Fog and Rain on the Midlands

[Upon Infinity]

Gimme a lil' C & C.   

[yossam]

Soft shadows maybe.............it will make your render time increase. IMO the shadows of the trees midground are a little too sharp for the atmosphere. 

[Upon Infinity]

Soft shadows maybe.............it will make your render time increase. IMO the shadows of the trees midground are a little too sharp for the atmosphere. 

I hear what you're saying, Yossam.  I tried one render with soft shadows and it really changed the way the fog looked (for the worse, IMO).  Actually, I've removed shadows on most of the objects in the mid ground, so it's still the landscape shadows.  Maybe I'll try one more with lesser settings.

[yossam]

I'm gonna send you an IM for something I want you to try, just a thought. 

[bobbystahr]

Do you have clouds in the sky or just the fog? If no then put a really thin 2D cirrus in at nearly full coverage as a diffusor...?

[Dune]

Excellent setup and mood. Something that might do it good, IMHO, is to strengthen the light on midground a bit, give it a bit more contrast between light and dark areas. Just a teeny weeny bit, a tad, a wee drappie. And I get the tendency to shift the camera ~2 m to the left, to get the big tree a bit more to the right, I think it's júst off balance.

[inkydigit]

Great mood and light... Looking forward to see where this goes!

J

[mhaze]

Good work but ditto Dune's remarks

[Upon Infinity]

Hmm.  Some are saying soft shadows and some are saying more contrast.  Can I be all things to all people?  Perhaps.  Here's one with Yossam's GI settings and Dune's more light (although I decreased the strength on surfaces by an equivalent amount: 20%).  However, I stripped the shadows cast by all remaining mid-ground objects.

Moved the camera to the left a bit, too.

In regards to having light and rain, this is actually a quite common effect where I'm from.  We call them "sun showers" where it is actually pouring rain due to a low hanging cloud passing by and still the sun is out due to the extreme angle of the sun at these northern latitudes. 

[bobbystahr]

Well I think you've nailed it with this one...looks very like the Pembina Hills(Manitoba Canada) around here in a Summer Sun Shower...

[Dune]

Soft shadows and contrast go very well together. Your update is better, but fractionally, to be honest. I was more thinking like this example (though not a proper landscape, but the only example I could find). But it's your image, of course, and it's only my opinion.

[Upon Infinity]

Well, you did say "Just a teeny weeny bit, a tad, a wee drappie."  I guess I misinterpreted...   

If you have some specific values or percentages of certain settings, I'll give 'em a go. 

Gonna try one with high soft shadows overnight.

The latest iteration...

[Dune]

Yeah, I stated it very carefully  I don't know any values, but maybe if you increase sun's strength from 5(?) to 7 or 8 you get more contrast and light on that lighted patch of land? It also depends on how thick your clouds (for the shadows) are, so it's a mix of values.
What sometimes also works is project a soft round dot (image map) from the area where you want light towards the sun, camera FOV a very low angle (1-5), works like a spotlight if you inversely mask clouds by it.

[bobbystahr]

Yeah, I stated it very carefully  I don't know any values, but maybe if you increase sun's strength from 5(?) to 7 or 8 you get more contrast and light on that lighted patch of land? It also depends on how thick your clouds (for the shadows) are, so it's a mix of values.
What sometimes also works is project a soft round dot (image map) from the area where you want light towards the sun, camera FOV a very low angle (1-5), works like a spotlight if you inversely mask clouds by it.

Crazy, I'd like to see a .tgc of this type of setup(the blurred dot bit)...sorta get it but need to see what it looks like in terragen terms...

[Dune]

I think I showed it before, quite a while ago, but here's the principle. You need to make a black square with a white patch, can be quite small of course.