"Frost" - WIP -Updated

[FrankB]

Lemme introduce you to "Frost", my latest WIP:

I know, it's probably not the most beautiful weather conditions to have, but I always wanted to make a realistic-looking, bad weather, ice cold landscape image, that features a sky completely covered with nasty clouds full of snow.

Now, this is my first shot at it. Yeah, true, it probably needs some more work, but for the first time, it "feels" about right, so I guess I'm on the right path ;-)

I forgot to mention that what I struggled with most was the lighting of the scene. Getting decent lighting with a fully covered sky required some serious tweaking.

But before I got to the lighting, the snow was the most difficult part. I had a clear vision of how it should look like, but have been lucky to find a way to make it look just so.

Cheers,
Frank

[attachimg=#]

[Sethren]

Throw your coat on, it looks darn cold there.     

[FrankB]

@Sethren: You bet! 

[moodflow]

Hi Frank,

Looking excellent so far.  The clouds are phenomenal. 

[dhavalmistry]

what happen to the shadows???

[FrankB]

what happen to the shadows???

Good observation!
Well, I figured that when the sky is all covered, the environment is still very bright. Yes you still have shadows, but these are barely visible. It's like light is coming from everywhere with the same intensities, so in TG2 terms, you've got to up the Ambient color of the atmosphere from black to something brighter.
That's a similair effect to old TG's shadow lightness, although it's not the same.

Regards,
Frank

[Tangled-Universe]

what happen to the shadows???

Good observation!
Well, I figured that when the sky is all covered, the environment is still very bright. Yes you still have shadows, but these are barely visible. It's like light is coming from everywhere with the same intensities, so in TG2 terms, you've got to up the Ambient color of the atmosphere from black to something brighter.
That's a similair effect to old TG's shadow lightness, although it's not the same.

Regards,
Frank

In a certain way you could say this is in fact very realistic!

[FrankB]

Here's an updated version: essentially denser vegetation, a little bit of the trees in the foreground and a differently postworked exposure/levels etc... to make the weather look even nastier ;-)

Cheers,
Frank

[rcallicotte]

Cool.   

[FrankB]

Oh shit I've uploaded the wrong version.

Here's the right one:

[Tangled-Universe]

Outstanding image Frank!
The texturing on the trees is great and the atmo/clouds are almost perfect!
This must have been a hell of a rendertime?

[FrankB]

Outstanding image Frank!
The texturing on the trees is great and the atmo/clouds are almost perfect!
This must have been a hell of a rendertime?

Thank you :-)

The render time was 2 hours in total, 1 hour per core. It's a pretty simple scene, the key is in the right lighting, and on getting the right look for the snow, and the right distribution for the vegetation. Actually the shader tree has just 4 shaders and a little function for the luminosity of the snow ;-)

The trees have been simple, too. I just photoshoped the texture (rendered clouds, whitish colors).

Cheers,
Frank

[rcallicotte]

Nice, Frank.  I like the trees.  These are realistic.

[Saurav]

The latest version with the tree in the foreground looks very good Frank.

[NWsenior07]

The latest version looks pretty good. I like the distribution of the vegetation and where you have placed your camera. Although so does the mistake for that matter.