Above the Wilderness

[ZStar]

Hi folks.  I'm new to working with TG2 so I thought I would introduce myself by posting one of my better efforts.  I'm still struggling to get the mountain peak details looking good but I'm real happy with the rest.  Any comments and/or advice would be appreciated.

[rcallicotte]

I like everything until the upper left where the terrain looks too empty.  I think it might need some texturing.  If it has something there, I'd like this quite abit.

[mr-miley]

I agree with calico. A very nice image, with lots of detail that you don't notice at first. It requires a good long look at to get the full benefit. I also agree with calico about the slope on the left. Needs more texturing and some displacement. Looks too smooth.

This is most definately a damn good effort. Looking forward to more from you 

Miles

[lightning]

great surfacework
agree with the others though all you need to do is just add a few more layers of rock maybe some displacements as well

[Mohawk20]

Are those trees, or just a surfeace layer with displacement?

Looks good, but as the others said, the rock needs more colour variety. try plugging a powerfractal into the colour input of the rock surfacelayer and fiddle with the colout range of it and the scale...

[ZStar]

Thank you all for the feedback.  The slope and peak to the upper left are what I am struggling with.  I have not found the right range of scale and displacement.  It is all part of the learning curve.

Mohawk20, the "trees" are indeed a surface layer with displacement.  I used a blending mask to keep the color and displacement limited to the same areas.  It took a lot of trial and error before I got them looking right but I am real happy with the results.  Now if I could just get the rock faces looking as good...

I'll keep at it. Thanks again.

[Mohawk20]

So you had a seperate displacement shader and a seperate surface layer? Did you know you can plug the pisplacement shader directly into the surfacelayer? Could be easyer...

[ZStar]

I am using the same shader to drive both the Trees surface layer breakup and provide the blender input for the Trees displacement function.  I am not using two separate shaders.  I think I'm already doing it the way you are suggesting.  I could post a screen cap of the node links later if there is still some question. 

What I am really struggling with is finding the right balance of Feature scale, Lead-in, and Smallest for the rocky peaks and slopes.  Nothing I have produced looks natural to me.  Is there some rule-of-thumb formula for finding a good balance between those three values and the Displacement multiplier?