How to improve this scene

[Raykoid666]

Hi all, for the past two days i have been trying to recreate crater lake and make the image look more appealing... though i think i have failed in the last bit. It doesn't look very appealing to me. Though i am new to TG2 (i have been a user of 0.9 in the past) i would like to see what you guys can do with it.

So, for those interested, here's the scenefile including DEM downloadable here http://www.2shared.com/file/7490118/6eccf28a/craterlake.html

thanks a lot in advance all!

[Raykoid666]

update: i rendered a preview image that might make it easier to help me out here :-)

thanks in advance all :-)

[Henry Blewer]

There are several photo sharing sites which allow you to have free accounts. I use Flickr (pay $24.00/year, but free account is available), Deviant Art is popular here, Rendosity allows picture uploads...
On Flickr I open my full size pic. At the bottom they have link info that can be cut and pasted to different sites. It's an easy way to share on this forum.
You might try setting your atmosphere samples to 64 (Quality tab of the shader). I'd kick the edge sharpness of the clouds up to about 40. From what I could tell, this is a good image.

[Oshyan]

Looks like you have two major problems to start with. First, your trees are much too large I think, which makes the scale look wrong (see example image here: http://bluehighways.wikispaces.com/file/view/crater_lake_large.jpg ). Second, the camera placement does not give you the greatest view of the circular lake and familiar shape. Perhaps try emulating something like the photo I referenced.

- Oshyan

[Raykoid666]

Okay so i think i have made it a bit better now, but judge for yourself. this is the render in reduced size for posting here.

Though it's not expressive enough, so i figure i would need to do some postwork here i'm afraid.

do you guys have any idea at all on what to do to improve this image now, and make it look less dull?

[Henry Blewer]

I would add two or three fake stone shaders. Do this in the terrain tab, not the shaders; because the fake stones will be quite large. Use the measure tool on the preview view port. Measure from the waters edge straight up to the craters rim. Divide this by 3. This gives the largest scale for the fake stone shader, Divide this by 3 again. This gives the smallest size for the first fake stone scale. the second fake stone would be 1/2, and the last the original scale size. You want the smaller stones to be covered by the largest.
Below the scale slider is the density slider, this can be set to your taste. I don't often use more than 0.4. Be sure to uncheck the Blend as Stone Denisty box on the fake stone shaders. This avoids 'exploding stones'.

[Oshyan]

I still think scale and PoV are your biggest issues here. But for the "dullness" of the image you might consider increasing contrast and/or reducing gamma correction, both in the renderer node settings. You could also try post work.

- Oshyan

[Dune]

Change your POV to somewhere on the coastline, so you'll have a receding coast. For an interesting composition you mostly need something on the foreground... anything.

---Dune