Good Morning

[rcallicotte]

Thanks to moodflow, I believe I have this figured out, though it isn't the pool of fire I had originally planned.  Still like it.  Reminds me of some places I've seen.

[Will]

nice, reminds me of my lava studys earlier last year.

[Phylloxera]

Beautiful sun and rays, but I think that the terrain and the surfaces are not good. To rework ! 

[Will]

By pool of fire do you mean like this?

[Tangled-Universe]

Very nice moody atmo, like them rays :p
I agree with Phylloxera about the surfaces, they could use some work.
Like the variation in the surfaces but they lack a bit of small detail and especially bumps.

Martin

[rcallicotte]

@Will - That's where I started, but didn't get it, due to the sunlight.  I like the sun too much to not use it in this picture...I'm not sure how I will rework this yet.

@Phylloxera - Yes.  This is a good idea to rework it.  I have plans to render at a higher detail next time, too.  This is at .5 Detail and 4 on the GIs.  I need to work on the lighting to see if I can get both glowing lava and sunlight on the horizon.  Just need to sink the sun, maybe.

Thanks for your input on a Sunday morning!

[Tangled-Universe]

Why did you use 4/4 for the GI?

[Will]

I would try turning up the luminosity so it glows brighter, that might help.

[rcallicotte]

I have so many different sorts of lighting here.  The sun...directly...and the lava flow was going to put out light, but I gave up on that at the last minute.  I have found higher GI helps shadowy pictures to bring out details I can use later to amplify or manipulate in Photoshop.

In the next one, I'll try to bring out the lava as lava rather than as a terrain.

Why did you use 4/4 for the GI?

[Tangled-Universe]

Ah well I see...thanks for explaining.
It's an understatement to say GI 4/4 will take long to render and I think the reason for using GI 4/4 is good but there is another and much quicker way with almost similar results and level of detail.
The best reason to use high GI levels is indeed to detail shadowy areas but mostly it's to calculate the lighting correctly on heavily displaced terrains which I think is not really the case here.
So what you can do/try is to add another sun on the opposite heading degree of the main sun. Uncheck all options and set strength to 0.1 to 0.5 (experiment with it).
This fill light will lighten up your shadows and will reveal many details. You can also add 3 fill lights, 1 opposite from main sun and 2 at 90 degrees from the main sun. Also use low strengths on these.
Now you can render this image with GI 2/2 or maybe 3/3 with same level of detail but much shorter rendertime.
Of course this is a suggestion, just thinking along

Martin

I have so many different sorts of lighting here.  The sun...directly...and the lava flow was going to put out light, but I gave up on that at the last minute.  I have found higher GI helps shadowy pictures to bring out details I can use later to amplify or manipulate in Photoshop.

In the next one, I'll try to bring out the lava as lava rather than as a terrain.

Why did you use 4/4 for the GI?

[rcallicotte]

Thanks, TU.  Have you found this method supercedes the Soft Lighting feature?  The land really is heading toward having some complexity.  I'll show the node network later, but it's built on moodflow's fire in the ground image of about a month ago.  I followed his node network as seen in the pictures and, with some more questions answered by him, eventually came up with my own version. 

I'll try some test renders to decide what might work best, but suggestions like this are always helpful to think about.  Thanks!

[Tangled-Universe]

Thanks, TU.  Have you found this method supercedes the Soft Lighting feature?  The land really is heading toward having some complexity.  I'll show the node network later, but it's built on moodflow's fire in the ground image of about a month ago.  I followed his node network as seen in the pictures and, with some more questions answered by him, eventually came up with my own version. 

I'll try some test renders to decide what might work best, but suggestions like this are always helpful to think about.  Thanks!

You're welcome Calico
I'm afraid I'm short on my english, I don't understand the bold part of your reply? Supercedes?

[rcallicotte]

Oh.  Okay.  What I'm wondering is if your method of using more than one sun to light a picture is better than the Soft Shadow feature under the Sunlight light source.

[Tangled-Universe]

Oh.  Okay.  What I'm wondering is if your method of using more than one sun to light a picture is better than the Soft Shadow feature under the Sunlight light source.

Ah I see...thought you meant that but I wasn't sure...

The method I described just "fills" the shadows with extra light to make the detail in the shadow more visible.
Often I can't get similar results just using the soft shadow feature and then I use this method in addition.
It doesn't add up to the softness of the shadow's edges. So I can't say if it's really better or not. Depends on the result you want of course.
By the way: increasing the render detail setting also increases the GI detail and accuracy. I've read you're planning to render it with higher detail settings. If so, you can safely lower the GI settings.

[Jonathan]

I like it too - Lava flows come too mind - maybe a view of what the Earth was like in it's pre-life era...