Winter trees

[Gannaingh]

To me the best part of the scene is the trees and snow in the mist. That atmosphere really complements the trees well and gives a very wonderful winter feel.

[glen5700]

Thanks all!!

Martin: I will give the stretchy snow displacement a try, I would like to see how it affects the scene. I wouldn't mind kicking up the softness on the shadows, in my opinion that should help the snow too.

njeneb: I haven't tried any ambient occlusion but I really should, it's one of my favorite options in other 3D apps.

Glen

[MacGyver]

Nice improvement on the scene with soft shadows I like the POV and would like to see some icy water in the ditches

[glen5700]

Here is an update, the stretch on the snow isn't showing so well so this needs to be increased and there is some ice on the creek but I would like to do more with it in the future. The best thing is the shadows are softer, I think that makes a big improvement.

Thanks,
Glen

[inkydigit]

this is much better(imho)...love the shadows especially, I often use upto 5 for these.

[domdib]

The shadows are now gorgeous. If you were able to add a little more sparkle to the snow, I think this would be a winner.

[choronr]

Very impressive and inspiring Glen. I need to try something like this

[glen5700]

Thanks for the compliments guys, I'm working on dandelO's sparkle shader - first to understand it and then add it to my scene.

Glen

[dandelO]

To get it to sparkle, Glen, you'll need your sunlight in front of the camera. This -45(approx' to camera) angle won't give you any sparkles with my shader, unfortunately. Sparkling will only work with sunlight directly in front or in-shot.
I think if you put a direct sunlight overhead with no shadows but with specular highlights checked then you should get sparkles, whatever the sunlight angle. Don't quote me on that, I haven't tried it.

[choronr]

Just an idea (haven't tried either); how about making fake stones lying on the snow; and, as small as you can; color them white and add luminosity?

[dandelO]

Hee hee, we went through that aswell, Bob, backwards and forwards. Trouble there is that luminosity still sparkles in the shadowed areas, too. You need actual reflection data to make it work correctly.

[glen5700]

Thanks dandelO,
I was just starting to work it in my scene, I didn't spend to much time messing around with it.

Glen

[choronr]

Hee hee, we went through that aswell, Bob, backwards and forwards. Trouble there is that luminosity still sparkles in the shadowed areas, too. You need actual reflection data to make it work correctly.

Maybe just use the Painted Shader and paint the sparkles where you want them (not in the shadows of course).

[glen5700]

Yes definitely an option worth investigating.

I have another thought, sometime back a person came up with a way to have snow on the shadow side of mountains. This is a normal as weather warms and melts the snow on the sunny slopes the shadowed areas hold onto the snow.

If I remember right is was based of the position of the sun so my thought would be to use this for masking the sparkles out of the shadow areas. If this works and is based of the suns position then moving the sun would automatically move the mask.

I took a quick look for the post but didn't find it, I will have to do a better search and check my downloads to see if I have this.

Thanks,
Glen

[Dune]

@ Glen: I worked on sparkles as well and used tiny fake stones and a reflective shader instead of Dandel0's luminosity method. It works very well; no sparkles in shadowed areas, but as Dandelo said, only when the sun is quite in front of you. The second sun might do the trick. See here: http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=8488.0

---Dune