Question on rendering and light adjustment

[pclavett]

Hi guys ! Just finished a project on the Tetons in Wyoming and the autumn aspens and birch. A render with daytime sun came out pretty good with the vegetation, rendering bright (and quite realistic. The water reflections were also amazing. The render is the first image which was Photoshopped a bit, maybe a bit  too contrasty. Then I made a dawn scene, with plenty of clouds and did 2 test renders, on Standard Raytraced the other PathTraced. The trees appear a lot nicer with the PathTraced but the reflections in the water totally different than with the Raytraced method and not at all like intended with the water settings. The image 2 and 3 are the dawn renders and quite  different. My question is whether I can get the Raytraced water with the PathTraced or get the PathTraced trees with the Raytraced.... that is the best of both in one ? Think that I am not doing the right thing with the EnviroLight......bumped it up to 1.3 with the Standard renderer and know that it is not considered by the PathTraced. I am wondering if it has to be trimed the other way to give more contrast with the parts that have direct light ? In any event, appreciate any idea on getting what I want, that is the PT trees with the RT lake ! Thanks in advance ! 

[pclavett]

Sorry but the previous post uploaded the same image twice. Here is the RayTraced version.

[Dune]

You could of course render two crops and add in Photoshop. Water, and especially transparent from a low angle, is very slow in PT, so there would be a benefit. No real need for PT in the front area (very nice rocky beach, btw). Also PT automatically smoothes because of the 'min highlight spread' in the water shader being 0.01. You could set that lower (0.005) or to zero if you want crisp(er) reflections. The grain has to do with atmo quality or AA settings, IIRC.

[pclavett]

Thanks Ulco for the heads up on the reflections. I played most of last evening with the Enviro lights and the sun and did get to a level where the vegetation was to my liking with the RayTraced method. I have a PathTraced developing right now but will be ready tomorrow. I settled on 1 Enviro light in GI mode at 0.55 and a second one in AO mode at a very light 0,05 strength and the color changed to white rather than the default bluish tone. Also bumped up my sun from 15 to 25 for the surfaces and another sun in the same position for the atmo and clouds at 14...... thus 2 suns in the same position but stronger for the surfaces. At 25 with 1 sun, the skies were too lighted to my liking. I imagine that this is probably not ideal for rendering time but the results were still pretty rapid at full quality and AA and 6000PX. The image obtained is below with only minimal adjustments in PS. Again thanks !

[Dune]

Some renders indeed need more work to get right. PT usually gives better shadows, especially when luminosity of leaves are at play (in RT shadowed trees seem to glow), but in some circumstances it also helps to increase GISD (to 2 or so) and extend the pixel range a bit (24 to 36), thus enlarging the 'shadowed' areas between trees/plants/leaves.