Burning Sky

[Markal]

Well, there it is...now I need to know what you honestly think of it.....
Thanks,
Mark

[TheBadger]

Negative:
Concerning the terrain, the most interesting terrain feature is the towers. But the group in the center of the image is all but completely black, It creates a very uncomfortable negative space, and compositional imbalance. The Blacks are to black.
The towers in the distance look much better!
Given the sky, I would say you should have no problem justifying a new light, to illuminate the towers in the center better.

The sky/background image is great. But the transition from one side to the other feels just a little too abrupt.

Positive:
You have a clearly distinct and attractive style in your images. This one is no exception. Its a beauty with just a few problems.
Great science fiction with a clear love for the golden age. I like it.

[Dune]

Agreed. Halfway up it's great, but the lower half is too simple. You could do much better on that, Mark. I think if you make that terrain less stark, more natural, the whole scene will become much more believable.

[Mr_Lamppost]

I quite like the terrain, I don't think it out of place that it looks slightly unnatural.  However I do agree that the darks are too dark which an added fill light would fix.

[alessandro]

Nice image, any hint on how you made that awesome background?

[Markal]

Thanks for the suggestions and I especially like  "TheBadger"  response of Negative and Positive....I think we should all respond to images in this manner. Pros and Cons....wow....very helpful and I think most would appreciate both sides. Sometimes we get lost in our own images and overlook the simple things and see only what we want to see....we also grow complacent and focus on a few things....other artists see things differently and can suggest changes that bring out a bigger and better work of art....just what artists want and need. Thanks so much!

Here is version 2 (posted) actually my 3rd version of this image....please, once again remark on the pros and cons or negatives and positives. I think its very close to completion....what do you think?

A rendered (artist unknown) space image was placed as an image map in the MoodFlow starfield background clip file for the background. Three plant files and two rock files were used with 6 shader files. My "Seattle Round" 2049 World Machine terrain combined with a TG fractal terrain formed the landscape. Thanks!

[Dune]

Pro: much much better, especially the lighting.
Cons: the specularity on the foreground's small displacements. Either remove the tiny displacements, make them larger, and/or decrease specularity.

[TheBadger]

Looks a lot better to me too.

At this point I think its just a question of tweaking light, contrast/softness. Perhaps a little more could be done to get a bit more light into the blacks. But a big improvement over all.

Personally I liked the blue planet more than the red/orange. But thats just me. I like the coolness of the other one. But I do like the warmth of the main planet. The blue in the moon helped it fall into the background. But this new color pops to much forward, so to speak.

[Mr_Lamppost]

I'm with Dune, the foreground specular fireflies need to go. 

I liked the tonal quality of the initial blue plant but the added detail on the orange one sells it to me.  That little bit of light in the shadows has made all the difference.  I totally agree with you about Plus and Minus comments /suggestions, we are all different and work in different ways and styles so there is no "Right" way to do things just suggestions.  Fixes for technical issues are a different matter but even then there are often several ways to fix / work around a problem.

I am so glad you made the terrain in World Machine, need to recover my license, I didn't want to think about how to make that in TG and I know my way around the blue boxes

[choronr]

I love the crits and positive comments here at this forum. I've learned more in a few years than I ever have in the past several.

Keep on Mark, the second image is loads of improvement.

[Kadri]

Nice suggestions here.
I like the second image.

I have trouble integrating background images too mostly.

It is not what i like or do , but you could try to comp the background in post to have more control for example.

What i do mostly is i touch up the background part in post after rendering .
Using Photoshop could be more helpful maybe after that stage.
Depends on the kind of image you want to make but,
try using the dodge tool in Photoshop or similar package to brightening some pale parts of the background and some of the stars.
Or duplicate the layer and use higher contrast only on the background parts etc.
If you don't overdue it sometimes it makes quite a difference Mark.

I use mostly space images that have very few stars or not at all.
If i like an image and it does have many stars i erase most of them.
Maybe it is me but i thing mostly the part that stand outs bad in those kind of images are the stars.
I use them sparingly and put them in post if needed.
Images that are out of the atmosphere are more easy to do but they can have the same kind of problems.

Not sure if i said anything new to you Mark.