Test terrain animation

 

It's been a while since I put renders into an animation. This one was set up in about three minutes to help evaluate a bowl-shaped terrain. I added the pod and dropped some shiny materials onto it just to add some interest. 

Back on the road, again

 I'm having a catch-up with the director this evening. It's time to deliver on my commitment to improve the current service road scene, ensuring it aligns more closely with the storyboard. 

Both walls

Running with Double Blender

Blender-School Render Raw 1

I need to get back into more structured learning. I have too many urgent things to learn than I can count using my fingers. 

• I should do a minimum of three 1-hour training blocks per week.
• These blocks must include note-taking and exercises.

I think the following are a priority:

• Render Raw
• Photographer 5x
• Lens-Sim
• Hard-Ops
• Substance Painter
• Geonodes
• Geoscatter
• PBR Material and Material Generator (revision)
• Extreme PBR

More general learning:

• Environmental and terrain tutorials
• True-Assets revision

This list was pulled from the air. I may suddenly realise there's something important missing.

So to start, let's take a look at Render Raw.

Render Raw (Featuring Creative Shrimp's mini-course on colour correction)

See Render Raw's full documentation.

Basics

In Blender, outputs are generated in RAW but are then baked into a colour space for display. This baking happens through a View Transform model, such as AGX or the older Filmic. These view transforms take the Colour Gamut (colour model that handles chromacity (measures hue and colourfulness) and filter them through a transform process that we often refer to as "baking", which indicates a one-way process that can't be reversed because it loses data. If you don't use a View Transform, then your high-bit-depth output simply gets clipped as it transitions into the Closed Colour Space. It often results in blown-out images that just look bad.

Colour Gamuts set the range of colours that can be displayed. Blender uses sRGB (standard RGB) because it offers a good, easy-to-use and accurate colour presentation across various devices and formats. Note: Internally (pre-output), Blender uses the Linear Rec.709 because it's physically accurate and linear, so good for the technical aspects.

Colour Gamut (1931 CIE)

Default gamut sRGB through the AgX View Transform.

RAW is the uncompressed high bit-depth image format, such as EXR, that contains "raw" colour data. This format yields extremely large files. It's normal to use a View Transform to bake the colour data to match the expected view formats.

ACES is the Academy Color Encoding System and was designed for the film industry to provide a standard so that different creators could have consistency as they worked on each other's outputs. ACES isn't better than AgX; it has limitations like Filmic, but it is the industry standard, and sometimes consistency is better than capability when you know how to work around limitations.

In Blender 4.0 the View Transform moved from Filmic to AgX. This caused a bit of a stir because AgX tended to make outputs "pop" a bit less. However, AgX is just objectively a better and more sophisticated View Transform model. Filmic doesn't support wider gamut colour spaces, such as P3. It also has a lower dynamic range. Although, with middle-range colours and intensities, the two View Transforms provide comparable results. For more information, Christopher's 3D's excellent introduction to AgX.

In a nutshell, rendering to RAW instead of through a view transform preserves light and colour data that you can modify to enhance the look of the output. Previously, this tweaking would be done outside of Blender in a separate image processing app, such as Photoshop/Photo/Lightroom or a compositor, such as Premiere or DaVinci Resolve. For this, you'd  save your outputs in a high bit-depth format like EXR that preserves colour data.

Render Raw

It is a Blender addon that provides tweaking tools, similar to those found in external apps, within Blender and available in the viewport to preview. However, they are still applied at the end of the rendering pipeline.

Pre-grade: A change made before the render pipeline (and View Transform) as part of a scene's setup
Post-grade: A change applied to a render output, usually in the compositor

Render Raw works with both Pre and Post-grade changes as they are applied through the compositor (but under the bonnet, as you don't need to touch the compositor yourself).

Nodes and their grade position

Post-formation changes are more lossy because they are applied to pixels that have been baked out of a View Transform. They also are not protected from breaking out of the available colour/intensity. Post-formation colour tweaking allows you to achieve the colours you want; however, you need to be careful as you make your changes.

Once Render Raw is installed, you enable it through the N-panel. Its tools then appear within the panel, or under the Render tab's Colour Management panel.

N-Panel view

Transform: The View Transform, as listed above.

Presets: A set of parameter adjustments that get general effects, such as a contrast punch

Exposure: Light levels. Lower for moody, higher can look washed out. It's safer to be slightly above as you don't lose too much definition.

Gamma: Not intended for mortals. It's not an exposure setting, it's not a colour grading instrument, it's a technical setting. Leave it at 1.

Colour correction example

You'll see in this example how post-formation tweaks could filter out the flame's form and avoid AgX's "salmon" colour profile. This is why Render Raw uses both pre- and post-formation adjustments.

Starting point

See the colour in the visor highlights has clipped with artefacts on the fringes.

Colour boost is less likely to blow out colours.

