15 miles on the Erie Canal

[mhaze]

Brilliant work!

[luvsmuzik]

Another WOW! Atmosphere so perfect, love this image!

[sboerner]

There's so much detail in this work that you could easily render and print it very large for a museum. What's your purpose anyway, private goal, commission?

The inspiration was the bicentennial of the Erie Canal, which is taking place now. The anniversary of the opening is 2025. The idea was to do a series of landscapes showing different parts of the canal at various moments in time, from the days of the packet boat through the second enlargement in the early 20th century. No commission so this is being done privately and with no firm plans yet as to what to do with the images. But first I wanted a good proof-of-concept to shop around to see if anyone's interested. I may get posters printed at my own expense to sell locally, but we'll see.

[bobbystahr]

There's so much detail in this work that you could easily render and print it very large for a museum. What's your purpose anyway, private goal, commission?

The inspiration was the bicentennial of the Erie Canal, which is taking place now. The anniversary of the opening is 2025. The idea was to do a series of landscapes showing different parts of the canal at various moments in time, from the days of the packet boat through the second enlargement in the early 20th century. No commission so this is being done privately and with no firm plans yet as to what to do with the images. But first I wanted a good proof-of-concept to shop around to see if anyone's interested. I may get posters printed at my own expense to sell locally, but we'll see.

I'd buy a poster for sure.

[DannyG]

Lots to look at for sure. Excellent light and details. Congrats

[Dune]

Thanks for explaining, Steve. You still have years.... a setup like yours is worth exhibiting big in a local museum, or made into VR setup for some company. Time enough to shop around indeed.

[sboerner]

The plan was to complete at least two of these each year. Research took more time than expected, and the work itself has been slow going. But the experience should help me work more efficiently next time and I'll have a collection of models and other assets to build on. Honestly though monetizing this isn't my top priority. It's just a such a pleasure to be working on this kind of project. Despite the gaps and inaccuracies (there will always be some despite one's best efforts) it's pretty cool to be able to bring a scene from the past back to life. Terragen is perfect for this.

And thanks to all (again!) for all the encouragement.

[Dune]

I agree not everything needs to be monetized (new word for me), but it's worth showing to the (local) public anyway, one way or another!

[bobbystahr]

The plan was to complete at least two of these each year. Research took more time than expected, and the work itself has been slow going. But the experience should help me work more efficiently next time and I'll have a collection of models and other assets to build on. Honestly though monetizing this isn't my top priority. It's just a such a pleasure to be working on this kind of project. Despite the gaps and inaccuracies (there will always be some despite one's best efforts) it's pretty cool to be able to bring a scene from the past back to life. Terragen is perfect for this.

And thanks to all (again!) for all the encouragement.

Art for Art's Sake is often the most rewarding way to go forward....but money comes in soooo handy

[sboerner]

That it does. 

[Agura Nata]

Great work!

[sboerner]

A quick test of some new foliage. Been spending the past few weeks making models of trees and wildflowers native to this region and appropriate to early fall. This was the first chance I had to blend a few of them in a single scene. In the process I learned the advantages of using .tgo files, especially with assets like these that will be used over multiple projects. Some extra work upfront but worth it.

[attach=1]

[Oshyan]

Oh wow, this is *gorgeous*! The variation in the plant distribution is very realistic to my eye, as is the coloration overall. I only wonder if the fuchsia flowers need a little something to make them more realistic. They are perhaps too uniformly bright? Maybe darken or desaturate *very* slightly, then add a bit of soft specular, and maybe play with the translucency a little? I know it's hard to nail this stuff, it's so close already...

- Oshyan

[sboerner]

Thanks, Oshyan. Beginner's luck, I guess. I especially appreciate the feedback and agree with your comments on the fuchsia flowers (New England asters). The stems and leaves seem oversaturated to me as well as the flowers. I've been using a translucency setting of 0.35 or 0.4 for leaves and flowers across the board, and 0.2 specular with an IOR of 1.0 and roughness set to 0.35. I'll try to tone the asters down a bit.

Any thoughts on render settings? I have detail set to 0.7 and AA to 6.0. GISD is enabled for global illumination but all of the other settings (I believe) are left at the defaults.

[bobbystahr]

A quick test of some new foliage. Been spending the past few weeks making models of trees and wildflowers native to this region and appropriate to early fall. This was the first chance I had to blend a few of them in a single scene. In the process I learned the advantages of using .tgo files, especially with assets like these that will be used over multiple projects. Some extra work upfront but worth it.

[attach=1]

Well done and I'll defer to oshyan's colour comments as I'm colourblind but I don't know if you know this but TG likes all assets to be in the same dir as the geometry so I often save all scene models to the same dir and copy their textures there as well.