July Image of the Month Competition

[Aaron]

Hello all,

Congratulations to DeathTwister for winning the June IoTM competition. As is customary, the winner gets to pick the theme for the next month, and DT has nominated:

Volcanoes

The rules, and some tips from DeathTwister, may be found on the IoTM Comp page. There's also some more food for thought here, here, and here.

Best of luck,
Aaron.

[DeathTwister]

Thats Great,

I am glad you guys like the theme, so on with the show and good luck you all and lets have some fun /smiles Hay that means Aaron can enter if he want's if I judge it by myself? /smiles at Aaron.

DT

[monks]

Congrats DT! I had a good feeling you'd win that one

Keep rockin in the free world.

monks

[Aaron]

Hi DT,

Hay that means Aaron can enter if he wants if I judge it by myself?

Sure, if no-one objects. Although, we may have to lift the restriction on using L3DTVi2, since I'm unlikely to learn another renderer in this time, and still less likely to build a new one. Whaddaya say?

Cheers,
Aaron.

PS: Just to clarify my normal anti-L3DTVi2 stance in the users' gallery: I only object to L3DTVi2 screenshots being put in the developers' showcase album, since that's meant to be for experimental renderers / games / etc. Stuff like your TSE/TGE shots, JohnJ's BattleTanks II shots, Sage's TSE shots, Demi's Rieen shots (to name a few) are what I have in mind for that album. Screenshots from established renderers (Terragen, VTP, Bryce, L3DTVi2, etc) can go into the artistic showcase album, or into users' personal albums.

[DeathTwister]

Hay guys,

Well considering your plight with other renderer's, it is OK with me to let you enter with the L3DT viewer if it is OK with everyone else that is going to enter. Lighting, color composition will stand for any viewer really. So it is Ok with me if OK with everyone else.

Oh before I forget thank you very much brother for choosing me as winner Forboding Angel, you a good guy /winks..... HAhaha U the man.
I was not awake yesterday? Ya, that was it, kinda like this morning for me now Yawn, had only one cup of Java so far so not running on all Cylinders yet.

So if anyone objects now is the time to say something or Aaron can enter with L3DTv if he needs to, in order to enter. I would love to see you in the Image of the Month competition.

Boogy on brothers and I am excited to see what all you artists can come up with, I know it will be fun and good chit...../wry smile..for me this is the most fun I have ever had on a web site Aaron, you have a great place here.

DT

PS here for me:

PS: Just to clarify my normal anti-L3DTVi2 stance in the users' gallery: I only object to L3DTVi2 screenshots being put in the developers' showcase album, since that's meant to be for experimental renderers / games / etc. Stuff like your TSE/TGE shots, JohnJ's BattleTanks II shots, Sage's TSE shots, Demi's Rieen shots (to name a few) are what I have in mind for that album. Screenshots from established renderers (Terragen, VTP, Bryce, L3DTVi2, etc) can go into the artistic showcase album, or into users' personal albums.

Here here, I understand and agree with you, at least until we can rebuild the viewer into something that we can really work with. I really don't think we will really be able to get our textures inside other engines or viewers to look like that in any other engine but your engine, so untill we/you rebuild it I agree with you.
I had a vision the other night that we will be able to add Treess, buildings, rivers, roads, little streams, and export the whole scene out to other video game engines without loosing the fine quality that the L3DT viewer of the terrain looks like in the viewer. Did that make sence what I just said? I sometimes have trouble explaining my thoughts sometimes.

[Aaron]

Hi DT,

I would love to see you in the Image of the Month competition.

No sooner said than done. I happened to have the 10m DEM for Crater Lake lying around on my disk-drive. Badly needs trees, though.

I really don't think we will really be able to get our textures inside other engines or viewers to look like that in any other engine but your engine, so untill we/you rebuild it I agree with you.

There's no real voodoo in the L3DTVi2 texture renderer. It just slaps-on the L3DT texture, then applies a detail map (twice). I'm sure any engine could get the same texture rendering quality. Oh, GLScene also does mip-mapping for textures in the distance, or so I'm told.

I had a vision the other night that we will be able to add Treess, buildings, rivers, roads, little streams, and export the whole scene out to other video game engines without loosing the fine quality that the L3DT viewer of the terrain looks like in the viewer.

Mescaline's a powerful trip, eh? (Just kidding!) I was watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas the other night, so any mention of 'visions' makes me think of bats swooping on a red cadillac in the Nevada desert, and Johhny Depp staggering as he sniffs ether from the stars and stripes. That was a bad trip.

Anyway...having a functional C++-based viewer would certainly open up more possibilities like this (the trees and roads, not the mescaline).

Cheers,
Aaron.

