Re: Ideas for star fields?
On Jun 26, 2014, at 9:58 AM, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] j.ponthi...@nasa.gov wrote: If you are using the high res map, the jpeg file TychoSkymapII.t5_16384x08192.jpg will work just as well as the tiff without the file size overhead. Go to the image file’s ADJUST tab and set the Exposure to something like 2.0. You’ll be absolutely amazed at what is lurking in the lower range of the image. J This should work equally as well whether you use the Environment shader that Matt suggested or a sphere object. If you are using a sphere object though you should set the material to a constant shader for best results. I find an exposure of about ~1 to ~1.5 lets these details show up without making the Milky Way disc too obvious. Thanks ill try this! I was using the gamma they suggest of 1.8, within SI. It seems to look fairly realistic, but without many stars showing. I didn't think of changing the exposure (except on the HDR version I made). You’ll also want to avoid looking at either of the poles. The projection they used does not appear to compensate real well with a typical spherical UV projection I do need to look at the poles, I need a full 360 spatial view, unrestricted. I thought I would have to use Flexify on it, but so far it looks good, on the south pole, though I have to check it more... From a personal perspective, to see the universe in this way and with this level of clarity is really amazing. Our sun is just one of those dots. Yes, isn't it? And the vastness of space...so much space/time between all those stars as well. and we are circling only one of them on our tiny little earth... I find when you zoom into the image, more and more stars appear, and you can see the color shifts present. I would like to see more of them in the render however, so thank you for the exposure advice. Gamma adj in SI reduces the sense of depth too much, the whitish haze there doesn't read well. Nancy -- Joey Ponthieux LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES) Mymic Technical Services NASA Langley Research Center __ Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party. From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Nancy Jacobs Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2014 2:17 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Ideas for star fields? I'm rendering with Redshift. What I've been experimenting with is to take the star field map I'm using for the background, whether Hubble or now Joey Ponthieux's wonderful suggestion of the NASA star field image. It seems to wrap nicely to a sphere, not much shows up in the render, but it's a good base to work with.
Re: Ideas for star fields?
Joey, that map is amazing, almost like exploring space :] (mapped on a sphere and looking around in the viewport.. ) I found that showing the selected env sphere's wireframe at low opacity helped to more easily see where the cam is pointing at on the map, acting like a grid. Nancy, Perhaps Joey would correct me?, but I would clone over the very big stars, I think those also are infinite points like the dimmer ones , but just very bright while just looking big from (clamped) long exposure. Wow Infinite points.. as you said were talking about things the size of suns lol.. the fact that things go just as far the other way around (like zooming in forever), can also be pretty baffling, how can infinity be contained in a spot? isn't that contradictory? :] On 06/26/14 14:07, Nancy Jacobs wrote: On Jun 26, 2014, at 9:58 AM, "Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES]" j.ponthi...@nasa.gov wrote: If you are using the high res map, the jpeg file TychoSkymapII.t5_16384x08192.jpg will work just as well as the tiff without the file size overhead. Go to the image file’s ADJUST tab and set the Exposure to something like 2.0. You’ll be absolutely amazed at what is lurking in the lower range of the image. J This should work equally as well whether you use the Environment shader that Matt suggested or a sphere object. If you are using a sphere object though you should set the material to a constant shader for best results. I find an exposure of about ~1 to ~1.5 lets these details show up without making the Milky Way disc too obvious. Thanks ill try this! I was using the gamma they suggest of 1.8, within SI. It seems to look fairly realistic, but without many stars showing. I didn't think of changing the exposure (except on the HDR version I made). You’ll also want to avoid looking at either of the poles. The projection they used does not appear to compensate real well with a typical spherical UV projection I do need to look at the poles, I need a full 360 spatial view, unrestricted. I thought I would have to use Flexify on it, but so far it looks good, on the south pole, though I have to check it more... From a personal perspective, to see the universe in this way and with this level of clarity is really amazing. Our sun is just one of those dots. Yes, isn't it? And the vastness of space...so much space/time between all those stars as well. and we are circling only one of them on our tiny little earth... I find when you zoom into the image, more and more stars appear, and you can see the color shifts present. I would like to see more of them in the render however, so thank you for the exposure advice. Gamma adj in SI reduces the sense of depth too much, the whitish haze there doesn't read well. Nancy -- Joey Ponthieux LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES) Mymic Technical Services NASA Langley Research Center __ Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party. From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Nancy Jacobs Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2014 2:17 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Ideas for s
Re: Ideas for star fields?
