Winter trees

[glen5700]

Hi all,
Well I had this scene for some time but it looked quite different http://www.3ddigitalgraphics.com/terragen/outcrops.jpg , Marc Gebhart posted his winter trees in the file sharing so I thought to try these trees in this scene. For the new scene I moved the camera down and to the right a bit and found a nice place. Added snow and tried to create some granularity to the snow but it's not quite there yet, I should add some of those cool sparkles by DandelO. The terrain was done in World Machine 1.25 Standard. Right click on image and choose view image to see it full size.

Glen

[cyphyr]

Simply beautiful

Some more work on the snow ?

Richard

[glen5700]

I would just like to get a bit more interesting of a surface, here is an example http://www.trekzone.ca/files/images/FootprintsSnow.jpg. I have something in the works and I try to get it up here soon.

Thanks,
Glen

[trailgirl]

Very nice, I love those shadows on the snow.

[mhaze]

Really excellent, grat lighting and shadows, POV is good too.

[EoinArmstrong]

Wow!  Wonderful atmo and lighting - love this!

[glen5700]

Thanks everyone for the nice compliments!! 

Glen

[domdib]

Very nice. My only suggestion is to think about soft shadows, as they might be more in keeping with the hazy background - but of course, that ups render time.

[glen5700]

Thanks domdib,
I like your suggestion, I will have to give it a try and see how much the render time goes up.

Glen

[inkydigit]

Hi Glen,
great scene, agree about the soft shadows
cheers
Jason

[glen5700]

OK folks here is a smaller one but with some soft shadows and some fine displacement on the snow. Please give me your thoughts on the displacement and if you think it works or not. I do plan on rendering it out larger and that will allow a better look at the details.

Thanks,
Glen

[MGebhart]

Very excellent, Glen.

Marc

[Henry Blewer]

I think the small displacements really add to the scene Glen. Fresh snow with a little breeze when it has fallen looks like this. Did you try some ambient occlusion for softening the shadows? I think it renders faster, but does a similar job 'lightening' the shadows.

[domdib]

Lovely.

[Tangled-Universe]

Very nice work on the snow, looks good!
I think the bumpsize of the snow is good, but perhaps you might try a little stretching (1.5 - 2) on either the X or Z-axis, depending on your camera rotation, to make the bumps look a bit stretched from left to right (POV-wise). I don't know if you like that kind of effect, but I do.
The softshadows are good and I guess you used the default diameter of 0.5 degrees which is physically correct. However, somehow I have the feeling this image would benefit from exaggerated soft-shadows. Say 2 or 3 degrees for example (but keep in mind that you have to increase sampling to around 12-15 samples then).
All in all very good work, great atmosphere!

Cheers,
Martin