Woodland

[Cocateho]

This was an attempt at trying to create as much realism with vegetation as I could, creating realistic variation in colors  and generally trying to mask the CG origins of the models as much as possible to make it believable. There's probably close to 10 different populations as well as a few added single objects. each has fractals for color variation withing the leaves and bark, some with bark displacement and a couple with variation in the reflectivity. Most of the effects were meant to be subtle so this full sized render is really my first good look at what it really did. While there's plenty more to improve on the look in general I think is more realistic than without the variation for sure. Let me know what you guys think! Also, this wasn't really designed so much for composition as to be able to see what I wanted to see, I know that's a weak part of the image. I'm working on a closer up shot I think will be better as "art".

[Cocateho]

Yikes, that compression was horrible on the shadows!

[Preacherman]

too dark in the shadows in front, but for the rest I think it's beautiful, I wouldn't mind being there

[Henry Blewer]

I think this image would render better using ambient occlusion (lighting tab). It would give you more control over the shadows, make them less dark.

Other than that, just raise the camera up, or add a feature for the camera to be focused on.

By the way, I have never finished a scene. There is always something more to add, tweak, or change.

[Dune]

Yes, shadows are extremely dark. You could also raise GI to 1.2 or up, and see what happens.

[Cocateho]

 Here's a close up. What ended up happened with the shadows' darkness was I guess the last time I updated my graphics driver it had reset my desktop preferences for color, contrast, etc and so It wasn't showing up as dark when I first rendered it.

Anyway here's a close up, had to compress a bit to get the file size down so it's not quite at full quality.

[Oshyan]

Ambient Occlusion doesn't give you *more* control over the shadows vs. Global Illumination (i.e. it does not specifically target shadows, nor can you specifically adjust only shadows when using it), but it does *affect* the shadows. It also does not always make things *lighter*. It's potentially worth trying, just keep in mind *it is less accurate*. A better solution in most cases is to adjust the Strength on Surfaces options, or possibly increase Exposure in the camera.

- Oshyan