Had some fun experimenting here with the light. The image has two suns. The primary sun is set at a 300 heading with a -1 elevation which is below the horizon. At this point, the foreground is too dark so I added a second sun which also is set at a 300 heading; but, with Light atmosphere unchecked, elevation set at 12, Strength set at 5.5, Cast shadows, Do soft shadows, Glow in atmosphere unchecked; and, Visible disc unchecked. This set up appeared to yield a reasonably well lighted foreground notwithstanding a negative altitude setting which makes for a very nice atmosphere for a sunset or rise.
Additionally, I added one of Oshyan's Fill lights set 180 degrees from the main suns at a 10 degree elevation and strength at 0.13125 - Cast shadows unchecked.
All plant models used are by Walli available at Silva 3D and NWDA. They include:
• .tgo Dry shrubs #02 and #09.
• .tgo ND01 Grass v3 and Dry Grass patch 3.
• .tgo Chamaecyparis variant 2.
• .obj CL01a Abies White Fir (through Xfrog).
Clouds, Fake stones and PGS Grass Evolution are by dandelO; and, used along with Simple Camouflaged surface by FrankB - all downloadable at the Planetside forum.
I love the clouds and the brightly-lit silhouettes of some of the trees. The whole thing has a game-like or HDR quality, no doubt due to the unusual lighting setup. It's not a bad effect, not what I would perhaps prefer, but it's still a nice resulting scene overall.
- Oshyan
Thank you Oshyan. It may do well in some scenes, but not all depending on cloud types.
You know, I looked at this again and I think I see something that's contributing to the "game-like" feel, and that is the rather low haze amount. Things seem remarkably clear into the distance, so the perception of distance is lessened. There is also fairly little roughness or darkness in the terrain and texturing, things look a bit too smooth. All that contributes to the CGI or game-like look. Again, I like the image, but I do think it could be "roughed up" a bit and given more distance haze, if you want it to be more realistic.
- Oshyan
Thank you for your assessment of what could be done for improvement; and, I'll take you up on that ...really appreciate this.
Great! there's a sense of waiting for something to appear in this scene which I like.
thats a very nice scene. This picture has a special "style", its a mixture between game, realistic and hdr photography. I like it a lot!
Beautiful! I realized that in some cases plants look rather flat lit when GI is used. I'm curious how your image would look like, If you'd use GI only for the atmosphere and fill lights (with "cast shadows" checked) instead of an environmental light only for the surfaces. I did this in my "1000 birds" image, and my plants looked way better. I always use the fill lights.tgc and delete the imported sunlight, so that I don't have to reposition the sun.
Cool style/look,would be great for animated movies.
Beautiful work!
Quote from: Hannes on January 23, 2013, 05:10:46 AM
Beautiful! I realized that in some cases plants look rather flat lit when GI is used. I'm curious how your image would look like, If you'd use GI only for the atmosphere and fill lights (with "cast shadows" checked) instead of an environmental light only for the surfaces. I did this in my "1000 birds" image, and my plants looked way better. I always use the fill lights.tgc and delete the imported sunlight, so that I don't have to reposition the sun.
Thanks to all of you for visiting and your comments and suggestions. @Hannes: I appreciate your suggestions and will experiment with your thoughts. I'm currently working with the ideas that Oshyan had presented. Also, I will make this .tgd available in File sharing as soon as I've completed the additional work.
Nice effect. If this were Skyrim I'd need to take a close look around the base of that tall tree.
this is really good
i cant think of any critism for this :)
like the ground cover a lot, object placement, lighting.
nice :)
Oh sorryyyyyyyyyyyyy! :-[ :-[ :-[ :-[ :-[
I just read my own comment and realized what I wrote: "...my plants looked way better." I didn't mean to say my plants look better than yours!!! I wanted to say that my plants looked better than before!
Apologieeeees!!!!
Pretty and surreal !!! A original environment.
Quote from: Hannes on January 23, 2013, 03:46:32 PM
Oh sorryyyyyyyyyyyyy! :-[ :-[ :-[ :-[ :-[
I just read my own comment and realized what I wrote: "...my plants looked way better." I didn't mean to say my plants look better than yours!!! I wanted to say that my plants looked better than before!
Apologieeeees!!!!
No offense Hannes, I took it the way you actually meant it.
Great scenery!
Love the colours. The clouds is something I would like to be able to do in the future.
Is it a trick of the light or do you use a wider fov? Looks a bit like wide angle but it could be that I need to check my eye sight.
Cheers
Quote from: TerrMite on January 24, 2013, 05:39:03 AM
Great scenery!
Love the colours. The clouds is something I would like to be able to do in the future.
Is it a trick of the light or do you use a wider fov? Looks a bit like wide angle but it could be that I need to check my eye sight.
Cheers
Thank you for visiting. I'll be posting an update here; and, will share the two .tgd files a little later today.
Here is an update trying some suggestions made by Oshyan for adding some dense haze and roughening the terrain a bit.
I think it's a definite improvement in terms of realism, but it also seems to lack some of the nice contrast of the previous one. That is to be expected with the addition of haze, but I think if you brighten the light source, or increase exposure, or just do some post work on it to increase brightness and contrast, you'll get back the nice "punch" the previous one had, while maintaining the new "weight" and realism that the distance haze and terrain roughness adds. Nice to see this evolving!
- Oshyan
If you want contrast close by and still this great haze, you could perhaps localize it or restrict it by distance shader.
Quote from: Oshyan on January 25, 2013, 08:30:02 PM
I think it's a definite improvement in terms of realism, but it also seems to lack some of the nice contrast of the previous one. That is to be expected with the addition of haze, but I think if you brighten the light source, or increase exposure, or just do some post work on it to increase brightness and contrast, you'll get back the nice "punch" the previous one had, while maintaining the new "weight" and realism that the distance haze and terrain roughness adds. Nice to see this evolving!
- Oshyan
Thanks Oshyan, I'll see what I can do with this. Agree the original has some pop. Hopefully with a few more adjustments I'll get there.
Quote from: Dune on January 26, 2013, 02:59:43 AM
If you want contrast close by and still this great haze, you could perhaps localize it or restrict it by distance shader.
Thanks Ulco for your thoughts on this. I'll be giving your suggestions a try.
Here is a quick render but maybe good enough to display the changes that include adjustments of less haze, increased sun strength, increased camera exposure, increased red sky decay and decreased gamma. If the consensus believes this improves the last image and nears impact of the first image; then, I'll go to a final render.
Oh yes, I removed the tree. Been cold here tonight and needed some firewood.
I think it's a good compromise, with still enough haze for a realistic sense of distance, but the "punch" is brought back into the sky. However I did like the previous vegetation, the bushes and stuff. I thought they cast more pleasing shadows. Not to nitpick, I'm pleased you've taken onboard some of my input thus far, but ultimately the image is yours. :)
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on January 26, 2013, 09:36:32 PM
I think it's a good compromise, with still enough haze for a realistic sense of distance, but the "punch" is brought back into the sky. However I did like the previous vegetation, the bushes and stuff. I thought they cast more pleasing shadows. Not to nitpick, I'm pleased you've taken onboard some of my input thus far, but ultimately the image is yours. :)
- Oshyan
Thanks Oshyan, I'll try reseeding the vegetation for better shadows and go to a final render. Good experience this one.