A Tribute to Opportunity and her Epic Journey, Flying Over Endeavour Crater |
A Tribute to Opportunity and her Epic Journey, Flying Over Endeavour Crater |
Aug 28 2011, 03:19 PM
Post
#16
|
|
Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 90 Joined: 23-February 09 From: Edmonton, Alberta Member No.: 4611 |
I'm guessing you don't spend a lot of time watching television in your spare time
Fantastic work |
|
|
Aug 28 2011, 03:39 PM
Post
#17
|
|
Member Group: Members Posts: 808 Joined: 3-June 04 From: Brittany, France Member No.: 79 |
Absolutely amazing ! The HiRISE team will certainly be interested by the programming you did !
Let's hope you will succeed in solving the "color" issue ! -------------------- |
|
|
Aug 28 2011, 04:45 PM
Post
#18
|
|
Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14431 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
I know just how hard that was to do.... it's breathtaking. Congrats!
|
|
|
Aug 28 2011, 05:12 PM
Post
#19
|
|
Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8783 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
Absolutely wondrous, Nirgal; thank you so much for sharing it with us!!!
-------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
|
|
|
Aug 28 2011, 05:30 PM
Post
#20
|
|
Forum Contributor Group: Members Posts: 1372 Joined: 8-February 04 From: North East Florida, USA. Member No.: 11 |
Stupendous.
|
|
|
Aug 28 2011, 08:36 PM
Post
#21
|
|
Member Group: Members Posts: 796 Joined: 27-February 08 From: Heart of Europe Member No.: 4057 |
It's gorgeous work!
-------------------- |
|
|
Guest_Oersted_* |
Aug 28 2011, 10:46 PM
Post
#22
|
Guests |
Thanks for your comprehensive explanations Nirgal!
In addition to that I tend to use settings of my simulated camera and darkroom that result in contrast enhancement I think that this particular facet of your post-processing should be toned down a little bit. I love the low-sun angle and the vertiginous lens work, but I think the very punchy contrasts are probably a bit overdone. A small "artistic" suggestion: when you come down from up high with your camera you could maybe fly through a few of those wispy high clouds we have seen in MER images. Would be a good effect to complement your lower ground-hugging fog layers and atmosphere opacity. Can't wait to see more of your amazing work! |
|
|
Aug 28 2011, 10:56 PM
Post
#23
|
|
Member Group: Members Posts: 235 Joined: 2-August 05 Member No.: 451 |
Very nice. What software tools did you use to make it?
|
|
|
Aug 28 2011, 11:12 PM
Post
#24
|
|
Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 94 Joined: 22-May 08 From: Loughborough Member No.: 4121 |
Good grief, that's astonishing and inspirational - great stuff!
|
|
|
Aug 29 2011, 12:24 AM
Post
#25
|
|
IMG to PNG GOD Group: Moderator Posts: 2250 Joined: 19-February 04 From: Near fire and ice Member No.: 38 |
Wow, this is stunning, very near the top of my list of impressive stuff I've seen here.
The DEM is extremely detailed and realistic and in addition, the shading algorithm seems to result in something that looks very realistic. The lack of software and/or hardware that can handle *lots* of triangles is a familiar problem. |
|
|
Aug 29 2011, 05:44 AM
Post
#26
|
|
Member Group: Members Posts: 139 Joined: 14-October 05 From: Toronto, Canada Member No.: 529 |
Beautiful....and breathtaking. Can't wait for the colour.
-------------------- -- Robin
|
|
|
Aug 29 2011, 08:31 AM
Post
#27
|
|
Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 41 Joined: 18-September 09 Member No.: 4946 |
I'm inpressed and amazed!
Beautiful! Absolutely beautiful! Thank you! |
|
|
Aug 29 2011, 04:48 PM
Post
#28
|
|
Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 60 Joined: 1-August 06 From: Vienna, Austria Member No.: 1002 |
Großartig!!
Truly awesome......words fail me. The sheer beauty.... Has to be one the best planetary animations I've ever seen. Fantastic work! |
|
|
Aug 29 2011, 09:29 PM
Post
#29
|
|
Member Group: Members Posts: 713 Joined: 30-March 05 Member No.: 223 |
Thanks again for all the overwhelming feedback and comments that is greatly appreciated and very encouraging to continue with this work
In the following I will try to answer some technical questions that came up: What software tools did you use to make it? The main processing chain ( 3D model generation and rendering/raytracing ) is all self-written C/C++ software. (though with a rather ugly and spartanic command-line user-interface but specially tuned to manage 3D models consisting of a dozen billion polygons, which I found none of the existing programs could handle :-/ For the pre-processing and preparation of the raw data (map-projection) I use the great ISIS3 package (freely available from USGS). Nothing special for post-processing: Photoshop for still images and the usual video encoders (ffmpeg) for turning the rendered image sequences into movies. QUOTE Do you use a flat plane or a sphere (to represent Mars curvature) as the base? just a flat base with a simple trick to simulate a curved horizon on-the-fly within the raytracer by subtracting a curvature-correction-value (based on the distance to the observer) from the current height above the flat base, while advancing the viewing ray away from the observer through the geometry's bounding volume hierarchy. |
|
|
Aug 29 2011, 09:39 PM
Post
#30
|
|
Member Group: Members Posts: 713 Joined: 30-March 05 Member No.: 223 |
... I love the low-sun angle and the vertiginous lens work, but I think the very punchy contrasts are probably a bit overdone. Yes, this is a good point. Part of the problem (apart from my not always resisting the temptation of turning the knobs too much lies in the general difficulty of preparing images to look equally good on different output devices (google "gamma-correction" ) Incidently, I just now found out that the video does look quite different (too crisp and too contrasty indeed) on monitors other than the good old "warm & soft" analog CRT display that I normally use. Another problem is video compression: After uploading to youtube, I found that the encoding/compression caused further contrast and gamma correction to the point that many subtle details in shadowed areas got lost. As for the cloud layers: yes this is something quite high on my TODO-list. But here, too, one should be careful not to overdo it: I once saw an animation involving artifical Mars clouds that looked very unnatural (way too "earth-like"). It will be a challenge to simulate the very faint and subtle appearance of the clouds as I imagine them to look like on Mars in reality. |
|
|
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 2nd April 2024 - 02:00 AM |
RULES AND GUIDELINES Please read the Forum Rules and Guidelines before posting. IMAGE COPYRIGHT |
OPINIONS AND MODERATION Opinions expressed on UnmannedSpaceflight.com are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of UnmannedSpaceflight.com or The Planetary Society. The all-volunteer UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderation team is wholly independent of The Planetary Society. The Planetary Society has no influence over decisions made by the UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderators. |
SUPPORT THE FORUM Unmannedspaceflight.com is funded by the Planetary Society. Please consider supporting our work and many other projects by donating to the Society or becoming a member. |