Geo-Control: New, Affordable 3D Terrain Technology

Soniclight wrote on 9/8/2007, 6:06 PM
Note:

IMPORTANT (later edit): I couldn't resist downloading the demo, and I've just realized that while indeed a stand-alone program, this application's new technology is geared towards exporting files in native formats for other 3D progs.

However it does export in TGA for Vue, so I tried it in Vegas, but...any output from GeoControl still needs to be used in an other 3D terrain app.

So I kind of jumped the gun here, My apologies. I couldn't delete the this post since others had already replied to it.

But I will say that GeoControl is fast at rendering.

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I discovered him as a fellow member at Renderosity.com.

Rosenberg lives in Heidelberg, Germany and is considered one of the masters of elegant and realistic 3D terrain work, both artistic and corporate. After many years of working and teaching, he's teamed up with some guys and came out with GeoControl last year.

Version 2 is about to be released some time this year. Currently at 59 Euros. Considering what one can do with it, it's a steal.

For those familiar with 3D terrain generators, they may reply, "Well, Terragen is the grand-daddy of them all and still free for certain applications. There are other progs such as Carrara, Vue, etc. too."

All true, but most of these are very difficult to master and apart from Terragen, not cheap and varying in quality. He's worked with just about every major 3D prog out there.

The sense I get from Rosenberg is that he understands how daunting this kind of visual magic can be for most "lay" people. So he came up with a new technology to simplify things without sacrificing quality and realism.

He also has a reputation of being a very friendly and helpful fellow. A good teacher, and from what I garner, the documentation and support is stellar.

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All that said...

To be forthcoming, I've got my hands full with getting better at Vegas and Particleillusion and have as of yet not dared to make my own landscapes. But I'll probably won't be able to resist eventually considering the type of film I am slowly developing.

Rosenberg's GeoControl will most likely be the pool in which I will dive.

As most of us have favorite film-makers and others that we look up to and learn from, he's one of mine. So figured I'd share the info. Even if it may ultimately be of little interest to most here.

Or, maybe I'm wrong about that. Fellow members here have turned me on to great applications, so no crime in potentially doing likewise :)

GeoControl

Comments

farss wrote on 9/8/2007, 6:23 PM
The link is broken.

Bryce is free (the older versions) and a snap to use, pretty basic compared to the others but I've got usefull stuff out of it, sure cannot complain for the price. With it you get Daz Studio, I think you'll enjoy it.

I spent an afternoon with one of the free Studio models (Dragonfish) making it 'fly', bought that into Vegas along with a freebie from Artbeats, did some masking using Vegas's beziers and had my Dragonfish flying through the clouds. Lots of fun but a good way to chew up serious hours.

The brains behind Bryce and Studio has been around for decades.

Bob.
Soniclight wrote on 9/8/2007, 6:33 PM
Farss,

You must have clicked on the link seconds before I corrected the coding :)

I know of Bryce though never used it. Yet. The reason I'm partial to this kind of app is that I'm nuts about awe-inspiring landscapes, not 3D object modeling.

I have nothing against dragonflies -- or a myriad of other amazing come-to-life subjects, but they are not on the casting list for my lil' movie :)

A lot of 3D modeling is exceptional, but still "3D' looking, IMO. I'm just wanting to trying to cheat in my landscapes fly-overs by inserting scenes that would look as real as possible, if not more so.

And you're right, whatever way one goes, this 3D stuff is time-consuming, GeoControl or not.
jaegersing wrote on 9/8/2007, 6:38 PM
Haven't tried Bryce for years. does it still take forever to render?
farss wrote on 9/8/2007, 6:47 PM
Haven't tried Bryce for years. does it still take forever to render?

Depends on the resolution, GPU and the amount of AA you want.
Keep in mind it can output all the standard film formats, select those and you can wait a LONG time for animations to render.
farss wrote on 9/8/2007, 6:57 PM
The reason I'm partial to this kind of app is that I'm nuts about awe-inspiring landscapes, not 3D object modeling.

Bryce is specifically for landscapes. I've managed to mung it to do other things. Animated flyovers are doable and you can read in geodisic survey maps so your landscape is real, if need be.

Keep in mind for animation all these kinds of apps really gobble up a lot of CPU cycles, especially in HD. Bryce does some very clever cheating compared to say how Maya would make you do it, really depends how photorealistic you want it.


Bob.
Soniclight wrote on 9/8/2007, 7:03 PM
All that considered, i.e. loooooooooooong rendering in final output forms and my later edit of the initial post, looks like I may have to go back to my initial plan:

--- Once the film is ready for it, I'm going to contact people like Rosenberg and see if I can get permission to include some of their fly-throughs.

I have to accept my brain's limitations -- this stuff isn't easy to do for someone like me., even in GeoControl.
farss wrote on 9/8/2007, 7:19 PM
I was about to point this out to you!

Seriously trying to build a big enough landscape in Bryce or whatever to fly over is a non trivial task, even with massive computation at your fingertips. That's just to build / model the thing, heaven forbid that you want to render it.
But it gets worse, not everyithing in a real landscape is static, imagine you wanted a waterfall, now you need physics and fluids, even in Maya these are specialised areas. I don't know the latest state of play in this area however a lot of the background plates that were used in Star Wars and LOR etc are digital paintings, not CGI. The difference may seem trivial on the big screen, the difference in how they're created is not. Digital paintings are painted pretty much frame by frame, it might be digital but it's not really much different to the old school cell animation.

I'd suggest you sign up to Artbeats, they give away the odd feebie, I've got a few aerial flyovers that I've used. Bide your time and you might get what you want for nothing and nothing beats a real camera flying over a real landscape.

Bob.
PixelStuff wrote on 9/8/2007, 8:45 PM
How about affordable camera tracking?

While we are talking about artificial landscapes has anyone come across a free method of locking the terrain to live footage (as a set extension)?

My current commercial preference is SynthEyes, but the cheaper the better when it's a once a year or hobby use.

Soniclight wrote on 9/8/2007, 9:19 PM
Farss,

Thanks for Art Beats referral. I signed up and was lucky with their freebie for the day...

A pretty nicely done cloud fly-through. Serendipity strikes :)

I'm not in any position to afford their rather reasonable prices at this juncture for clips, but good to have one more resource for the future. But with freebies like that, I ain't complaining.

Besides, one can always learn things from looking at clips, too. From brief observation so far, looks like there is some decent stuff there.
PentoStefano wrote on 9/9/2007, 5:48 AM
try this voodoo camera traker free

http://www.digilab.uni-hannover.de/download.html

CIAO