This is a test render. The clouds need work. I also need some more understory plants. The rock face is a bit too mono-colored also.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/njeneb/4873213648/sizes/o/in/photostream/
it looks ok so far
i like the water reflections & terrain.
Nice ! The Trees do look a little to big to me , Njeneb ?
Yes the trees are too large. I reduced their coverage, I want some redwoods, and the tree is a dawn redwood.
Starting up nicely, Henry. May I suggest? Lower your POV, simplify/soften the sky, and perhaps the snow coverage. It's a bit hectic in texture at the moment.
I lowered the POV as Ulco suggested. The sky and snow coverage have been tweaked. I moved the sun around to the left, behind the camera.
I am not sure the Dawn Redwoods work in this now. They seem too green, but if they matched the pines from Walli in size they may still work.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/njeneb/4876216374/sizes/o/in/photostream/
I still think it's too crowded with small texture. Why not leave the sky almost blue with just a few large/small soft clouds, reduce ripples on the water to a calm ripple, get some haze in. You could reduce the color intensity in the leaf texture of the redwoods maybe.
Mind you, it's my idea about this. You don't have to agree.
The water can definitely be calmer. I am thinking of using the new maples. The lower cloud layer just does not look right no matter how I do it; I have tried many variations. I have a render just finished with smaller redwoods. The redwoods seem to fit better.
I'm of the same opinion as Dune on two respects; I too think increasing the haze settings will help to soften the general harshness of the scene, and maybe using a mask on the clouds to try and eradicate the general scattering of small bits of cloud that have the effect of making the sky seem too busy. But, overall I like the scene, particularly your mountain shapes.
John
Another test render. I added Dandelo's Maples into the mix. It's hard to tell at this render setting. (0.325 detail, 4 AA)
I am going to reduce the cloud coverage. I forgot about the waves...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/njeneb/4877314854/sizes/o/in/photostream/
I think it's a good idea to lessen the clouds a bit here. Also, if you are showing test renders at such a low detail level, it does make it a bit more difficult to judge what's working. Why not make smaller, higher quality renders?
Rendering a final now. It might be done Wednesday. Detail at 0.75, AA 6, at 1920 x 1080. I like what I did to the clouds, I hope you guys do also. The higher AA is taking care of a lot of the graininess you see in the test renders.
Yeah, the graininess. That's the main culprit, perhaps. But like Schmeerlap says, the small bits of cloud (and wavelets) make it crowded. You could increase the main size of clouds and/or the smallest size. And soften them. Looking forward to your final render.
I am a little more than halfway done rendering this. The water and the trees take a long time to calculate... It may be finished Thursday by the looks of things. The clouds are different... I used a perlin billows mask for very thin cirrus clouds. I may have made the cloud edge sharpness too high. I am very happy with the mountain on the right. The far mountains are too distant to see much detail.
Let me grab a screenshot and post it...
Here's a crop of the whole image.
Windows update downloaded the new security updates and then rebooted. I have the update set to just download and notify. Lost days of render time. When I went out last night, there were only two bucket rows left. I am so pissed off!
This really sucks :(
I think Microsoft's mentality of notify is that a window pops up and when you don't click anything it thinks when the time is up that you are OK to reboot.
Just a guess ! But users like you and others who have renders going on shouldn't do automatic updates (because of Microsoft's way of notification).
This is Microsoft's fault of course !
:(
I had this too, ONCE. Under the exact same circumstances as Henry.
Now my PC only installs updates whenever I shut down the machine.
Oh well, time to make some changes in the project. Maybe it's not a complete waste.
"Now my PC only installs updates whenever I shut down the machine."
How did you convince the machine to do that?
No that was a mistake Henry, sorry.
I made a huge render last night and I thought it crashed, but looking back at it it must have been auto-update as well. Ghehe, lol.
I'm on windows 7 now and in my XP64 time I got it working the way I described, but I don't know how anymore, sorry.
Can I have a look at your file and see how I go with the surfacing?
Cheers,
Martin
Sure. I was going to post it in the file sharing area when I finished the render. I will get back to it when I get a new computer. I can almost afford a i5 system. It may not be optimal, but it will be much faster than what I am currently using.
Win7: Control panel - Windows update - From the list on the left select "Change settings".
From the drop down list under "Important Updates" choose "Download updates but let me choose whether to install them". No more interrupted renders because of those oh so important updates. And your system's security is not at risk.
Quote from: njeneb on August 12, 2010, 12:31:34 PM
Sure. I was going to post it in the file sharing area when I finished the render. I will get back to it when I get a new computer. I can almost afford a i5 system. It may not be optimal, but it will be much faster than what I am currently using.
I don't know about your budget of course, nor about the local prizes for hardware where you live, but how about a i7-860 system? The i5 is really good, but lacks hyperthreading which the i7-860 has. This will probably give you at least 50% extra speed over the i5.
It will definitely be a good investment for the next couple of years.
However, the i7-860 costs (here) around 90 dollars more, but it does use the same socket, memory etc. etc., so only the difference in cpu will add to the price.
Just thinking along with you :)
Andy, these are the settings I have and had for Windows update. Microsoft thinks that everyone is an idiot...