Beorn

[fleetwood]

True story. Ran into him (well, I like to think it was Beorn) once in Northern California while hiking alone in the Sierras ( not a good idea). A tense moment.
I backed away and luckily he backed away and disappeared into the forest.

xfrogs and card bear

[N-drju]

Looks like a real painting. Clever setting.

[luvsmuzik]

Gorgeous!

[Kadri]

Looks great.
Any different setting you used for the kind of soft look?

[fleetwood]

Thanks all,

There are probably quite a few reasons why it appears soft.
Some of them:
used a geometric regular cloud pattern of side by side perfectly circular shapes in the sky above that only lets some bright spots through. Most light is filtered down through clouds.
there is a faint rather uniform overall  mist cloud from the ground level and on up the hillsides
atmo haze is at 9
using a fairly long and narrow angle camera lens setting 88mm
pixel filter is Mitchell-Netravali
there is hardly any actual ground showing so most of the render area is made up of small leaves and tree needles.

[Kadri]

Thanks. Interesting settings.

[archonforest]

Great render.  Two thumbs up!

[Dune]

I really like the lighting and veggies. But you can see the bear's a card.

[fleetwood]

Thanks for the comments. Yes, the card is the weak point as the lighting is not a perfect match. I didn't have a model I liked, though I tried a couple.
Re-rendered card area using a more contrasting starting image and tried to fix the flatness a bit in post. Better or worse?

[Hannes]

I think it's better. Anyway the lighting is really great!

[Dune]

I agree.

[bobbystahr]

Perfect lighting and the card bear is improved as well...great image.