Alpine Lake WIP

[Zairyn Arsyn]

this is really beutiful, very serene 
i agree with domdib, the water reflections look too sharp, or noisy,
thats my only real problem with this scene.

[MGebhart]

Thanks for everyones input.

I had a problem with the water and terrain scale as well so, I will be correcting these issues today.

I may have some questions before I do a final render so, be ready.

Thanks again.

[MGebhart]

Here is my next image. I think I fixed the scale and water issues.

Suggestions welcome.

[Henry Blewer]

I think some patches of bushes and other patches of dry grass would fill out the ecology of the scene better. I have been playing with the gamma slider in the render tab. Increasing this to 2.4 may light the scene a little better.
I like the progress on this one Marc. It will be great when you're ready for a final render!

[FrankB]

this is looking good Marc!

@Henry: increasing the gamma to 2.4 is not a good idea. It would just make the render look greyish. Instead, it's better to reduce the contast in the render node, maybe increase the power of the AO helper light (slightly), and render with high GI settings, such as 2/4, and use a render quality of 0.8 or above. This way Marc gets a lot of details in the shadows, which he can fine tune in post.

[domdib]

Yep, the water is much better. My only issue now is with the tree trunk - it looks fine, but from a compositional angle it's a bit too distracting. Good work Marc!

[Henry Blewer]

Thanks Frank. I have an image to try the AO settings you suggest myself. The bummer is the increased render time. I've been trying to avoid this.

[MGebhart]

This may be the last test before the large render.

Comments are welcome.

[domdib]

Go for it!

[Mahnmut]

Great!
the only possible improvement I see concerns the allen log.
In the previous render it was quite obvious and obvious models have to fulfill high standards.
maybe you thought so yourself making it a lot smaller in the last version.
Another option could be to let its end lie under water.
Just an idea.
Besides that, great!

best regards, Jan

[RArcher]

Marc, nice progression with your scene here, it is going to turn out great at higher detail.  One thing that I would play around with prior to rendering larger would be to lower the camera significantly.  I think you have it too far off the ground and it is playing havoc with the perspective and the  trees in the foreground.

[Mor]

This image has improved nicely and I'm looking forward to see bigger version.

[MGebhart]

Looks like I will need to render the project in 4 crops. Here are some of the settings I will be using. If there is an area where I can knock them down a bit to increase render time I would appreciate your input.

These are where I made changes everything else is default.

Render:
Detail 0.8
AA 7
Ray trace objects
GI relative detail 2
GI sample quality 4
GI blur radius 8
Supersample prepass
Catmull-Rom
Contrast 0.2

Camera:
Light exposer 5

Lighting:
Enviro light (default) GI
Enviro light (default) AO 1.25 on surfaces
Sunlight strenth 4.5

Clouds 32 Edge sharpness 60 samples Raytraced shadows enabled

Let me know what you think.

[cyphyr]

Don't forget to texture the foreground trees, now that your rendering at full size their surface needs to show some "roughness".
Otherwise looking good, looking forward to the final render
Richard

[MGebhart]

This is a 1/4 crop of a 800x500 using the settings in my last post. The the final render will be 1200x750.