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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