New creation just now called Red sunset.

[Shield Wulf]

Just created "red sunset" on my beast tamer "Thor" I think he was using his paddle this time. Hope you like it. Man I love TG. It rocks.......

[sboerner]

Nice. Great lighting.

[Shield Wulf]

Thanks sboerner,

Thanks for the nice comment.

[luvsmuzik]

Doin great!

When you get ready.....

XFrog http://xfrog.com/category/samples.html

Mr. Lampost bushes and grasses  http://www.mrlamppost.com/tg2/downloads/basic_bush_pack.htm

[Shield Wulf]

Thanks luvsmuzik,

   I do appreciate your smiley face and the links I will most certainly check them both out.

[Shield Wulf]

Okay one last try for the evening. Hope the difference is able to be seen in the sun light.

[Shield Wulf]

Hi Everyone,

Latest render from my little area of the TG world. This time I added more layers to the atmosphere and clouds for a total of 6 layers.

Just like luvsmuzik suggested I went out to Xfrog and downloaded a bunch of trees and the like from their site. How very nice of them to provide these to the modeling community. 

Now one more question before it escapes my mind. Is it best to add these objects one by one or by a population?

[sboerner]

For things like forests, definitely populations. I believe Terragen uses instancing for those, so you can add thousands of objects without adding significantly to the weight of the scene.

Populations can be randomly placed and mixed by using power fractals as density shaders. Use distribution shaders to control placement by slope and/or altitude. Simple shapes, image maps, or painted shaders can be used as masks. (I usually use a simple shape or image map fed into a PF to mask and distribute a population.) Individual population instances can be edited – moved, rotated, or removed – which can be pretty handy.

For hero objects it's probably best to place individual objects. Though small populations could work too, I guess, depending on the scene.

[luvsmuzik]

If you are going from this POV, try a population. When it loads you will see a bounding area in your preview window. The population control box has many options for distribution spacing, area, rotation, size, and anchoring. You will see object distribution boxes once you hit the populate button. You can get a preview of your population by selecting "show as textured" from the object display icon above the 3D preview window. Populations can also be edited, move, rotate, scale, or delete instances, use the tool above preview window for this too.  There is probably a tutorial about this...just a few hints from me.  As you get more experience there are many methods to distribute and control a population. Painted shader mask, distribution shader, power fractal masking so jump in....

[DocCharly65]

Though I personally love reflections the last render is the most realistic one
I can only echo the population suggestions. Give them a try.
Anyway great light!

[Dune]

It's indeed getting better and better. I really like that last one.
One more thing about populations; try to place the square population box such that there's a minimum of the box behind the camera, so preferably (if the box is say 10,000x10,000m) about 5000m in front of the camera and rotated the same degrees as your camera. I sometimes rotate 45º extra, so the popbox has a corner where the camera is.
Unless of course, when the sun is sort of behind you and you need long shadows of trees that are behind the camera.

[Shield Wulf]

Wow thanks for all the wonderful tips on the populations, and thanks for the likes as well.. Much appreciated. Let me see what I can do with all this great information.

Thanks to all who wrote in and suggested things to enhance my TG renders.

I am so excited.... 8-) I'd make a bigger smile but I don't have one yet......

[Dune]

Pity, you can't resize the smiles