Milky Way

[Dune]

Got a few changes working already, but the MW takes a lot of time to render, even in default settings. Maybe because it's pretty complex. I will make a new setup later, trying to keep it simple from scratch.
Doing a version without MW now, which I actually like better, and is a lot faster even with v3 clouds. For MW, you're right, Steve, less glow is better.

[WAS]

Got a few changes working already, but the MW takes a lot of time to render, even in default settings. Maybe because it's pretty complex. I will make a new setup later, trying to keep it simple from scratch.
Doing a version without MW now, which I actually like better, and is a lot faster even with v3 clouds. For MW, you're right, Steve, less glow is better.

Mine jumped in render time too, it was partly roughness and briefly using 1/4 pixel threshold. Buuut, I also found that the Fractal Warps I was using were causing a severe slowdown. I got rid of them all but a master one at the end of the chain, and utilized surface layers and the breakup, so using the SSS shapes as masks, the breakup covers the smooth zones with, well breakup, than I just colour them. Getting about 17m for just the sky compared to 1h+.

Not sure how yours is setup but may help. Quick preview i just did MPD 0.6, AA 6

[Dune]

No warp in mine, but quite some adding and multiplying, masking, but I can do it in a simpler way, no doubt. Yours looks good, and very fast indeed!
I had some yellow and blue colors set at say 30 and 10, and after changing that to 20 and 5 (less) the stars became far too bright and lost their color. Which puzzles me too, but I guess the color slider/changer easily jumps to white again when changing a value. But there's another way. Nice experiment anyway.
What also surprised me is that if I make stars of 100m or 100000m, they stay just as large

[Dune]

Update. I realize that a soft color in the WM renders really fast, but as soon as you multiply (or breakup) by starry dots, rendertime soars.

So, which version do you all prefer? Straight TG, coloradjusted a bit, or HDR. I actually don't know which is most natural/realistic.

[Hannes]

I prefer the first one. Straight TG. The others somehow look a bit "incorrect" to my eyes.

[Dune]

I think I agree, on second thought.

[bobbystahr]

Agree with Hannes as well.

[WAS]

I prefer the first ones but I do like the colours of the HDR toned one, just as Hannes put it, it's just not quite correct looking as for realism.

My stars are a separate luminosity that I added to the MW shaders with Add set to 1 (merge shader). I used the stars for a mask for the color of the stars.

The difference in 100m and 10000m is likely going to be their stability to the sampler if panning or tilting the scene or changing resolutions. For example 100m at 4k may be dotty. And more like noise.

[j meyer]

To me the coloradjusted version is the visually most pleasing one.
Straight TG is no.2.
HDR:no,verily no.

[Dune]

Maybe separate luminosity works different from adding all (blue node add, using multiply to increase/decrease certain inputs) before one luminosity value. Interesting to test. Also still looking for a way to get the stars without increased rendertime. Still wonder why more stars would increase rendertime, while a haze is rendered in a jiffy. Still every pixel needs to be calculated. Beyond me.

[Dune]

The MW is gone (didn't find it appropriate anymore), but I'll post here anyway. And I did another aurora to add to the mood

[WAS]

The MW is gone (didn't find it appropriate anymore), but I'll post here anyway. And I did another aurora to add to the mood

Like that Aurora one, though maybe the light exposure should be higher as if mimicking a longer exposure.

I find the original is somewhat better without the MW. With the nice glow on the horizon you'd think it'd be diffused out of view.

[sboerner]

Very nice and it looks like you solved the problem of placing snow on the sides of the trees. (Maybe slightly diminish it in the higher branches?) It looks like a very cold night. My sympathies are with the lonely rider who probably can't wait to get home and warm his feet next to the fire.

[Dune]

If mimicking a photograph light exposure could go way up indeed, but to show what you'd actually see out there, I think this should be right, I guess. You can make all sorts of variations, I hesitated over lighter snow. Same with the rider render; this morning with sun still below horizon, sky was already so light blue that stars weren't visible. So the glow and stars really wouldn't go together maybe (in real life), except in certain photo's maybe.

I separated the thicker branches from the finer, to be able to have snow just on thicker branches. But with an altitude mask high snow could indeed be reduced (as I did with snow piling against sides).

[DocCharly65]

Both renders are sooooo beautiful! ...  Great work, Ulco