Sportsman Cottage - Closeup

[masonspappy]

Still a WIP - a zoom-in from 'The Sportsman's Cabin' with the cabin getting a major upgrade. Log walls replaced with brick, stronger 3-D aspects, and added a few small elements.  This is one of several images being used to  test 3-D plants that are designed with a program that a former co-worker is writing.   I've been surprised with the ease and quality of the plants produced.  Two of them are used here (Not the flowers or ivy on the chimney).  They mesh perfectly with the xFrog models.  Prakash has this idea to give away the modeling software when it's completed, and use that as an entry point into a much more comprehensive (and expensive) 3D art package.  I told him that if he wanted to work this as a project I would be happy to donate my  project management services, and his reply was something to the effect that after working for me for 18 months he'd rather sit on sharp tacks. 
Anyway, crits and comments are welcome as always.

[yossam]

Looks good.............

[Dune]

So, which plants did he make?
One crit may be the lack of GISD, the shadows are very flat and light. And on the chimney the stone structure is partially weird. You'll probably be working on the distance as well, as that is still too bare.

[archonforest]

Great one!
Only thing I would consider to change is the size of the chair. It looks huge compare to the door for example.

[kalwalt]

Also for me the chimney doesn't  convincing me too much (the ivy seems fake), maybe thechair is too big, i like very much the trees and the vegetations.

[masonspappy]

The next version.
Re-textured the chimney to make it match the rest of the cottage and moved the ivy origination point to the corner of the chimney.  (also used a different leaf).  Shrunk the rocking chair and extended the grass shader into background (@ Dune, your comment about the background was spot on. I was turning off the vegetation on the distant mountains to save some render time). 

One thing puzzles me: the red lantern on the front porch doesn't seem to cast a shadow, although the rocking chair and support beam next to it do cast shadows.  Makes it look like the lantern is hovering in mid-air, but when I checked the preview it appeared the base of the lantern was actually below the surface of the porch. 
- MP

[Upon Infinity]

Great image!  Only a couple of points bother me for realism;  there should be less foliage around the porch, as these would become worn down due to trampling.  Also, I don't understand why I can see through the cabin in that one window.

[masonspappy]

Also, I don't understand why I can see through the cabin in that one window.

The cabin is a 3D model I built in Blender and has a window in the far wall. If you look closely  through the front window you can see part of the wall.
- MP

[j meyer]

As for the missing shadow did you make sure that cast shadows
is checked for the lantern object? Maybe you turned it off,because
of the glass part.

[Hannes]

Gorgeous. The second one is way better. I totally disagree about the chair. I guess it had the right dimensions in the first image compared to the door and the windows.
Not quite sure about the pink and blue flowers to the right. They don't really look like plants.
Is it a wallpaper you can see through the window? There is some obvious tiling (I know that wallpapers do have tiling patterns, but it looks kind of weird here).
Maybe the inner walls could have a stone structure too?

[archonforest]

Wow great improvement. Love the atmo and the details! Very well done man

[masonspappy]

Latest iteration.  Made a few tweaks - the board walls I put inside the cabin look tilted so still need to straighten that out.  This will probably be the last work I do on it for awhile. really appreciate the feedback and guidance from everyone!!

[kalwalt]

i like very much your texture (of the cottage)! How you did it? Did you used a tiled map or did you unwraped the mesh? and what dimensions of the texture? and last question about displacement: how much did you increased the factor?
Sorry for many questions..!

[Antoine]

This is very nice ! Is this a lac on the far bootom left ?

[masonspappy]

@ Kalwalt:  The brick texture is large: final image measures 5000 x 1600 pixels and is 14 MB in size.  Roof texture is about 3000 x 1600 Pixels. I used displacement maps for both. Brick texture was .01 (default) displacement.  and roof texture was about .012.
@Antoine: yep, that's a lake. I turned if off in earlier images to save render time.
- MP