Turtleback Ridge

[Henry Blewer]

I have been working with strata and displacements again. Domdib inspired me with his latest awesomely displaced image.

A few more plants, and some more color in the rocks should finish this one.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/njeneb/5127913103/sizes/l/in/photostream/

[domdib]

Henry, nice to know I inspired you! Interesting displacements yourself! And the colours are striking too. I'd be inclined to suggest a soil layer, but the problem is that would hide the nice foreground displacements 

[Henry Blewer]

I added some more color variation to the darker 'highlight' rock. I think this is how I want the coloration to look.
There is a soil layer, but it's partially covered by the 'grasses' layer. I turned off the vegetation for this test render.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/njeneb/5129194247/sizes/o/

[domdib]

Very nice colours.

[Henry Blewer]

The first row has started to render. The GI calculations are done.

[Saurav]

The surfacing work on the rocks is really good.

[rcallicotte]

GREAT lighting.  Love the texturing and good point of view.

[FrankB]

very good, Henry, very good! 

[Henry Blewer]

Finished the render. I did this in 2 crops. I am going to post the tgd in the file sharing area for anyone who may be interested.

Walli's Plant Pack Pines
Dry Bush Pack from NWDA

http://www.flickr.com/photos/njeneb/5139587034/sizes/o/

The tgd file can be found here.
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=11065.msg113438#msg113438

[Henry Blewer]

Don't look at the bottom left corner of the image. I shrank the water object too far.

[domdib]

Ah yes, the dreaded straight line of water. So you aren't using dandelO's painted shader solution for water? It definitely saves render time.

As I said before, I really like the colours on this one, and the close-up displacements also stand up well, so it's cool that you've shared the file. It makes me think that perhaps we should have a "Surfacing Library" in the File Sharing section, where good solutions for rock, soil and other suface colouring and micro-displacements could be archived for easy access. What say you, Forum admins and other Terrageneers?

[FrankB]

Hi Henry, to be honest the first version was better. From surfacing to POV, I liked it better. Hard to put my finger on it specifically, though...

[Henry Blewer]

I can probably put my finger on it Frank. It's the gray pebbley surface that bothers you. I did not use lateral displacement, it's a normal displacement. So instead of the surface being smoother, it appears a tiny bit exploded. I was trying to make loose gravel here. It did not quite come off.

[choronr]

I like the first scene the best with its colors and high quality terrain features. Only one suggestion would be is to address the tree scale - especially those in the distance.