Medieval Dutch village

[Dune]

One of the things I'm working on. Needs different (and more) farms, and stuff going on. Though I like this kind of light and the terrain, it doesn't convince me as being 'photographic'. Too much color? Not hazy enough? Any suggestions to make it more realistic are more than welcome.
One of the problems I encounter are the fields of ripe grain. I now use a pop of internal grass (good enough from this distance), but you always end up with the circular patches, at the borders of the fields especially. Making the patches too big, causes them to overgrow neighbouring paths, so I have to limit them and increase number. Ideal would be to have a single stem, repeated trillions of times, but well...

[DocCharly65]

I like it so far

Isn't a "photographic look" mostly a bit less saturated especially green areas and a hazier overall look?

The borders of the fields could perhaps be loosen up with other plant species on painted shaders? at least that's what I would do, though it would be a lot's of manual work to follow the fields borders by painted shaders - just an idea

[Kadri]

Looks good.
Maybe just work a little in post and see?
In Terragen i would just add a little more haze maybe (as you said already) and maybe more exposure-light.

[Hannes]

I'd say to me it looks great. Of course you could increase the haze intensity, but that's a matter of taste.
Regarding the edges of the fields I have no idea at the moment how to "cut off" the overlapping instances, but to my taste it doesn't look really bad, because it has some nice irregular look.

[mhaze]

I like it the way it is. You often get light like that in winter or autumn, in summer the light could be whiter ( or the colours less saturated). Some more but not too much haze would be ok - matter of taste.

[cyphyr]

Looking great as always.
Recently I have been experimenting with the "Adjust saturation colour" node. It's a great way of lowering the overall saturation of shaders either uniformally (constant input) or with variation (PF input).

[Dune]

Thanks guys. I'll experiment a bit with haze. The adjust saturation is a node I use all the time. Almost all my shaders use a mix of base colors, multiply and adjust saturation, and some PF's to vary those. Very handy indeed!

[luvsmuzik]

Very good as always. but what is missing are the godrays (or hint thereof). Your distant horizon shows godrays and the highlight on the brighter patches suggest a break in cloud cover, so ....more haze seems to be it. Too bad you can't do some spotlight trick there?

[otakar]

Since you asked for suggestions, if you look at the lower right for example, I feel the borders are too strictly defined, i.e. the mask is too contrasty. In nature, you don't often have these sharp edges, as vegetation always like to grow beyond its confines. That is true for fields, dirt paths, planted borders, forest edges, streams and lakes. Human intervention can counteract this to some degree, but never completely.

I feel this is very difficult to model, as you have to vary the gradient. It cannot be too uniform. Especially difficult for these bird's eye views.

Just some thoughts of mine.

[Dune]

Thanks. The borders of sandy paths are indeed still too hard. I softened the mask, but probably color adjusted to the right width, consequently hardening them again. You have a good point!
Luvs; I did use a mask pointed at the sun to get the sun on the village, I indeed wanted that 'spotlight' idea for drama. But the skies are just temporary, I have to build the whole lot up more. More haze will get your rays in!

[WAS]

I think haze would really add to the photorealism. I also think, at the height we are, we'd have some low hanging clouds due to the flat nature of the planes. Still, a really good start.

Are the farm fields objects or shader?

[Ariel DK]

In addition to the haze idea, i would add some subtly camera movement to get some softly blur, some dust, birds, etc.
I also noticed that many of your images Ulco (most maybe), are from a high pov (i can't conceive this scene from another pov), i was just wondering why... 

[WAS]

In addition to the haze idea, i would add some subtly camera movement to get some softly blur, some dust, birds, etc.
I also noticed that many of your images Ulco (most maybe), are from a high pov (i can't conceive this scene from another pov), i was just wondering why... 

I think it has to do with the illustration work he does for books and exhibits. Sweeping vistas with lots to look at for time-frame stuff offers a lot for the viewer. Especially on a museum wall. No clue what this is for though. It may be habit too.

[Dune]

Birds will be flown in later   I was thinking indeed to add some low cloud, like whispy mist, not covering everything, but mainly the distance, keeping the village clean. This is really about Medieval land use; small river, grazing fields adjoining, higher areas for agriculture (essen in Dutch), sheep grazing ground on heathland further away, which is a daily routine with shepherds, the sheep's manure gathered in stables (potstallen) at night, later (mixed with turfs) to be used on the poor high, sandy grounds to get better crops, thus raising agricultural land over many years. 'Essen' are typically raised over surrounding land, which is very clear if you are on ground.
This (and 5 more) will be in a dedicated book on Medieval land use, hence the high POV.
Oh, and fields are pop of internal grass (see first post). I first colored the ground and extended that into the grass, but later gave the grass it's own color and made the soil... well, soil.

[Tangled-Universe]

Great stuff Ulco, at this moment there's not much I can add to the stuff being said already.
The saturation might be a tad high, but it's not that I dislike it.
I like what you do here in terms of scene vibrance, with light breaking through clouds.
The effect could be emphasized with slightly denser clouds and higher contrast (in post I guess) for a more photographic look.
However, this may be in conflict with your client's wishes and perhaps also your own style if I take that into consideration.