Interesting... On a renderer point of view, I wonder how importance sampling will cope with all those bright little spots... In the end, it's just a tiny little fill light. I would defenitly use a manual created direct light source with very low intensity to recreate the Mystery artistic soft light that shows lasers Of course in such situation nearby a nebula, it's totally different. Are you rendering with Arnold?! sly Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM VFX Curriculum 03: Compositing Basics mail to: s...@shedmtl.com On Jun 25, 2014, at 1:58 AM, Nancy Jacobs illus...@mip.net wrote: On Jun 25, 2014, at 12:14 AM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote: Plus mistery soft light from a galaxies that always happens to be somewhere around so that there may be light, with dust in space so we can see lazers :) That's what I'm counting on! That Mystery soft light. Since what I'm doing can have a bit of 'artistic license' ;-)... Though I am making it generally correspond to the starfield light. After all, one can see in old paintings the 'heavenly light' thing... Where you don't really question where it comes from too much if it works in the painting... (ok so I'm a painter first after all... ;-)) Nancy
Re: Ideas for star fields?
"Mystery artistic soft light that shows lasers" Lol! :) On 06/25/14 21:58, Sylvain Lebeau wrote: Interesting... On a renderer point of view, I wonder how importance sampling will cope with all those brightlittle spots... In the end, it's just a tiny little fill light. I would defenitly use a manual created direct light source with very low intensity to recreate the "Mystery artistic soft light that shows lasers" Of course in such situation nearby a nebula, it's totally different. Are you rendering with Arnold?! sly Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E TAGE MONTRAL (QUBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025WWW.SHEDMTL.COMhttp://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM VFX Curriculum 03: Compositing Basics mail to: s...@shedmtl.com On Jun 25, 2014, at 1:58 AM, Nancy Jacobs illus...@mip.net wrote: On Jun 25, 2014, at 12:14 AM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote: Plus mistery soft light from a galaxies that always happens to be somewhere around so that there may be light, with dust in space so we can see lazers :) That's what I'm counting on! That "Mystery soft light". Since what I'm doing can have a bit of 'artistic license' ;-)... Though I am making it generally correspond to the starfield light. After all, one can see in old paintings the 'heavenly light' thing... Where you don't really question where it comes from too much if it works in the painting... (ok so I'm a painter first after all... ;-)) Nancy
RE: Ideas for star fields?
The problem is that you are using Hubble images. Hubble images are high res and beautiful but often are only representative of a single focal point in space. What you want is a star map that is a cylindrical projection suited for your sphere. You will find the maps you need at this link. In particular the high res Tycho maps are probably what you want. http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a00/a003500/a003572/ When you map these onto your sphere you will notice that the center of your sphere of the focal point of a disc or ring of stars. You'll see the ring form on the inner side of the sphere. There were three maps historically, Tycho, Hipparcos, and Yale. The following links contain them but these do not look like the highest res versions. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/tycho8.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/hipp8.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/yale8.html Each was created at different resolutions and star counts. One is synthetic I think, and that I believe is the Yale map based upon the Tycho catalog. The map is of higher contrast and may lack a lot of the intermediate or diminished stars so it may be useful in some circumstances. You'll have to figure out what the basic appearance is that you are looking for and a combination of the maps may be what you want. As you probably have already discovered, you won't be able to let your camera get too close to the texture surface as the stars will become abnormally large and the illusion will be lost. Its best if you scale the sphere as large as you can and keep the surface as far from the camera as possible to reach the effect you want. If you want a moving starfield, the best way to achieve that is generate a massive field of small triangles set to constant white. The distance apart, size, and randomness will have to be worked out. You can do this as particles as well, but if the particles are set to pixel height you'll lose the sense of perspective and distance as you fly through them. -- Joey Ponthieux LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES) Mymic Technical Services NASA Langley Research Center __ Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party. -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage- boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Nancy Jacobs Sent: Monday, June 23, 2014 5:43 PM To: Softimage Listserve Subject: Ideas for star fields? Hello, I'm needing a star field kind of background for a scene, and looking for ideas to create it. I have been using Hubble images wrapped around a sphere, around the scene, but I'm finding it doesn't read well, even with very high- res Hubble images. So, I'm wondering about other ways to create star fields. Has to be 360 degrees, seamlessly -- and I don't have the capability to deal with that in a compositing situation. Soany ideas? Thanks, Nancy
RE: Ideas for star fields?