[DeathTwister]

HAhahahahaha,

Aaron Wrote:

Mescaline's a powerful trip, eh? (Just kidding!) I was watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas the other night, so any mention of 'visions' makes me think of bats swooping on a red cadillac in the Nevada desert, and Johhny Depp staggering as he sniffs ether from the stars and stripes. That was a bad trip.

hahahahah, well not quit, I did that allot when I was younger. The Mescaline part I mean when I lived with the Hopi Indians in Arizona when I was 17 for about 2 years on their reservation. No, I get allot of my creative juices from my dreams and I solve lots pf problems I have while taking naps or a good nights sleep. Just had a weired vision of the new viewer I know is coming was all. I am very Psychic sometimes and can be a pain if it is something bad I receive, so I love it when it is a good thing like the new viewer that will get build in the months to come. That sound positive? Hahahaha.

Aaron Wrote:

No sooner said than done. I happened to have the 10m DEM for Crater Lake lying around on my disk-drive. Badly needs trees, though.
Woo HOO WTG bro glad to here that

Woot glad to hear it, can't wait to see it.

Aaron Wrote:

There's no real voodoo in the L3DTVi2 texture renderer. It just slaps-on the L3DT texture, then applies a detail map (twice). I'm sure any engine could get the same texture rendering quality. Oh, GLScene also does mip-mapping for textures in the distance, or so I'm told.

Maybe but I haven't been able to really get it to look as good as the viewer does. I can get it to look different and maybe even better, but not the same as the viewer yet anyway.

KK back to work for me, just thought to check email real quick, will have to get to the rest in the morning.

DT

[DeathTwister]

Hay Gang,

Well as promised I have updated the new Climate at our website at:

http://www.theatomizer.com/downloads/VolcanicClimate.zip

I through in everything and the kitchen sink for ya. Some of the tiles are for some reason good in some programs and better in others. Most if not all tile well, just in different programs. Go figure....I gave up /smiles. The climate inside as I have it now looks like this in map form, minus the yellow/green area, which was reg-Temperate. From here on in, it is your tweak to do ROTFL.................



I made it quick so I could show you the map. As before feel free to use them and edit them any way you want, it is okidoki with me...

For some reason, probably because I am 64 bit, but my viewer in L3DT does not work in any build now. So I did a quick bunch of overlays in Terragen to share what it all looks like with just one map in it.


Not that big a deal, but thought maybe get yer juices flowing some.

Woo Hoo Aaron and Ch3rokee so far in the entries. Good work guys. Way to go dudes......I have more posts to answer here, but later today. Just wanted you guys to have this stuff if you liked it and were in need in any way. Sorry for the 8meg download though, but I did say is has everything and the Kitchen sink....HAHAhaha

DT

[dEaThMaStEr]

I'm tossing some ideas around in my head right now and am going to start making my custom climate for this. I wanna warn you, if everything works how im planning.. You may have some competition.. I'm not too shabby with volcano wastelands, here is a shot of one I did sometime back on the Torque Game Engine showcasing my particle effects:


Particle effects are my specialty in games, and as you can see, I have some experience in volcanic effects. So, this may work out for me.

[JavaJones]

Woah, nice.

I was experimenting for a bit trying to use TG2's volumetric clouds for smoke. I made some progress but not sure it'll be practical for me to use them as-is for this competition.

- Oshyan

[DeathTwister]

WoHaa,

Looks real sweet so far bro, I am looking forward to seeing it much bigger when it is done dEaThMaStEr.

Brother JavaJones how goes Terragen2? is it as cool as it says it is? and is it the same price as the old one?? I have been thinking of buying the full program instead of the freebie they give away, but is hard to take 99.00 duckets out of the bank when the company only likes me working not playing, ROTFL. If I could import Trees and buildings into Terragen I probably would buy it. Instead I think I will wait for Aaron and the viewer upgrades I hope he works on soon.

OH getting back to another post you asked me a question before Java, one good reason for 64 bit machine is the new Sonar 5 has special code for 64 bit and the new directX can be compiled for the 64 bit comp now. What does that mean? Larger floating point math and larger data bus transfers, ergo very FAST. It is not real 64 bit, because real 64 bit will address up to 9TB memory and hard drive space and file sizes. So if a few programs are not working it is because it is old Tech and we can wait for the new versions that will work, I am sure very soon.

Glad I picked a good subject for you guys to play with.

DT

[Aaron]

Hi DT,

real 64 bit will address up to 9TB memory and hard drive space and file sizes.

To be pedantic for a moment: 64 bits can address 16 exabytes (16 billion gigabytes). Then again, few operating systems are configured to allow that much memory. For instance, the current Linux kernel can handle 64Gb or RAM. Not sure about Winblows. As for files, NTFS (file system for WinNT/2k/XP/Vista) can handle volumes up to 256TB and files up to 16TB. (according to Wikipedia, anyway).

Cheers,
Aaron.

[DeathTwister]

HEHEHE,

We know the Lady who is like only 4 or 5 people in the world who can and is benchmarking the new intel 64 bit CPU right now, so we getting some info that is not privy to the GP atm. She should be back from Seattle soon as we have to work on her Network. One of our bizz clients. /winks......amazing what you find in the middle of nowhere sometimes.

ok back to work DT

[Aaron]

Back on the subject of the IoTM competition...

[JavaJones]

Terragen 2 goes fine. Pricing is not yet determined, but is supposed to be "competitive with similar applications".

- Oshyan