A Cliffside Pool

[Seth]

a bit dark to my eyes but a very good render... very different from usual TG2 works ^^

[Mohawk20]

Love the statue, hate the blur... IF you blur, blur only the lights and reflections, but don't edge blur or anything, because it takes away some of the realism.

I undersand that it directs the focus on the statue, but I like the surroundings as well and want to look at them too.

[Oshyan]

Very nice, a well composed scene. I think you successfully addressed most of the problems. The blur at the edges is kind of distracting to me, but I suppose that's a personal thing.

- Oshyan

[Mr_Lamppost]

You have some nice details in this but to my eye something looks a little skewed, it may just be the pov or the colour or density of the mist  but something is pulling me eye away from the central area which is I assume supposed tro be the area of interest.  I would loose the peripheral blur, it may even be this that's pulling me eye away from the centre.

[Rezzin8]

Last update honest. It's a bit brighter and I changed a few of the dirt textures around. I also changed the statue steps color to match the surrounding stone a little better. The DOF, which I like, is now based on zdepth rather than a botched radial blur. Had to figure out how to use the distance shader properly first. I just got Depth of Field Pro 3, it's very cool. That's it now though, simpler things from now on. 

Here's a 1680x630 version

[Seth]

oooooh !
excellent !!
very very very good render !
one of my favorite TG2 render i think !

[Mohawk20]

Whoooo, this DOF is Great! Amazing realism, shows best on the tree on the right.
Now THIS I like a lot! Nice forrest in the distance at the foot of the mountain.

What did you do exactly to get this DOF?

[Mr_Lamppost]

This one I like. A few small changes add up to a big improvement.

The properly faked DOF is vastly better than the blanket blur on the earlier version, that just looked like a cheap filter effect used by a so called professional wedding photographer in order to justify the exorbitant fee. 

[Cyber-Angel]

Are we talking about what should properly be called Differential Focus where the main subject is brought into focus by setting the Aperture so that the background is out of focus?

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel     

[rcallicotte]

Rezzin8, love this latest image.  This is it!

[Rezzin8]

@seth93: Far too kind! shucks... 

@calico: Thanks, I got darn close methinks.

@Cyber-Angel: Ummm, is it? I hope so...... 

@Mr_Lamppost:  How did you know I was a professional wedding photographer?!?

@Mohawk20: Cheers! Just a piccy below to show the rendered depth image I used for the DOF. Had problems to start with because I forgot to include the alphas for leaves so leaves would render out as flat polys. Got it sorted in the end though. The plugin I used is superb for DOF, it's Depth Of Field Generator Pro 3 by Richard Rosenman and Martin Vicanek.

@inkydigit: Here's the Buddha model, I'm sure I'm allowed to distribute it, it was downloaded from 3D Cafe some years ago from the free model section. This is in TGO format with the gold and mossy shader.

Now back to ZBrush for a bit...............

[Tangled-Universe]

Very nice techniques Paul!

Can you show the node-network of setting up the distance shader for the models? I'd like to see how you handled the leaves and everything
Thanks in advance and don't stick to long to ZBrush

Martin

[Seth]

thanks for the explaination !

[monks]

oh Lordy  lots of techniques mastered there!

monks

[Mr_Lamppost]

Thanks for the link to the DOF plugin I woill need to give it a proper look.