Oh and one other thing. You may find that constraining the star field sphere position directly to your camera and forcing the sphere orientation to remain in sync with the scene will produce the best results. Render the stars out as a pass and comp everything over them as the base image. By doing this the stars will always maintain an exact distance from the camera and since stars are such an incredible distance from us in space the illusion is remarkably similar. It will also make the appearance of the stars much more predictable as you can set them for what you want and you no longer have to worry about that appearance changing other than camera orientation. -- Joey Ponthieux LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES) Mymic Technical Services NASA Langley Research Center __ Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party. -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage- boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC- E1A)[LITES] Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2014 9:13 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Ideas for star fields? The problem is that you are using Hubble images. Hubble images are high res and beautiful but often are only representative of a single focal point in space. What you want is a star map that is a cylindrical projection suited for your sphere. You will find the maps you need at this link. In particular the high res Tycho maps are probably what you want. http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a00/a003500/a003572/ When you map these onto your sphere you will notice that the center of your sphere of the focal point of a disc or ring of stars. You'll see the ring form on the inner side of the sphere. There were three maps historically, Tycho, Hipparcos, and Yale. The following links contain them but these do not look like the highest res versions. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/tycho8.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/hipp8.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/yale8.html Each was created at different resolutions and star counts. One is synthetic I think, and that I believe is the Yale map based upon the Tycho catalog. The map is of higher contrast and may lack a lot of the intermediate or diminished stars so it may be useful in some circumstances. You'll have to figure out what the basic appearance is that you are looking for and a combination of the maps may be what you want. As you probably have already discovered, you won't be able to let your camera get too close to the texture surface as the stars will become abnormally large and the illusion will be lost. Its best if you scale the sphere as large as you can and keep the surface as far from the camera as possible to reach the effect you want. If you want a moving starfield, the best way to achieve that is generate a massive field of small triangles set to constant white. The distance apart, size, and randomness will have to be worked out. You can do this as particles as well, but if the particles are set to pixel height you'll lose the sense of perspective and distance as you fly through them. -- Joey Ponthieux LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES) Mymic Technical Services NASA Langley Research Center __ Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party. -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage- boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Nancy Jacobs Sent: Monday, June 23, 2014 5:43 PM To: Softimage Listserve Subject: Ideas for star fields? Hello, I'm needing a star field kind of background for a scene, and looking for ideas to create it. I have been using Hubble images wrapped around a sphere, around the scene, but I'm finding it doesn't read well, even with very high- res Hubble images. So, I'm wondering about other ways to create star fields. Has to be 360 degrees, seamlessly -- and I don't have the capability to deal with that in a compositing situation. Soany ideas? Thanks, Nancy
RE: Ideas for star fields?
If you're just going to create a sphere with specks on it, why don't you use an environment shader? That does the same work without having to create a sphere, deal with camera rigs, or mess up your ray depth computations in the render. Matt -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2014 6:25 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Ideas for star fields? Oh and one other thing. You may find that constraining the star field sphere position directly to your camera and forcing the sphere orientation to remain in sync with the scene will produce the best results. Render the stars out as a pass and comp everything over them as the base image. By doing this the stars will always maintain an exact distance from the camera and since stars are such an incredible distance from us in space the illusion is remarkably similar. It will also make the appearance of the stars much more predictable as you can set them for what you want and you no longer have to worry about that appearance changing other than camera orientation. -- Joey Ponthieux LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES) Mymic Technical Services NASA Langley Research Center __ Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party. -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage- boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC- E1A)[LITES] Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2014 9:13 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Ideas for star fields? The problem is that you are using Hubble images. Hubble images are high res and beautiful but often are only representative of a single focal point in space. What you want is a star map that is a cylindrical projection suited for your sphere. You will find the maps you need at this link. In particular the high res Tycho maps are probably what you want. http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a00/a003500/a003572/ When you map these onto your sphere you will notice that the center of your sphere of the focal point of a disc or ring of stars. You'll see the ring form on the inner side of the sphere. There were three maps historically, Tycho, Hipparcos, and Yale. The following links contain them but these do not look like the highest res versions. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/tycho8.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/hipp8.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/yale8.html Each was created at different resolutions and star counts. One is synthetic I think, and that I believe is the Yale map based upon the Tycho catalog. The map is of higher contrast and may lack a lot of the intermediate or diminished stars so it may be useful in some circumstances. You'll have to figure out what the basic appearance is that you are looking for and a combination of the maps may be what you want. As you probably have already discovered, you won't be able to let your camera get too close to the texture surface as the stars will become abnormally large and the illusion will be lost. Its best if you scale the sphere as large as you can and keep the surface as far from the camera as possible to reach the effect you want. If you want a moving starfield, the best way to achieve that is generate a massive field of small triangles set to constant white. The distance apart, size, and randomness will have to be worked out. You can do this as particles as well, but if the particles are set to pixel height you'll lose the sense of perspective and distance as you fly through them. -- Joey Ponthieux LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES) Mymic Technical Services NASA Langley Research Center __ Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party. -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage- boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Nancy Jacobs Sent: Monday, June 23, 2014 5:43 PM To: Softimage Listserve Subject: Ideas for star fields? Hello, I'm needing a star field kind of background for a scene, and looking for ideas to create it. I have been using Hubble images wrapped around a sphere, around the scene, but I'm finding it doesn't read well, even with very high- res Hubble images. So, I'm wondering about other ways to create star fields. Has to be 360 degrees, seamlessly -- and I don't have the capability to deal with that in a compositing situation. Soany ideas? Thanks, Nancy
Re: Ideas for star fields?
