A Long Drive

[moodflow]

I've wanted to do an image like this for a while.  Though its not to the quality I knew I could achieve if I worked on it even more, I figured it was finished enough to post.

The road is a quick 15 minute image map I created in Photoshop and applied as a tiled image scaled appropriately. 
The background mountain was a quick image map blur created in photoshop (about 1 minute) and imported as a terrain into TG2 as a heightfield.  I did this so I wouldn't have to cycle through different seeds until I got the shape and location I wanted. 
The rocks and terrain detail are all power fractals, masked through a custom image map I based off the road image (else I'd get rock displacements in the road itself).
The clouds are basic power fractals, but I had to add a mask to open a hole for the sun (else the clouds blocked it 99% of the time).  This mask only took a few seconds in photoshop, since I used it as camera projection.  I could have done a much better job, but figured I was on a roll and kept going.

The lighting is the new GI technique I've been dialing in, and I really love how it moods up each image I've used it on.

Stats:
render time:  7 hours over 4 cores
resolution:  800x600
quality: 1.0
GI: 2/2
AA:  3

Minor color correction/levels/sharpening in photoshop.
As stated, its not really complete (and could have had much better detail), but I want to move onto another project.
Many thanks for viewing... I hope you enjoy it. 
-Jeff

[Mandrake]

Nice, I've wanted to do that same image for a long time. I like road colors, well worn vs. center of the lane. Looks like a good place for dystopia.

[rcallicotte]

Looks real and I like it like I said at Renderosity.

[moodflow]

Thanks for the comments. 

As stated, I could have done a lot more work, but I've moved onto another project.

One of the major things that could be improved on this image... is the color blandness.  There is just too much of the same color, though its like this sometimes in nature.

[buzzzzz1]

Sweet Work! All it needs is a mini cooper. 

[inkydigit]

agree with Jay...sweet render

[PG]

make the ground a bit rustier and it'd look like a scene straight out of Mad Max. good job.

[rcallicotte]

This is something Oshyan mentioned as a behavior of this type of lighting - flatness.

I like it, in this case.

... is the color blandness.  There is just too much of the same color, though its like this sometimes in nature.

[moodflow]

This is something Oshyan mentioned as a behavior of this type of lighting - flatness.

I like it, in this case.

... is the color blandness.  There is just too much of the same color, though its like this sometimes in nature.

Yea, the light fills in the shadows in the bumps and ridges.  Its a natural aspect of that type of lighting.  I am working on some scenes now that feature both types of lighting (GI-fill and direct) in the same image.  We'll see how it turns out.

[fmtoffolo]

i like the mood and colors,,but the road looks kinda blurred, like a low res texture or something

[moodflow]

i like the mood and colors,,but the road looks kinda blurred, like a low res texture or something

Yea, it IS low res.  The image file is 1000x1000 and the road was probably only 80 pixels across.

[moray]

I'm with fmtoffolo...I like the colors just the way they are.  It adds to the feeling of desolation.  Just the feeling you'd expect way out in the middle of nowhere late in the evening.

I think it's great!