Getting Started with VNS 2 Part 6D. Lakes & Streams


100. The stream will have foliage we'd like to see, so open the popup menu, and select Render Options > Land Cover > Other Foliage to render Foliage Objects.

101. That will include the Pine Burn Ecosystem, so expand the Ecosystems in the lower Scene-At-A-Glance and disable it.

102. Go to the Water Task Mode and select the Streams category. Add Component from Gallery.

103. Load the Small Stream.

104. Find the Stream Vector in the lower Scene-At-A-Glance and Copy Component.

105. Expand the Streams category in the upper Scene-At-A-Glance. Select the Small Stream Component and Paste Component. Confirm the operation.

106. Save the project and render a preview.

107. The stream is not rendering in all of the stream bed. While the Stream Terraffector radius is 15 meters, the Small Stream Component Effect Radius is only about 7 meters.

108. Increase it to 16 meters.

109. Save the project and render a preview.

110. The Small Stream elevation is too high where it enters the Lake. According to the Diagnostic Data, the Stream elevation is about 2065.3 meters at the confluence relative to the Lake's is 2064. That makes the stream about 1.3 meters too high.

111. Go to the Water Material > Depth tab and drop the Water Depth another 1.3 meters to -1.6. Your elevations may be different, so you'll have to adjust your Water Depth accordingly.

112. Save the project and render a preview.

113. Like Lakes, Streams have Beaches. On the Beach Gradient page, the Small Stream Component shows 2 Materials, Mud and Water Plants. Placement is driven by a Material Gradient texture.

114. Edit Texture, and we see that Water Depth is the controlling Dynamic Parameter.

115. At a water depth of 0 meters, Mud is rendered. At water depths of 0.5 meters and deeper, Water Plants are rendered.

116. On the Beach Materials page, the Mud Material is a Diffuse Color texture and the Water Plants Material renders a Diffuse Color and Ecotype.

117. Edit the Overstory Ecotype, turn to the Groups page, and we see it's made up of Cattails and Grass Clumps.

118. Enable the Pine Burn Ecosystem.

119. Let's see how the Lake View with trees. Save the project and render a preview.

120. We're close enough to the foliage that we really notice the lack of shadows. Go to the Light Task Mode, select the Shadows category, and Create.

121. We're creating a new Shadow with an attached Vector. We don't need to use a vector to bound a Shadow Component, but it saves rendering time and increases Shadow quality.

122. Zoom back a notch in the Plan view and digitize a polygon around the Lake View Camera view area.

123. Name it Lake View and confirm the operation. Close out the Component Gallery.

124. Reset the Shadow Resolution.

125. On the Cast Shadows page, select Cast. This controls the casting of shadows by terrain and foliage. Shadow casting of 3D Objects and Clouds is controlled by their respective Editors.

126. The Receive Shadows page determines what shadows will be received by the terrain.

127. Save the project and render a preview. The Status window will show that Shadow calculations have been added to rendering.

128. We may not need them here, but more accurate Shadows are rendered using Fractal Depth Maps. Go to the Terrain Parameter Editor and select Fractal Maps.

129. Fractal Depth Maps are calculated using enabled Render Job Cameras, so let's add the Lake View Camera to a Render Job. Go to the Render Task Mode and expand the Render Jobs category. Open the YNP Render Job.

130. It's using the YNP Main Camera, so change it to the Lake View Camera.

131. Go back to the Terrain Parameter Editor and Create Fractal Maps.

132. Start with frame 0 and end at frame 0.

133. VNS will make a Maximum Fractal Depth suggestion, but we'll use 5 to bring out detail in the foreground water.

134. Open another Lake View Camera view in the upper right view.

135. Save the project and render a preview.

136. By default, Shadows are recalculated for each render. That's good, since changes to Lights, foliage, and terrain mean Shadow changes. Once we're done moving Lights and the foliage is set, Use File will calculate the Shadow Map once, save it, and use it for subsequent renders. This saves a lot of render time.



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