Maybe take a look at StarPro plug in for Nuke? http://www.maasdigital.com/starpro/ I never tried it, but at 227$ it's worth to check and you still keep the control in comp. Look at the first video for a little tut on it... hope it helps sly Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM VFX Curriculum 03: Compositing Basics mail to: s...@shedmtl.com On Jun 23, 2014, at 5:42 PM, Nancy Jacobs illus...@mip.net wrote: Hello, I'm needing a star field kind of background for a scene, and looking for ideas to create it. I have been using Hubble images wrapped around a sphere, around the scene, but I'm finding it doesn't read well, even with very high-res Hubble images. So, I'm wondering about other ways to create star fields. Has to be 360 degrees, seamlessly -- and I don't have the capability to deal with that in a compositing situation. Soany ideas? Thanks, Nancy
Re: Ideas for star fields?
Sounds great but I don't have Nuke... Just After Effects with trapcode particular. May be something useful here, but the problem with post comp is that I need to create lights for the scene that correspond to the starlight (as least somewhat). Resulting in a subtle GI lighting from space... Might still work, but I'd probably have to be far more advanced with all this than I am... Or maybe I'm just over thinking it. Thanks! On Jun 24, 2014, at 3:02 PM, Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.com wrote: Maybe take a look at StarPro plug in for Nuke? http://www.maasdigital.com/starpro/ I never tried it, but at 227$ it's worth to check and you still keep the control in comp. Look at the first video for a little tut on it... hope it helps sly Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM am.png VFX Curriculum 03: Compositing Basics mail to: s...@shedmtl.com On Jun 23, 2014, at 5:42 PM, Nancy Jacobs illus...@mip.net wrote: Hello, I'm needing a star field kind of background for a scene, and looking for ideas to create it. I have been using Hubble images wrapped around a sphere, around the scene, but I'm finding it doesn't read well, even with very high-res Hubble images. So, I'm wondering about other ways to create star fields. Has to be 360 degrees, seamlessly -- and I don't have the capability to deal with that in a compositing situation. Soany ideas? Thanks, Nancy
Re: Ideas for star fields?
Good point, if I use expressions to correct the rotation problems re the environment map and any SI world null rotation parameters... They have to be connected in a strange manner, at least as of 2014. Don't imagine they've fixed that... Thanks, Nancy On Jun 24, 2014, at 1:22 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: If you're just going to create a sphere with specks on it, why don't you use an environment shader? That does the same work without having to create a sphere, deal with camera rigs, or mess up your ray depth computations in the render. Matt -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2014 6:25 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Ideas for star fields? Oh and one other thing. You may find that constraining the star field sphere position directly to your camera and forcing the sphere orientation to remain in sync with the scene will produce the best results. Render the stars out as a pass and comp everything over them as the base image. By doing this the stars will always maintain an exact distance from the camera and since stars are such an incredible distance from us in space the illusion is remarkably similar. It will also make the appearance of the stars much more predictable as you can set them for what you want and you no longer have to worry about that appearance changing other than camera orientation. -- Joey Ponthieux LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES) Mymic Technical Services NASA Langley Research Center __ Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party. -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage- boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC- E1A)[LITES] Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2014 9:13 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Ideas for star fields? The problem is that you are using Hubble images. Hubble images are high res and beautiful but often are only representative of a single focal point in space. What you want is a star map that is a cylindrical projection suited for your sphere. You will find the maps you need at this link. In particular the high res Tycho maps are probably what you want. http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a00/a003500/a003572/ When you map these onto your sphere you will notice that the center of your sphere of the focal point of a disc or ring of stars. You'll see the ring form on the inner side of the sphere. There were three maps historically, Tycho, Hipparcos, and Yale. The following links contain them but these do not look like the highest res versions. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/tycho8.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/hipp8.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/yale8.html Each was created at different resolutions and star counts. One is synthetic I think, and that I believe is the Yale map based upon the Tycho catalog. The map is of higher contrast and may lack a lot of the intermediate or diminished stars so it may be useful in some circumstances. You'll have to figure out what the basic appearance is that you are looking for and a combination of the maps may be what you want. As you probably have already discovered, you won't be able to let your camera get too close to the texture surface as the stars will become abnormally large and the illusion will be lost. Its best if you scale the sphere as large as you can and keep the surface as far from the camera as possible to reach the effect you want. If you want a moving starfield, the best way to achieve that is generate a massive field of small triangles set to constant white. The distance apart, size, and randomness will have to be worked out. You can do this as particles as well, but if the particles are set to pixel height you'll lose the sense of perspective and distance as you fly through them. -- Joey Ponthieux LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES) Mymic Technical Services NASA Langley Research Center __ Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party. -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage- boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Nancy Jacobs Sent: Monday, June 23, 2014 5:43 PM To: Softimage Listserve Subject: Ideas for star fields? Hello, I'm needing a star field kind of background for a scene, and looking for ideas to create it. I have been using Hubble images wrapped around a sphere
Re: Ideas for star fields?
