Advice on creating realistic atmospheres for terrain and background terrain textures

[stevesideas]

I'm working on a number of large environments and need some advice regarding distant hills/mountains. I never seem to be able to get them to look that great. I'm wondering if anyone has any advice on how to create the blue/darkening atmospheric effect you get. Would you simply use a zdepth pass ? I've looked at Vue and it really does it nicely...some really nice depth. I'm guess the fog/mist/atmosphere is all raytrace and simply a pass. Could this be done with vray env fog ?

Also need some help regarding realistic mountains. Would you use a backplate with alpha (you wouldn't be able to use zdepth if so and they tend to look flat especially when moving toward them) or displacement maps? How about texturing ? Best methods for detailed texturing for hills/mountains ? Would you use zbrush ?

[Bathyscaph]

World Machine is the best thing I've found for creating realistic mountains and terrain. It really excels at creating realistic erosion effects and can be used in combination with Vue. You can also use it to generate a number of textures that can help with texturing. World Machine is going to generate a displacement map for the final effect so I would use ZBrush if displacement alone is not going to give you what you want i.e. you need undercuts or are creating an object that has a complex topology like an arch.

There is also a tool called GeoGlyph which works with World Machine to help you get complex effects more quickly.

[stevesideas]

Thanks. I have looked at world machine briefly but not had time to get to grips with it at great length.

[stevesideas]

What about things like a believable atmosphere ? When I do it in post I normally use the zdepth pass (inverted) but it only goes some way to helping. I've noticed a lot of shots where the mountains actually go quite a lot darker as shown from the attachment. Do you think all this is possible using zdepth pass ? Should I just be using a matt painting and if so would this lack depth ?

[Pixelcon]

Anything can be done with photoshop... Find a reference that suits your lighting setup and mirrors the scale of your shot and get your huge-soft-brush on!

[Pixelcon]

Anything can be done with photoshop... Find a reference that suits your lighting setup and mirrors the scale of your shot and get your huge-soft-brush on!

edit: and not everything has to be done using blending modes like screen or lighten. A painted solid colour set to normal mode can be easier to control if you're doing multiple layers...
having said that, using lighten mode can be good for painting in the shadow areas with fairly dense colour like in your reference.

[stevesideas]

Most of the stuff I do needs to be animated hence the fact I was talking about passes. I've carried out some oil rig and communication animations set out at sea. I use phoenix FD texture for the ocean and then a customised shader for the water/peaks etc. For the land I will test out with world machine/zbrush and vray displacement but then the atmosphere always lacks realism. If I use Terragen 2 I get very nice landscapes with sun/clouds and atmosphere. Maybe I can camera match terragen 2 camera with 3dsmax camera or something but it would be good to do everything in max and use passes or other methods (for animation) that work almost as well as Terragen. So, photoshop won't be able to cut it when it comes to these animations. I'm really looking to get a high/realistic quality.

[3LP]

I used a script like 8 years ago that saved out a cam from max to terragen so you can match both, should still be around or you should find something similar nowadays.

Stan

[stevesideas]

I used a script like 8 years ago that saved out a cam from max to terragen so you can match both, should still be around or you should find something similar nowadays.

Stan

I'll have a look to see if I can find that. Would it be a case of just blending between between the terragen background and 3dsmax foreground in post ?

[stevesideas]

Was this the one: http://www.darkmoon3d.com/tg-max/

[pokoy]

Terragen 3 has FBX support, chances are it supports cameras without any additional scripts and workarounds. They also introduced passes with TG3 so you get a bunch of elements to work with in post. I suggest asking on their forums what exactly would work.
I have used both TG and Vue in the past and must say I wouldn't want to use Vue ever again. Also, if you're looking for fast and believable results, TG wins every time for me.

[stevesideas]

Looks like I need to gen up on Terragen. Thanks