A motte (Dutch) is a hill with a castle or defensed farm on top. I was experimenting with a road getting to the hilltop (see if I could do that). It works, though you can't really see that here. Plunked some veggies in et voila.
This is real great works as usual, but how did you manage to do the "tracks" on the path ? is this usung painting shader displacements or something else ?
The dirt track is superb! I love the plant placement too
Nice job, as always :)
That is just beautiful. I especially love the path, very real and complex.
The ruts are just (very: Z=100) stretched fractal lines, warped the same way as the track plus a little extra small scale warp.
Here's a version with rocks instead of veggies. The flat stones are really frustrating, I wish there was a way to avoid them.
Very nice the first one !
Beautifull. You can used my castle ?
I love the impression of diversity in the plants of the first image. The lushness is also a big plus.
I like the look and feel of the rocky one too, almost better. But it lacks a little. Namely a greater diversity of stone and sand. I almost feel like with a little more work the second image could be better than the first.
One problem here, and in a number of other renders posted recently (by lots of people), is a real lack of displacement and texture work on hard surface objects. But even if its just a test for placement, its almost better not to include buildings and such, because they can really make an image look fake.
On the other hand, I know "photo realism" is not everyones goal (nor should it be). Often some of the renders I like best are illustrative or stylized, or cartoony. But then it should be one or the other. The aesthetic of real and drawn in the same image, really conflicts and makes both look bad... more thinking out load than critiquing. Just some thoughts that came to mind.
The first image is one I enjoy looking at for a long time taking in all the favorable details. And, I like the path appearing as it has depth.
I exactly recognize what you're saying, Michael. This castle is one I made for a whole city, and needed to be not too big in polys. Also, I was (am) still in my early days of modeling, so I'm already glad it came out as it did. I still didn't find out how I can easily smooth straight corners in Lightwave after having a building completely built up. Just this morning I was thinking of adding some loose corner stones to break the straight edges.
I reduced some stones' parameters, so they're a little better here.
@Bastien: thanks, but I have my own ;)
That last one is heading in an interesting direction but I still like the first one best.
Some different rocks and buildings.
This is an art piece. The grays and greens blend perfectly for the ground. Collectively, this is beautiful.
I like the black and white version !