Thank you Jason for this awesome texturing advice. I've done a lot in photoshop with tiles and spherical texture maps, so this is my territory. Some of these procedures i'll have to read over a few times to really get completely, so I hope you don't mind if I need to ask a couple questions about them at some point. Thanks! Nancy On Jun 24, 2014, at 2:17 AM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote: In my experience, a textured sphere can work pretty good, You can tile an image (3-4 times on a sphere) with a tilable base star texture (as uniform as possible) large enough to hold enough subtle variations without perceiving patterns (perhaps 1.5-3x the size of your final render res), If you are using Photoshop, from a say 1or2k rez. small-star starfield pic, (to make a 2-3k final pic) you can do a 'filter-offset' by any odd amount, and then breakup the seams to make it tilable -- super-easy specially for stars, you can use a speckly brush clone stamp with high opacity (so no opacity gradient falloffs) and a low brush step, (so 1 stamp at every ~20 pixels on strokes for very random cloning) So you can make a relatively 'mostly uniform ' star map density as a base BG, ( with many-many dim (almost subpixel) stars, a a number of mediums, and really just a couple of bright ones, all with a bit of cloudy variations ) if there arent enough dimer ones, or to add density or (uniformize?), you can use a big clone stamp with that speckle-y brush, but in additive (linear dodge) mode at varying opacity also with that now-tilable pic, you can scale it down 50% tile it 4 times in half opacity (linear dodge) for those many faint BG stars Then, with those hubble pics, you can isolate interesting areas, make the rest transparent, and in 3d, add grids in key spots to add localized cloudy nebula patterns and variations depending on what you're after (with RGB intensity as opacity) If you really need 360 (up down) with a spherical projection, you'll probably want to mix-in a copy of that starfield texture for any stretching at the poles of the sphere. I used a very speckle-y gradient (made of fat noise) with a white to black radial fat noise gradient in the center as an alpha for the same stars texture, to project vertically top down (x-z) You can also blend the star textures somewhat more than 1 in 3d so that some stars can bleed a bit with perhaps an additive blurred version of just those hot pixels. That may be enough on it's own, but if you are moving around (at light speed?) you can also add 3D stars, Adams tips seems like an excellent approach to that :) .. good luck! :) Jason On 06/23/14 17:50, Adam Sale wrote: Do you need nebulae, etc? If its just stars, what about using a static point cloud with spherical / displaced randomized spheres as shape. Randomize color and transparency per point? This would give you the 3d field you are looking for, then perhaps some fluids to do neb clouds, simulated particles for comets, meteors etc.. Perhaps use the hubble images or comp some stills together to make a bg cyclo to pull the 3d elements together? Adam On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 2:42 PM, Nancy Jacobs illus...@mip.net wrote: Hello, I'm needing a star field kind of background for a scene, and looking for ideas to create it. I have been using Hubble images wrapped around a sphere, around the scene, but I'm finding it doesn't read well, even with very high-res Hubble images. So, I'm wondering about other ways to create star fields. Has to be 360 degrees, seamlessly -- and I don't have the capability to deal with that in a compositing situation. Soany ideas? Thanks, Nancy
RE: Ideas for star fields?
