Around 800 AD

[Dune]

Next image for the book will be the same area as Iron Age, Atlantic forest and Glacial, but with a different use of land. Winter this time, the archaeologists agreed (luckily). But I have an issue; I want the lower areas to have snow remains, so I used favor depressions (with smoothing), but... with a max height. That max height is very abrupt, no matter how soft I make it, and if I change the heigt changes in coverage are very abrupt and unpredictable. I'm off to experiment more, but has anyone an idea how to make that happen?

This is still a WIP, so it needs much more finesse, like distant woods, fences, etc.

[Dune]

Next.

[bobbystahr]

Looking real imo...love the river/creek effect with the snow..... and the sky in the last clip got me.

[Oshyan]

The foreground in these is looking fantastic. This has the look of older snow that's beginning to melt a bit. I see no problems with the look of the snow there. Is that what you're referring to?

- Oshyan

[Dune]

I got these nasty blue-grey patches like in test 10, but probably because I set intersection shift to a negative number, and minimum to a positive number (which does work in certain circumstances). Together with the smoothing and max height that caused some trouble you can see at closer inspection.
I think this is what I'm after, only have to shift the path texturing, so it won't flatten were there is this remaining snow (which is not visible, another strange thing). Also have to make a number of younger black alders to make the swampy wood patches denser. And I'm going to crack the ice were the ford is. And lessen the darkness of winter heathland. And add grass objects to the front area, as it's hard to mimic grassy vegetation at this level.

[bobbystahr]

Well you see something I cant see, totally gob smacked...this image could be where I live in the spring. Brilliant.

[Dune]

Thanks. Next iteration, added some fractal warp to the stream and some cracks where these guys passed. Still one nasty patch, lower middle, but I'll clone that away. Now for the fences...

[DocCharly65]

Another great impression of former times!

I will wait for the cracked ford ice -- untill then ... I prefere the ford with less ice on the water.
And the sky! -- Looks great.. you can really feel and smell that there's more snow coming.

hhey.. iis itt mmy kkeybboarrd orr iss itt reallly ccold hhere?



update 6:09pm: ahh the cracked ice came while I was writing...
mhh... I don't know what I'm missing at that ford... I should look at a real one, but I don't know any nearby

Just brainstorming:
Perhaps some little shelfs and chunks of ice because the ice was broken and frozen again, broken again, and, and, and,...
And to the left and right perhaps some more areas wher the darknes of thhe water is shining through, because there are so many other melted areas.

[Oshyan]

This all looks great. Just one missing thing IMO and that's a lot of wetness on that path, especially around the water crossing. But not just there because all this snow is surely melting and making that path overall pretty muddy, or at least the edges.

- Oshyan

[bobbystahr]

Didn't realize what was bugging me till Oshyan mentioned melt puddles....good call...needs some wet tracks maybe from the dudes as they certainly picked up some water with all that cracking.

[Dune]

Thanks, that's feedback I appreciate.

Here's the total in low res.

[bobbystahr]

Well done, and it no longer looks like here...had a snowfall while I slept and there's 'bout 5 inches and still falling....all ground is quite covered now and I hope it's doing similar out of town as last trip beyond city limits I could still see the ground in far too many places...I really don't want a drought here come summer.

[Dune]

Update of the front section in final res (without soft shadows though). Good enough, IMO, anyway, I don't want to fuss too much before sending of the concept. Maybe they want to change the whole lot 

[bobbystahr]

Update of the front section in final res (without soft shadows though). Good enough, IMO, anyway, I don't want to fuss too much before sending of the concept. Maybe they want to change the whole lot 

Well this is waaaay better and I thought it was near perfect before...you continue to amaze. And yeah, never send a final Final....they'll always want changes then, been there only once and now they get sketches from me 'till money crosses my palm. I've become it seems more aggressive re: getting paid since I retired...weird that.

[choronr]

Nice progression to this last image. I take it you work overhead on the placement of your pops?