Watching

[masonspappy]

LO-Res, 1280x760. Took about 1.5 hours to render.   I "think" the full size (1920x1080) HI-Res version will take abt 20-24 hours to render based on previous samples.

[yossam]

I like..........

[DocCharly65]

Very good so far! I like the mood and the composition.

Perhaps before you do the big render a little change?
I am missing something where the stairs and the rock are touching. Perhaps some little stones broken from the rock and some small vegetation in the edges?

[luvsmuzik]

Good one!

[Jo Kariboo]

Nice concept and composition!

[Dune]

Nice. May I? I would move the boat its own length to the right, so it doesn't sit on the edge of the island. Also, I would use a softened (0.002) reflective shader for the sea reflection (instead of the reflection of the water shader), so the far reflection is much softer.
And what detail settings would you talk about for a final that would take so long? Depends on the machine of course, but a setup like this should be ready fairly soon (0.6/AA6, soft shadows, I guess 2 hours on an i7 max). Try taking out the compute terrain, you won't need it I'm pretty sure.

[masonspappy]

Guys, thanks for the feedback. It's still a WIP and in need of a few tweaks.

@Dune: I'm rendering on an i7-5820k (6 Core/12 thread) with 32 GB memory.  Rendering was done with 0.6/AA6, soft shadows, not sure if I've got some other parameter tweaked too high. I'm trying to figure that our now.  I disabled the compute terrain and render time dropped from 1.5 hours to .5 hours     
But when I tried to use an external reflected shader instead of the one built into the water shader the screen went dark and I still can't figure out what I did wrong.
I'm pretty much in a league of my own when it comes to screwing things up.   

[Dune]

You can just set reflection in the water shader to zero, and add the reflective after that.

[masonspappy]

Next iteration.  Size still 1280x786.  Detail: 5, AA: 5, Max Samples.   Render time 1 hr 17 Mins.

put grasses at stair/rock facing juncture,  added scattered stone rubble on the platform and a few stairs (but only the biggest pieces show up using current render parameters, moved the boat back.  Also added trees to distant hills and some miscellaneous texturing.  I like the way it's coming together.

Only problem was trying to use external reflective shader instead of the built-in one in the water shader.  Every time I did my renders continued to turn out black. Not sure why.
**** Update ***
I'm rendering scene at 1920x1080 with Detail 6, AA 6, Max samples, and there are shadings on the tapestries that aren't present on this lower-scale render

[Dune]

Try this clip. It should work. If you don't need the masking, delete the default shader, or you won't see anything 

Another thing: if you have the water shader directly in front of the reflective shader (whether transparency of the water shader used or not) it blocks all previous colors, hence total blackness. In that case move the water shader to a place before the colors (if you need them, as in redirected from the terrain or so) and before the surface shader carrying those colors.

[masonspappy]

thanks Dune!!!   

[masonspappy]

So, did I really say it would take 20-24 hours to complete rendering?   More like 34 hours.  Roughly on par with my oldest daughter completing a homework assignment.   

Opened a separate thread because I noticed background stuff (like water) would render even though it would never been seen in the final picture.   Got a number of suggestions, so now will see if there are ways to tweak the .tgd to improve render time.  The wife is really pulling for me to figure this out, as our joint office is getting hot from all the heat coming off the processor!

[DocCharly65]

The lake looks much better now! But in the last one I liked the cliff face more. - what has happend with it?

Oh I know about temperature phenomenons in an office with "some" PCs... I am happy when I can keep my little monster office under 27/28°C  So I am quite happy about some rainy days this week   

[Kadri]

It does have kind of the fantasy book cover look. Especially the clouds. Nice.

[masonspappy]

The lake looks much better now! But in the last one I liked the cliff face more. - what has happend with it?

Yeah, I noticed that about 15 hours into the render but decided to keep on going.  There are a couple of things that need tweaked (Like trees on the far shoreline plunge down into the water if you look closely).
I did a series of experiments, switching back and forth between my project's  water shader and Dune's water clip.  Toned down the wave size and reflection in my shader and rendering speed picked up. Raised intensity of wave size and reflection intensity, and render time increases accordingly. 

Here's my next question, would appreciate any sage advice on this because I have zero experience:
I started looking at render layers and I'm wondering if it might make sense to learn how to use them in my projects?  I'm thinking that once I've got basic elements (eg sky and water) created, I could change items like lighting aspect without having to put up with long render times.    All comments would be appreciated.