Heads up ! Another huge mail by yours truly ! > Hi Garry, > Don't be put off by the grey icons, they haven't fixed that yet ;)
Hi Mark , OK , thanks , and thanks for getting me up to speed with what you've been up to with WM & RS . Very nice early results if you ask me . > Great artist but I don't remember anything about World Machine... > Here's some of his work: > http://www.oyonale.com/histoire/english/index.htm Yes , Gilles Trans . I've posted links to many of his works here on this list , from renderings he's done using Xfrog plants and POV . I just thought you might have remembered that one particular one I posted where he had used World Machine beta for the landscape mesh (circa 2002) . > I don't think you can really compare WM with RS or any other software I > know. It only has one purpose: generating landscapes using simulation of > natural processes and exporting them to other software for rendering. Opps , my bad . I assumed WM was yet another landscape rendering S/W . Obviously the creators had people like yourself in mind when they began . > Realsoft can handle 512x512 meshes pretty well as long as you don't try to > smooth them. They render well in poly mode with phong shading, as long as > the camera doesn't get too close. I haven't tried 1024x1024 yet... Yes , it's all coming back to me now . Did some experiments with .3ds meshes exported out of WCS in the late 90's , but slow machines and expen- sive ram was a put-off . Still , RS V3.53 did an admirable job of tracing . > I have to admit I'm now checking out Vue 5 Infinite to render landscapes > that require massive amounts of plants (and even ecosystems). RS still has > some trouble with plants... a few trees are ok, but whole forests, that's > just too much. On the other hand, I can hardly live without VSL so it's > hard to choose, it all depends on the purpose. Vue5 is getting tons of attention on the Xfrog list , with Walli always willing to show how well Vue5 can instance zillions of plants . Have you tried instancing in RS with plants and trees . See below ; made a very simple scene with Vue5 Infinite, thanks to ecosystem not such a big problem. ;-) all plants made with Xfrog. http://tinyurl.com/byjlt best, Walli > Some Realsoft experiments with WM landscapes (not final pictures just some > experimental stuff!): > http://www.xs4all.nl/~ath8n0r/div/WM05.jpg > http://www.xs4all.nl/~ath8n0r/div/WM06.jpg > http://www.xs4all.nl/~ath8n0r/div/WM_14.jpg > Here, I first rendered a cratered map in RS, imported this into WM and > subjected it to erosion, imported the result in Terragen (free), exported > as obj with the For Export Only plugin and finally back into RS: > http://www.xs4all.nl/~ath8n0r/div/flowmapmat01.jpg > Displacement of a nurbs mesh with a HDR bump map is possible: > http://www.xs4all.nl/~ath8n0r/div/craterflowmap03.jpg > This is an example of a flowmap that's exported separately from WM which > was converted to a dark brown 'sediment deposit' with VSL: > http://www.xs4all.nl/~ath8n0r/div/WM_flowmap_nosh.jpg > I was surprised to see this excellent Opengl preview in SP2 > http://www.xs4all.nl/~ath8n0r/div/WM_flowmap_OGL.jpg > -Mark H Excellent stuff Mark ! Very nice early work . Shows tons of potential . Thanks for sharing . Good luck and please do keep us posted . Garry Curtis http://www.niagara.com/~studio
