New Eden WIP

[Markal]

Before I re-work this I wanted thoughts and suggestions as you guys have helped me to improve things in my images that I never thought of...so, here it is....New Eden WIP. I have to find out what caused the black in the cliffs. The cattails also need to have more of a presence in the front left. (I used the painted shader for distribution).
    Is there some way to make the water ripple only down the center of the river and no ripples in the shallows or around the banks???
    Should I add a planet to make it other-worldly, after all I am a space art fanatic???
All thoughts, suggestions and inputs would be greatly appreciated. Just be prepared, I may ask you how.
This is a low quality render...Detail .4, AA 8, GI detail and quality 2. Ratio at 1.5,  1425 x 950.  Yeah, it rendered very fast.
Once finalized I'll give credit to all the object and clip file creators used in this image.
Thanks!
Mark

[Dune]

It already is a bit other-worldly, hobbit country, sort of. As this is a low q render, I won't advise you to get rid of the grain in the sky. Perhaps lighten up the clouds a bit (ambient 0.1-0.2), I like the inversed profile. For ripples, why not use another painted shader? That the easiest.
The black stuff is perhaps too small/extreme displacements?

[inkydigit]

digging this Mark, the clouds are very cool looking, and the mood and terrain are intriguing....

[Kadri]

Interesting image. The plants look like they are grown over old ruins of some sort to me. Nice

[jamfull]

Really interesting clouds here. They look upside down or like gravity is pulling them down.

James

[TheBadger]

Hi Mark,
You have something really great happening here. Consider the painting at this link: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights_by_Bosch_High_Resolution.jpg

If you takeout the background that you have and make it look like your foreground, and then render a pano, I think you will have something really interesting.

Checkout the link, its high res, so zoom in! I think you will see some similarities

Good stuff man

[choronr]

Looking somewhat topical. I would be tempted to add some low fog (not too dense) over the vegetation and the lake. Not sure about the clouds; but, that is a matter of taste - but then, it is an alien place and anything is possible.

[:)]

natural law will work in all places, and any planet with air. good picture I would delete a couple trees with trunks underground or raise

[Jonathan]

To me this is Narnian The whole thing comes together very nicely....with a titel of Eden, I wonder whether the water should be more inviting? Maybe more blue than brown with maybe an otherworldly boat coming into view. Clouds are fantastic and the feeling of depth very convincing. Well done!

[Dm7]

I really like the cloud, how they are seemingly untamed and swirly! That's my favorite part of your scene. It feels out of world already just cuz of that so I don't think adding other planet is necessary. I'm afraid I don't have much else to say, I'm still new to tg2 (and to this forum too) so to speak. However lastly, but not at least, I love how the water is semi transparent!