You don't need expressions. The rotation can be corrected with a create_transform node: 1) Render [Render] Render Pass Options... 2) In the pass PPG, click the Environment's Add button and choosing Environment shader from the popup dialog. Double click the shader to inspect in a PPG. - choose your image - adjust shader settings as desired. 3) Open scene explorer and press U to inspect the current pass. 4) Select the Environment property under the pass root. 5) Press 7 to open the rendertree. You should see the blue Environment shader connected to the orange current Pass. Your image clip should be connected to the tex input of the environment shader. 6) From the shader presets, click and drag Processing Math Create_transform into the rendertree workspace. Connect its output to the transform input of the environment shader. - adjust transform as desired. Matt -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Nancy Jacobs Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2014 2:27 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Ideas for star fields? Good point, if I use expressions to correct the rotation problems re the environment map and any SI world null rotation parameters... They have to be connected in a strange manner, at least as of 2014. Don't imagine they've fixed that... Thanks, Nancy On Jun 24, 2014, at 1:22 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: If you're just going to create a sphere with specks on it, why don't you use an environment shader? That does the same work without having to create a sphere, deal with camera rigs, or mess up your ray depth computations in the render. Matt -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2014 6:25 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Ideas for star fields? Oh and one other thing. You may find that constraining the star field sphere position directly to your camera and forcing the sphere orientation to remain in sync with the scene will produce the best results. Render the stars out as a pass and comp everything over them as the base image. By doing this the stars will always maintain an exact distance from the camera and since stars are such an incredible distance from us in space the illusion is remarkably similar. It will also make the appearance of the stars much more predictable as you can set them for what you want and you no longer have to worry about that appearance changing other than camera orientation. -- Joey Ponthieux LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES) Mymic Technical Services NASA Langley Research Center __ Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party. -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage- boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC- E1A)[LITES] Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2014 9:13 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Ideas for star fields? The problem is that you are using Hubble images. Hubble images are high res and beautiful but often are only representative of a single focal point in space. What you want is a star map that is a cylindrical projection suited for your sphere. You will find the maps you need at this link. In particular the high res Tycho maps are probably what you want. http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a00/a003500/a003572/ When you map these onto your sphere you will notice that the center of your sphere of the focal point of a disc or ring of stars. You'll see the ring form on the inner side of the sphere. There were three maps historically, Tycho, Hipparcos, and Yale. The following links contain them but these do not look like the highest res versions. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/tycho8.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/hipp8.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/yale8.html Each was created at different resolutions and star counts. One is synthetic I think, and that I believe is the Yale map based upon the Tycho catalog. The map is of higher contrast and may lack a lot of the intermediate or diminished stars so it may be useful in some circumstances. You'll have to figure out what the basic appearance is that you are looking for and a combination of the maps may be what you want. As you probably have already discovered, you won't be able to let your camera get too close to the texture surface as the stars will become abnormally large and the illusion will be lost. Its best if you scale the sphere
Re: Ideas for star fields?
No prob :) Also do early tests (with your live psd as a texture in 'texture decal' view in full screen) to adjust scaling of stars, so that at the final frame res, they arent much smaller than 1 pixel (or not much bigger for that matter) (avoiding any flickering, or avoiding having to have high sampling to avoid flickering) @LucEric As far as I can recall, with that env shader it was not easy to adjust the proportions of bright vs. dark stars to make the procedural stars not look too .. procedural :) J On 06/24/14 17:32, Nancy Jacobs wrote: Thank you Jason for this awesome texturing advice. I've done a lot in photoshop with tiles and spherical texture maps, so this is my territory. Some of these procedures i'll have to read over a few times to really get completely, so I hope you don't mind if I need to ask a couple questions about them at some point. Thanks! Nancy On Jun 24, 2014, at 2:17 AM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote: In my experience, a textured sphere can work pretty good, You can tile an image (3-4 times on a sphere) with a tilable "base star texture" (as uniform as possible) large enough to hold enough subtle variations without perceiving patterns (perhaps 1.5-3x the size of your final render res), If you are using Photoshop, from a say 1or2k rez. small-star starfield pic, (to make a 2-3k final pic) you can do a 'filter-offset' by any odd amount, and then breakup the seams to make it tilable -- super-easy specially for stars, you can use a speckly brush clone stamp with high opacity (so no opacity gradient falloffs) and a low brush step, (so 1 stamp at every ~20 pixels on strokes for very random cloning) So you can make a relatively 'mostly uniform ' star map density as a base BG, ( with many-many dim (almost subpixel) stars, a a number of mediums, and really just a couple of bright