Creek

[otakar]

There's some color variation, per object seems like (unless those are distinct populations of course).

[Dune]

I don't know if I may tell the grass's secret, but it's not the variation, and it's not an inbuilt grass. They are two homegrown grasses, and the new feature is still alpha, but a great addition to the next update. You'll find out if you look carefully to the creeks edges 

Nice update, Martin. I like the stones, but you encountered the same problem as I did when applying smoothing, namely that the creek bed changed in appearance (hence the ridge). The ridge is a cool extra indeed, but to the left there's a strange sharp shadow, which I do not like very much. It wouldn't be natural under flowing water, or it must have just been broken off. But I'll dive into the creek again (would be nice, wouldn't it  ).

Anyway, this is my update, where I noticed another 'bug'. The edge of the render, be it a crop or total render (!), doesn't do the fine ridges I had under water. It's based on a get position, maybe that's the problem?

[Tangled-Universe]

That's a pretty weird edge...let's take a look at that...

[inkydigit]

apart from the glitches, this is awesome!

[Dune]

The thing that would enhance the water's quality is some sort of 'adhesion factor'; whenever the water hits something only just (a couple of mm) under its level, it's level should slightly increase. I say this because at hard edges like on the left, the edge IS hard, and has an unnatural feel. But that's virtually impossible, I guess. I've tried getting that effect by using the ground as a displacement factor for the water and then smoothing it with some height restrictions, but it was hard going.
In the meantime I've made another swallow, with it's wings down, for some variety.

[Dune]

Thanks to Martin for his addition of the stones. They worked great when smoothing the last surface layer (stones), but I didn't like the hard edge, so I fiddled on. I found a way to annihilate that smoothing artifact by adding a negative smooth before the positive smooth, sort of. As you can see it works. Only some stones now hit the surface in the creek center a bit upstream, but that's fine with me.

Took 3.5 hours at Q0.55, AA 4 and GI 1/1 prepass with 3 fill lights.

[choronr]

Now this is looking best. Would try a slight reduction of reflectivity though.

[Tangled-Universe]

This looks great!
I think you have sorted out the ripples very well. The size is excellent.
Pity that the water shader's ripples don't have the same "rotation".
Something you can't help I believe, since you can't get "vertical" ripples in TG2 somehow.
They are always facing horizontal related to the camera.

[reck]

Dune what are the grass models you're using for this image? They look really good and the lighting makes them look very realistic and they have a different "feel" to a lot of the grass models I have.

Great overall image btw.

[Saurav]

This is a very natural looking scene. The creek, grass and the creek banks all look very good.

[Dune]

Thanks guys.
@Martin, regarding

Pity that the water shader's ripples don't have the same "rotation".
Something you can't help I believe, since you can't get "vertical" ripples in TG2 somehow.
They are always facing horizontal related to the camera.

: I did rotate them (so it is possible, check the file if you will), but I wanted the sand ripples kind of perpendicular to the stream, and the water ripples dependent upon the wind, which (I think) is coming from the Northwest (if facing North). So they are different on purpose.
@Reck: I made these two models, they are very simple actually. I think there are a lot of (free) grasses about that are at least this quality, it all depends on the lighting I suppose. What I did do in the latter iteration is restrict the reflectivity on the leaves to the first 20 meters or so (distance shader). In the earlier renders the far away highlights in the grass bothered me.

[Redwolf]

looks like my grass models, but I know i havent uploaded grass models yet!!...anyway now i see this thread as i dont come in here often...everything looks great, the birds are too small? there again i dont know what they are and could be same size as wrens

[Dune]

the birds are too small

They're House Martins (swallows), 12.5 cm long, and very much the right size.

[Henry Blewer]

That's interesting. I never have liked too much specular highlights in my renders. I have always thought that it should decrease with the distance because of the atmosphere. (Unless something is metallic maybe). It never occurred to me to add a distance shader to solve this. I have been adding more haze, which does not always look right with low sun angles.

[Dune]

You learn something everyday, huh? It just occurred to me a couple of days ago. But even the simplest things just have to come up some moment.... just like negative smoothing (which increases the former displacement), which I found out some time ago, but now came in handy. But you (I) sometimes tend to forget previously learned things as well.