Landscape extension?

vonHobo

I was wondering what the easiest or most efficient way to extend a landscape to make it believable.

If you look at the render I made, the planet Glise 2 just ends. I know I can maybe add an HDRI but it does not look believable, and it prevents me from using a skydome for different lighting effects because the skydomes are also HDRI. So it's one or the other.

Does anyone have any ideas for this, and other landscapes that are limited in scope?

 

 

Gordig

You could try TerraDome 3, or wait for UltraScenery XT to be released.

The Blurst of Times

Oso has an alien landscape thing that's pretty cool.

https://www.daz3d.com/oso-alien-scenery

Depth of Field also helps smooth out differences, of course.

FirstBastion

Select your entire existing terrain, and make sure your vegetation is parented to it,  now CREATE an Instance. The Instance is an exact duplicate,  and you can now move it towards the horizon rotating in the y axis and adjusting the scale to add some variety. Creating a second or third instance will usually fill up the horizon sufficiently to merge with the existing skydome.

Instance are available infrom the Create menu in DazStudio

vonHobo

FirstBastion said:

Select your entire existing terrain, and make sure your vegetation is parented to it,  now CREATE an Instance. The Instance is an exact duplicate,  and you can now move it towards the horizon rotating in the y axis and adjusting the scale to add some variety. Creating a second or third instance will usually fill up the horizon sufficiently to merge with the existing skydome.

Instance are available infrom the Create menu in DazStudio

Thank you! I will try that. 

vonHobo

Wow. That worked amazingly well!

Do instances use less resources than, for instance, duplicating the landscape from the Edit > Duplicate Nodes menu?

No pun intended.

 

vonHobo

Gordig said:

You could try TerraDome 3, or wait for UltraScenery XT to be released.

Thanks. I have TerraDome but just feel it looks a bit artificial.  

Gordig

The materials included with TerraDome aren't great, but if you have some decent ground shaders, it can be quite good.

vonHobo

The Blurst of Times said:

Oso has an alien landscape thing that's pretty cool.

https://www.daz3d.com/oso-alien-scenery

Depth of Field also helps smooth out differences, of course.

 That is so nice!

Not sure about using DOF although familiar with the term. I usually insert a fog product to create the DOF.

Matt_Castle

von Hobo said:

Do instances use less resources than, for instance, duplicating the landscape from the Edit > Duplicate Nodes menu?

They create a reference to the original geometry and reuse its data, so the VRAM impact is near zero. (Unless emissives are concerned, because I think those need to be added to the lighting allocation in their case).

It does however still have the same impact as far as the complexity of the scene.

vonHobo

Matt_Castle said:

von Hobo said:

Do instances use less resources than, for instance, duplicating the landscape from the Edit > Duplicate Nodes menu?

They create a reference to the original geometry and reuse its data, so the VRAM impact is near zero. (Unless emissives are concerned, because I think those need to be added to the lighting allocation in their case).

It does however still have the same impact as far as the complexity of the scene.

Very good to know. Thankyou! 

Granville

You can use a fading opacity map to give the impression that a terrain drops to the horizon.

pwiecek

Take a 2nd copy of the prop. Rotate it 180 degrees and match up the gaps. Play with the angle of the camera until you can't see all the wau through

vonHobo

Granville said:

You can use a fading opacity map to give the impression that a terrain drops to the horizon.

I need to figure out how to do this. :) 

vonHobo

pwiecek said:

Take a 2nd copu of the prop. Rotate it 180 degrees and match up the gaps. Play with the angle of the camera until you can't see all the wau through

Yes. That worked. But the fading opacity map mentioned by Granville would give it that extra touch. Just have to figure out how to do a fading opacity map. 

richardandtracy

Could use iRay fog available in the environment scene entry. Set the 100% distance to 95% of the total size maybe.

Spacious

Edit for double post.  Mods please remove.

Spacious

You can use instancing.  Just make one or several instances of the entire environment and then use scaling to reverse them or spin them and move them until they appear to match up.  It won't be perfect, but likely good enough.

vonHobo

Spacious said:

You can use instancing.  Just make one or several instances of the entire environment and then use scaling to reverse them or spin them and move them until they appear to match up.  It won't be perfect, but likely good enough.

Thank you. Yes, that was suggested earlier in this topic and I tried it and it worked really well.

I think it's the easiest and best solution so I will go with the instancing of landscapes. Drop in a little fog effect or haze and it looks really incredible. 

 

vonHobo

richardandtracy said:

Could use iRay fog available in the environment scene entry. Set the 100% distance to 95% of the total size maybe.

 

FirstBastion

von Hobo said:

FirstBastion said:

Select your entire existing terrain, and make sure your vegetation is parented to it,  now CREATE an Instance. The Instance is an exact duplicate,  and you can now move it towards the horizon rotating in the y axis and adjusting the scale to add some variety. Creating a second or third instance will usually fill up the horizon sufficiently to merge with the existing skydome.

Instance are available infrom the Create menu in DazStudio

Thank you! I will try that. 

***

Wow. That worked amazingly well!

 Happy to hear it worked out well for your render.

Greycat

Here are a few planet scrapes I made using Petipets planets. This is all created using layers, I setup the lights and a camera and they never change. I then render layer after layer going back into the picture. I put it all together in a paint program and paint the sky.

vonHobo

Greycat said:

Here are a few planet scrapes I made using Petipets planets. This is all created using layers, I setup the lights and a camera and they never change. I then render layer after layer going back into the picture. I put it all together in a paint program and paint the sky.

Wow! Very nice! 

kyoto kid

..here's an oldie beach scene I did where I used a couple instances of First Bastion's Rolling Plains with different surfaces, along with an ocean disk form another set and a skydome (3DL render).