ones, all with a bit of cloudy variations ) if there arent enough dimer ones, or to add density or (uniformize?), you can use a big clone stamp with that speckle-y brush, but in additive (linear dodge) mode at varying opacity also with that now-tilable pic, you can scale it down 50% tile it 4 times in half opacity (linear dodge) for those many faint BG stars Then, with those hubble pics, you can isolate interesting areas, make the rest transparent, and in 3d, add grids in key spots to add localized cloudy nebula patterns and variations depending on what you're after (with RGB intensity as opacity) If you really need 360 (up down) with a spherical projection, you'll probably want to mix-in a copy of that starfield texture for any stretching at the poles of the sphere. I used a very speckle-y gradient (made of "fat noise") with a white to black radial "fat noise gradient" in the center as an alpha for the same stars texture, to project vertically top down (x-z) You can also blend the star textures somewhat more than 1 in 3d so that some stars can "bleed" a bit with perhaps an additive blurred version of just those hot pixels. That may be enough on it's own, but if you are moving around (at light speed?) you can also add 3D stars, Adams tips seems like an excellent approach to that :) .. good luck! :) Jason On 06/23/14 17:50, Adam Sale wrote: Do you need nebulae, etc? If its just stars, what about using a static point cloud with spherical / displaced randomized spheres as shape. Randomize color and transparency per point? This would give you the 3d field you are looking for, then perhaps some fluids to do neb clouds, simulated particles for comets, meteors etc.. Perhaps use the hubble images or comp some stills together to make a bg cyclo to pull the 3d elements together? Adam On
Re: Ideas for star fields?
D'oh! YEARS I've wasted not knowing this. And of course now the knowledge has an expiration date. On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 8:11 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: You don't need expressions. The rotation can be corrected with a create_transform node: 1) Render [Render] Render Pass Options... 2) In the pass PPG, click the Environment's Add button and choosing Environment shader from the popup dialog. Double click the shader to inspect in a PPG. - choose your image - adjust shader settings as desired. 3) Open scene explorer and press U to inspect the current pass. 4) Select the Environment property under the pass root. 5) Press 7 to open the rendertree. You should see the blue Environment shader connected to the orange current Pass. Your image clip should be connected to the tex input of the environment shader. 6) From the shader presets, click and drag Processing Math Create_transform into the rendertree workspace. Connect its output to the transform input of the environment shader. - adjust transform as desired. Matt -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Nancy Jacobs Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2014 2:27 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Ideas for star fields? Good point, if I use expressions to correct the rotation problems re the environment map and any SI world null rotation parameters... They have to be connected in a strange manner, at least as of 2014. Don't imagine they've fixed that... Thanks, Nancy On Jun 24, 2014, at 1:22 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: If you're just going to create a sphere with specks on it, why don't you use an environment shader? That does the same work without having to create a sphere, deal with camera rigs, or mess up your ray depth computations in the render. Matt -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2014 6:25 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Ideas for star fields? Oh and one other thing. You may find that constraining the star field sphere position directly to your camera and forcing the sphere orientation to remain in sync with the scene will produce the best results. Render the stars out as a pass and comp everything over them as the base image. By doing this the stars will always maintain an exact distance from the camera and since stars are such an incredible distance from us in space the illusion is remarkably similar. It will also make the appearance of the stars much more predictable as you can set them for what you want and you no longer have to worry about that appearance changing other than camera orientation. -- Joey Ponthieux LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES) Mymic Technical Services NASA Langley Research Center __ Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party. -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage- boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC- E1A)[LITES] Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2014 9:13 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Ideas for star fields? The problem is that you are using Hubble images. Hubble images are high res and beautiful but often are only representative of a single focal point in space. What you want is a star map that is a cylindrical projection suited for your sphere. You will find the maps you need at this link. In particular the high res Tycho maps are probably what you want. http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a00/a003500/a003572/ When you map these onto your sphere you will notice that the center of your sphere of the focal point of a disc or ring of stars. You'll see the ring form on the inner side of the sphere. There were three maps historically, Tycho, Hipparcos, and Yale. The following links contain them but these do not look like the highest res versions. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/tycho8.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/hipp8.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/yale8.html Each was created at different resolutions and star counts. One is synthetic I think, and that I believe is the Yale map based upon the Tycho catalog. The map is of higher contrast and may lack a lot of the intermediate or diminished stars so it may be useful in some circumstances. You'll have to figure out what the basic appearance is that you are looking for and a combination of the maps may be what you want. As you probably have
Re: Ideas for star fields?
