Tundra

[Dune]

Another thing I'm working on. Still WIP. It's supposed to be an Eemien era image, with a tundra-like vegetation. Two pops of no-antler reindeer, 4 pops of loose antlers (2 small and 2 big) with masking to give some an antler, others not, others a big one. And one pop of the same reindeer with the object tilted, so they were kind of swimming.
I am not satisfied about the sky, though. I like the lightness, but not the overly bleached clouds. I also wouldn't want it to be a normal sky, as the sun is facing you and a certain amount of bright haze is good.

Any comments are greatly appreciated.

[mhaze]

Great scene - perhaps bigger less featured clouds (smoother) or maybe just cirrus.

[N-drju]

Although it depends what your overall "sky concept" is, I'd just increase the cloud density or reduce light propagation. Changing the cloud colour to more grayish would, probably, also do the trick. Also, check the fractal size - a feature scale too high kills smaller displacements easily and influences the amount of lit surfaces of course.

To be honest, I can't see anything wrong with the reindeer pop, even after being told where to look! One thing I find somewhat implausible though is the reindeer on the far right that walks straight to the cliff. I'm not an animal expert, but I figure it would walk around an obstacle rather than jump off of it.

[Dune]

Thanks guys. I think I've got a nice sky now. Tried some v3 and v2 and this is v2, with increased light propagation mix (0.5) and reduced glow amount (0.5).


To me there's nothing wrong either. And I don't think they would take a detour with such a small 'cliff' in their group frenzy to cross that river, they just jump off or jump/walk/straggle/slither/tumble down. Like the wildebeest do in Africa.

[DocCharly65]

I like the new clouds! Much better!

[Kadri]

Nice WIP Ulco.

[j meyer]

Some of the leg poses might be slightly exaggerated,
other than that I can't see anything 'wrong'.
Keep on trudging across the tundra.

[masonspappy]

Nice - like this. Only thing that strikes me is, would the caribou on left (on grey surface) be making hoof marks in the soil?

[Dune]

On sand they would, was my idea. And I did my best to get a decent set of rows of hoofprints, and I understand they don't fit perfectly, but if this thing has rendered out, I can always paint some extra.
I'll have a look at the poses. I need to adjust the caribou texturing too, as it's not perfect in big close-up.

[Hannes]

Looks great so far, and the clouds are definitely better in the last version.

[Dune]

Thanks Hannes. Next problem was the reindeer. The texturing sucked, so I had to redo it, painted on a new texture in ZBrush. Now I still need to add some more accurate and fine bump. Or give the guys (and girls) some hair. But I still don't understand how I can get the overall hairs of an object take over the colors of the skin....

[sjefen]

It looks great 
Have you tried increasing the soft clip effect?

[Agura Nata]

Well done my friend!

[sboerner]

I don't think anyone's mentioned the grass and scrub vegetation yet, so I will. The mix of plants and colors is really something. What do you use as a source to identify what species to use?

I've wondered about the relationship between skin and hair color, too. There may be a way to handle that in Maya, but I haven't delved that deep yet.

More poses for the reindeer would be good, but it looks like you're working on that. This is going to be a nice scene when it's finished.

[WAS]

I love the scene but I feel the sky is a bit bright. Maybe more twilighty, more blue from inclination of the sun. It seems the sun is really high right now. Does it get that high. I'm in WA state and in winter are maximum inclination angle is 18 degrees and about 40 in fall/spring. I imagine this will be much lower the more you enter the Arctic region.