Moody with saturation

Lesson takeaway: 

• No amount of colour correction tools training will tell you what looks good. I need to delve into colour theory, photography and cinematography. 
  
  
• Keep RAW for access to the source colour data and the most options for making image adjustments.
  
  
• Make Pre-formation changes to have the source colour data to work with, but Post-formation changes are sometimes just what you need.

Part two of this lesson is coming soon, although I grasp what the tool does much better now.

Back to learning, back to focused output

 I have work to do, but I make excuses to do something else. Usually, what I do is not focused and leads nowhere useful. Let's get back on track!

1) More planning and discipline... complete a training element at least twice per week. So, more Blender School!

2) No more starting something and fizzling out.  Although it is okay to abandon a project that has run its course, if you just stop every time you hit a creative roadblock, you'll never finish anything.

3) Work towards a more iterative and reflective workflow. It's been a while since I've completed a critique session. More of those!

generative Cthulhu statue 

Treading some water

 
Over the weekend, I had a play with various terrain projects. Lots of potential for a nice scene, but I still insist on moving on and limiting my output to quick sketches.

Cyberpunk tower (not mine). Amazing, but I wanted to showcase my own build work, so onwards...

Dusted off the Texas Tower and added a first round of materials

True-Vault grass and a tree. Needs a lot of dressing, but could turn out nice.

Road to progress

 
I submitted an update on the service road. Some adjustments are required, but they're in the fine details; the overall effect was favourably received.

Back to work, damn it!

 
I need to complete the Service Road element but I keep finding excuses to play with World Creator -- which, in fact, just entered general release. Not a massive number of changes from the Beta. The cliff filter is no longer in an experimental category.

True-Vault asset tests

I wanted to do a scene that showcased the True-VFX  asset library available through their very cool new add-on, True-Vault. I still suck at scattering! But maybe I'm getting a bit better when I keep things simple and slowly build up.

Nature Generator cliffs. Nicey nice, yes?

Grass from the GraSSy knoll collection

Cameo by Bagapie's basic ivy

I'll go back to the service road on the next session, maybe tonight.

S.A.D times

 In the first few weeks of the new season, I often suffer a bit. My diet is less controlled, my exercise regimen falls to the side, and I'm being less productive and creative. It shouldn't last too much longer. Hopefully!

I've returned to my safe haven of knocking together terrains without fully developing them.

This one is going to be developed!

True-Vault assets (GraSSy knoll)

Service Road - another stretch

 This morning, I completed the first pass on the rock scatters on the "Sniper Alley" section of the service road.

Rocks from Nature Generator

Small scatters need to be improved.

Overview

The rest is weekend

 I decided to put down my tools over the weekend. I wish it had been for a noble cause, but I ended up playing Civilisation 5 for too many hours. 

 TrueVault

True-VFX have released their very cool asset library system. It's both a repository of your owned assets and a shop window for buying new things from the TrueVFX library.

I took the plunge and bought some credits, picking up a collection of grass assets.

Grassy knoll 

Rocks need a lot more work, but I love how Nature Generator's rock procedural material lets you quickly colour-match to your terrain.

Nature Generator procedurals absolutely rock!

This week

I have received feedback for the next section of the service road, so I will be building that. It's more like two sections, it's twice as big as the previous parts.

Ambush on the service road

Thought for the week: For gawd's sake, finish something!

I need to regain some discipline and not leave part-finished mini-projects in a growing discard pile.

Warning: End of Civilization!

 I lost a significant amount of productivity over the last couple of days, thanks to an impulsive decision to reinstall Civilisation V. What a terrible mistake. That game is such a driver of the "one more round" compulsion in me. I completed two full playthroughs and two games that were discarded or lost.

Some game time...

Best game so far!

I have somehow managed to play this game for many years with only a minimal understanding of the mechanics. This last game introduced me to elements such as deal-making with the city-states and the finer art of military conflict.

I was set upon by my imperialistic neighbours, Napoleon and Catherine the Great. I managed to hold out on their expansion and refused to sign any peace treaty. This appears to disrupt their strategy, as they ended up fighting each other instead of advancing their attack. Perhaps a kink in the AI was introduced to make the game less challenging? I concentrated on economic and technological growth until I had artillery, at which point you could sweep through any nation that was less developed. I ended up turning them both into rump states, taking possession of Paris, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. A long and drawn-out conflict that makes me realise that war is shit. In fact, I think I only won the game by not pursuing a maximal military victory and instead shifting my huge empire towards technological progress, allowing me to secure the space-race victory with a perhaps 20-round lead over the Ottomans.  

Mini-Project

Always respect the time-box. This probe (the lander element) was supposed to be a single-day/couple-of-sessions project. It wasn't to be. Note the space probe in the foreground is not my work, it's from the Big/Medium/Small Astronova collection. That stuff is absolutely mind-blowingly good, but too expensive for me to get the whole lot.

Next

I must complete the service road section and submit it, then begin work on the third section, which is quite large.