Ohhh but there is an AFX plug in too!!... Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM VFX Curriculum 03: Compositing Basics mail to: s...@shedmtl.com On Jun 24, 2014, at 5:23 PM, Nancy Jacobs illus...@mip.net wrote: 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8
Re: Ideas for star fields?
also Lighting form a starfield is a bit futile You got sun.and not much else... It can be played by eyes easly Check out for the After effects plug in then!! sly Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM VFX Curriculum 03: Compositing Basics mail to: s...@shedmtl.com On Jun 24, 2014, at 10:38 PM, Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.com wrote: Ohhh but there is an AFX plug in too!!... Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM am.png VFX Curriculum 03: Compositing Basics mail to: s...@shedmtl.com On Jun 24, 2014, at 5:23 PM, Nancy Jacobs illus...@mip.net wrote: 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8
Re: Ideas for star fields?
Plus mistery soft light from a galaxies that always happens to be somewhere around so that there may be light, with dust in space so we can see lazers :) On 06/24/14 22:42, Sylvain Lebeau wrote: also Lighting form a starfield is a bit futile You got sun.and not much else... It can be played by eyes easly Check out for the After effects plug in then!! sly Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM VFX Curriculum 03: Compositing Basics mail to: s...@shedmtl.com On Jun 24, 2014, at 10:38 PM, Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.com wrote: Ohhh but there is an AFX plug in too!!... Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM am.png VFX Curriculum 03: Compositing Basics mail to: s...@shedmtl.com On Jun 24, 2014, at 5:23 PM, Nancy Jacobs illus...@mip.net wrote: 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8
Re: Ideas for star fields?
On Jun 25, 2014, at 12:14 AM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote: Plus mistery soft light from a galaxies that always happens to be somewhere around so that there may be light, with dust in space so we can see lazers :) That's what I'm counting on! That Mystery soft light. Since what I'm doing can have a bit of 'artistic license' ;-)... Though I am making it generally correspond to the starfield light. After all, one can see in old paintings the 'heavenly light' thing... Where you don't really question where it comes from too much if it works in the painting... (ok so I'm a painter first after all... ;-)) Nancy
Ideas for star fields?
Hello, I'm needing a star field kind of background for a scene, and looking for ideas to create it. I have been using Hubble images wrapped around a sphere, around the scene, but I'm finding it doesn't read well, even with very high-res Hubble images. So, I'm wondering about other ways to create star fields. Has to be 360 degrees, seamlessly -- and I don't have the capability to deal with that in a compositing situation. Soany ideas? Thanks, Nancy
Re: Ideas for star fields?
Do you need nebulae, etc? If its just stars, what about using a static point cloud with spherical / displaced randomized spheres as shape. Randomize color and transparency per point? This would give you the 3d field you are looking for, then perhaps some fluids to do neb clouds, simulated particles for comets, meteors etc.. Perhaps use the hubble images or comp some stills together to make a bg cyclo to pull the 3d elements together? Adam On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 2:42 PM, Nancy Jacobs illus...@mip.net wrote: Hello, I'm needing a star field kind of background for a scene, and looking for ideas to create it. I have been using Hubble images wrapped around a sphere, around the scene, but I'm finding it doesn't read well, even with very high-res Hubble images. So, I'm wondering about other ways to create star fields. Has to be 360 degrees, seamlessly -- and I don't have the capability to deal with that in a compositing situation. Soany ideas? Thanks, Nancy
Re: Ideas for star fields?
Thanks Adam, this is a great idea, and something I'm not used to doing, so I will have to learn more. Would it be best to do this with ice? Or just basic particles? As for fluidsam I missing somethingdo we have fluids in Softimage these days...? Nebula clouds would be perfect, as I need some interest, and something to account for more light happening in the scene. Basically, my scene is floating about in space... Anything you can point me to to learn more about these processes? Even just topic keywords to explore would help. Thanks very much! Nancy On Jun 23, 2014, at 5:50 PM, Adam Sale adamfs...@gmail.com wrote: Do you need nebulae, etc? If its just stars, what about using a static point cloud with spherical / displaced randomized spheres as shape. Randomize color and transparency per point? This would give you the 3d field you are looking for, then perhaps some fluids to do neb clouds, simulated particles for comets, meteors etc.. Perhaps use the hubble images or comp some stills together to make a bg cyclo to pull the 3d elements together? Adam On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 2:42 PM, Nancy Jacobs illus...@mip.net wrote: Hello, I'm needing a star field kind of background for a scene, and looking for ideas to create it. I have been using Hubble images wrapped around a sphere, around the scene, but I'm finding it doesn't read well, even with very high-res Hubble images. So, I'm wondering about other ways to create star fields. Has to be 360 degrees, seamlessly -- and I don't have the capability to deal with that in a compositing situation. Soany ideas? Thanks, Nancy
