom of camera angle that the plane version
doesn't allow.
wmc – via Autopilot!
please upload it to the CIS library. It could come in handy and it would help
us LW neophytes learn, too. PS, I'd be interested in a stormy sky, too.
Brian
It will be a day or two before I get them up (got some paying customers
comming in to edit over then next few days). As for the stormy sky, I
leave that as an exercise for the reader ;^}. Actually, just keep the
lateral dimension of the tranparency map about equal, make the verticle
compnent about twice that, change the background color and sky surface
color to grayer hues and voila!
wmc – via Autopilot!
Wayne,
I recently spent untold hours attempting to create a realistic looking outdoor
scene; never did do that well at it, either. I, for one, would be THRILLED to
take a look at it!
Jerry
Jerry,
I will try to upload them before Monday. The planar sky is one I used
with great success in a fixed camera with "time-lapse" clouds situation.
The two sky domes are experiments (aka creative play) based on Jim
McCabe's questions. There are lots of things that can be done to tailor
them to the specific look you want, I've found, and I want to include a
text file with some hints on what things to play with for which effects.
I consider the domed sky scenes as starting points from which tweaks are
made to change the cloud type, density sky look (close-in steep or Montan
Big Sky look) and that sort of thing. I'm working on it – just had some
paying customers get in the way of rapping up some last experiments with
it.
wmc – via Autopilot!
Thanks, Wayne. I'll be watching for the upload !
Jerry
Jim,
If you (as the camera) are moving around a lot in the scene, you could use
a very large resolution image map of clouds wrapped onto the inside a a
semi-sphere.
You could also try creating the clouds object out of a fractal noise
transparency semisphere. Make the object blue with a white fractal (or
vice versa) to simulate clouds and use the same settings for fractal noise
in Transparency with a texture value of 50-60ish and a transparency value
of 100. (or something like that).
Oh and yes, pixelated is a word.
JG
Mind if I use this in a DearJohn sometime?
John,
PMFJI, but wasn't this sky object-issue discussed in one of the very first
issues of VTU? I remember doing a tutorial involving creating a
semi-sphere sky, with moving clouds. I think it might have been in David
Hopkins TAMING THE WAVE column?
Just thought I'd ask. Hate to see things repeated. <G>
Stephen Bailey
Sawyer & Bailey Film and Video – Chicago
It could be,
I don't mind repeating things now and then because there are always new
readers and users who may not have seen or known.
And besides, sometimes I can't remember…..<g>
JG
John,
So true, on both points.
Then again, those small editorial arrows to previous issues could launch
you into the back-issue business as well. :^)
BTW, no articles from you this month in LW PRO? Too busy building the new
SeaQuest, perhaps? 🙂
Great issue, this month, though. I'm preparing to shoot my masters thesis
film and I'm going to be doing a ton of live-action compositing in LW.
Perfect timing!
Later.
S.G. Bailey
Chicago
I usually write the ReaderSpeak column (Well, always…so far), but have
been extremely busy.
Luckily the new seaQuest won't look any different on the outside as they
didn't want to throw away all of the "stock" shots we have done…
JG
Thanks for the reply on the cloud backgrounds. You can use it in your Dear
John anytime. When you do, it might be very useful to address the
possibilities of animating the fractal clouds. I've heard quite a bit of
discussion on that, and I'm now in the process of trying to work something
like that out. Thanks again.
>You could also try creating the clouds object out of a fractal noise
>transparency semisphere. Make the object blue with a white fractal (or
>vice versa) to simulate clouds and use the same settings for fractal
>noise in Transparency with a texture value of 50-60ish and a transparency
>value of 100. (or something like that).
A nice addendum to that is if you just make your object white, and then
your transparency map can reveal the Sky to Zenith gradient colors through
the clouds, so the sky effect is more realistic. Also, the clouds
transparency map can falloff towards the Y=0 horizon so the clouds become
denser along the horizon.
Grant Boucher – Amblin Imaging
"It's hard to believe grown-ups do this for a living."