Three Sisters

[Gannaingh]

I've finally gotten back to this one and I've made a few changes. I've lowered the camera position to get more detail in the trees. Unfortunately, this has shown that the detail in the snow might be a bit to prominent and could be toned down. I've also tried a snowy layer on the higher altitude trees. I think the snowy trees look good on the left side of the image, but the right side has a bit on a weird glow to it. I also need to make the snow line on the trees more abrupt since the fade is too subtle. lastly, I've thrown in some clouds to start making the atmosphere more interesting. Thanks for looking.

[Dune]

I think the snow layer on the trees lacks a bit of 'grain' especially on the right. The lower high altitude would have the fresh snow already breaking up faster than higher up, I think.
I suspect you added a surface shader (white or with colored child) to the parts with a altitude control, so what if you decrease coverage to 0.5 or so and use a fractal breakup (1-2) with small sizes to breakup the whole range into 'grain'? That should work with some fiddling and testing.

[Gannaingh]

I've finally gotten the snow on the trees to a level of quality where I'm happy with them. I still want to tweak them a bit more and add some color variation. I also started hand editing the snow asks to remove thin strips of snow that look somewhat unrealistic. After I get the ground all wrapped up I'l start working on the sky some more to get a fittingly interesting sky.

[Oshyan]

Looks like you're headed in a good direction. Great sense of scale here.

- Oshyan

[Gannaingh]

I finally have another update. The changes between this one and the aster version are:

1) Doubled the number of individual tree model populations to provide more variety even if it is very subtle
2) Added a couple populations of younger trees and shrubs to the open areas to break the monotony
3) Added a layer of TG4's beautiful clouds
4) Some small alterations to the snow masks

Overall I think it's pretty close to being done. Thanks for looking!

[Oshyan]

The added tree variety is definitely a good improvement, especially in terms of scale variation.

Clouds also work well, exposed photographically, though if I were post processing this myself I'd want to pull back the highlights a bit as they're a little blown out (but again in a single exposure of a photo, they probably would be blown out). I would expect the clouds and snow to be at more similar brightness however, and the snow is actually quite a bit less bright, so that's interesting.

Last thing, there's a bit of a greenish or cyan color tint to the image now, whereas before it tended more blue. I'm not sure it's worse-off for it, but I did like the bluer color tone overall I think...

Still, a great image despite these small niggles, which may come down to personal preference.

- Oshyan

[DocCharly65]

Except the slight cyan color tint it is perfect and almost photographic for me! Great!

[zaxxon]

So often 'critiquing' is more about personal opinions than actual technical points of interest. However when a high level of skill is already evident (definitely the case here!) then it is doubly difficult as a 'casual' observer to do anything but compliment the Artist. I find so many areas of excellence to admire: the fine World Machine work, the integration into TG, the dense tree populations, the snow/frost textures, the overall sense of scale and depth. There are other aspects which are, in my estimation, problematic. Given the dusting of snow on the trees the sky seems altogether too 'warm' (the green the Oshyan noted). Additionally 'The Three Sisters' are each over 10,000 feet in elevation and that sky color seems unlikely, and it creates an uneasy tension with the tone palette of the foliage (my personal opinion again). As to the 'blown out clouds' (my feeling as well); are you going for the rendered image as a copy of a photograph, or a rendition of the scene as it exists to your eye? My two cents  . As a fan of Alpine imagery, your attention to detail and commitment to 'polish' an image are always impressive. Once again, fine work!

[fleetwood]

Very nice results. Not too concerned with artist small color choices as they are all alterable to some extent anyway and might be influenced by monitor or ambient/room light.

[DannyG]

Killer work

[ADE]

looks good to me

[Gannaingh]

I looked at the image on my work computer and it is a little green. Maybe I'll make the sun a little bluer to compensate. I also see what you guys are saying about the cloud brightness relative to the snow. I'll play with the cloud darkness and light settings to see if I can get a more balanced result.

Thank you, all,  for your comments!

[Gannaingh]

Does this version have any less of a green/cyan tint to it? I can notice a difference, but since it looked good to me before on my home computer, the change might be a bit heavy handed.

[Oshyan]

Yes, I like that much better. It's a big difference, but I think for the better. The snow in particular had an odd shade to it, which is especially evident now with this adjustment.

- Oshyan

[zzu]

very nice, just need some color grading to make it indistinguishable from reality.