Planetside Software Forums

General => Image Sharing => Topic started by: RArcher on August 23, 2008, 01:22:32 PM

Title: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving (Final)
Post by: RArcher on August 23, 2008, 01:22:32 PM
Mountains, Lake, forest, etc. etc.

Normally I would end up using some DEM data for a scene like this, but this time I decided to create the landscape procedurally.  I think it turned out pretty nice.  There are probably a few things I would change if I was to do it again, but it took 60 hours to render so that isn't too likely.

Thanks for any comments and suggestions.

Grasses from Lightning and Klas, Trees are from Jcinbama.

Edit:  Final Image can be found here:

http://www.archer-designs.com/galleries/art-galleries/tg2/fullsize/mountain-lake-storm-arriving-v7.jpg (http://www.archer-designs.com/galleries/art-galleries/tg2/fullsize/mountain-lake-storm-arriving-v7.jpg)
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: nvseal on August 23, 2008, 02:18:36 PM
That's pretty impressive. The far bank is completely amazing! Could you post a link to the trees?
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: Seth on August 23, 2008, 02:25:08 PM
very good one !
i am not sure about the ground under the water, it looks odd on my screen but other than that, it is really impressive !
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: Hannes on August 23, 2008, 05:34:55 PM
Great picture, maybe a little bit too blurred.
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: cyphyr on August 23, 2008, 07:29:31 PM
Beautiful, nothing to crit, I've seen places in Scotland pretty indistinguishable from this :)
Maybe the prominent flowers could be a little smaller (less prominent) but thats just personal really. Very high AA I guess ?
Richard
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: Saurav on August 23, 2008, 10:45:46 PM
Excellent render,  especially the far bank where it looks the most realistic.
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: Tangled-Universe on August 24, 2008, 05:20:16 AM
Awesome work Ryan!

This image looks quite alike my "brand new day" image, regarding colorpalette (rocks and grasses), displacements (cracks, mountains etc.),texturing and rendertimes...lol :P
However, I think this image "breathes more atmosphere". Your postwork-techniques certainly add to this.

The cloud looks very good and I like the way how you handled the lighting under the cloud. Any special trick for that?

I don't have any crits regarding the upper 2/3 of the image. It all looks damn good ;D
The foreground could use little work. Like Richard said some of the flowers, especially in the left foreground for me, could be less prominent. This can sound a bit nutpicking, I don't intend to :) The other thing I would add/change is the underwater-surfacing. Maybe some nicely displaced boulders would be great!

Martin
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: rcallicotte on August 24, 2008, 08:36:43 AM
I like the view.  Nice foliage.  Seems like I've seen this one before...
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: monks on August 24, 2008, 04:31:58 PM
VERY nice- just a wee too much blur for my taste.

monks
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: dandelO on August 24, 2008, 06:49:21 PM
Really nice! I love the paths(if they are paths, they certainly look like it) climbing out of the trees, nicely done.
I'd only darken the ground beneath the water and it'd be even better.
Pop some sheep in there too!  :D

Got to rush, I'm halfway up one of those walkways to beat the storm, if I get to the summit I'll stay dry, I imagine.
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: lightning on August 24, 2008, 11:57:26 PM
great picture it has lovely mood to it  :)
I am glad to see you have used some of the plants out of the ground cover pack ;)

the background looks really great those tree look amazing! i also like the texture work on the cliffs in the far background :)

the foreground needs abit more work the grass looks fine i think. I think what needs to be changed is the ground covers used. personally i would just stick with the dandelions and get rid of the buttercups and the poppies (keep the nettles though) and just downsize the dandelions a bit ( I think one model is slightly bigger than the other) and just decrease the object spacing so you can see more of them. i would also make the nettles a little more prominent but make sure both plant dont grow to near the water. also as a personal taste i would either edit klases grass or one of my grasses to make it resemble some dort of water grass and distribute it
round the areas i highlighted in red
(http://pichostonline.com/u/080825/f1cdbcb338.jpg) (http://pichostonline.com/)
or maybe use one of the bushes out of the bush pack v2 set and flatten the y value by half and change the leaf texture to an aquatic leaf and distribute under the water to replicate some sort of sea weed

well im looking forward for an update (if you make one ;D)
peace jak
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: FrankB on August 25, 2008, 03:10:56 AM
Very beautiful!!! That's the kind of art I enjoy most with TG2 :-)
The hints from the others here have been good, though... should you plan to make another version of it.

Thanks,
Frank
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: RArcher on August 25, 2008, 11:53:13 PM
Thanks everyone for all the suggestions.  There is a new version forthcoming sometime in the future.  Added some foreground rocks, added two more populations of different trees, underwater features and some shoreline cattails.  Removed the flowers for now, but they might come back before I am done if I can get them looking natural.

Martin:  Nothing special done with the cloud.  It is a different seed of the cloud-tail clip I posted in the clouds thread, probably just got lucky with the light and 3/3 GI never hurts either.  It certainly isn't shocking that that voronoi displacements look similar, considering it was you who showed me how to properly connect the nodes.  ;D  I've been messing about with various voronoi modifications in everything from water to clouds just to see what it does now that I know how it works.
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: Phylloxera on August 26, 2008, 02:28:59 PM
Respect ! (http://smileys.sur-la-toile.com/repository/Respect/aplausos.gif)
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: RArcher on August 26, 2008, 08:56:59 PM
Low detail update render.  Still a bit more I am thinking of changing.  No postwork done on this yet.
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: moodflow on August 26, 2008, 08:59:31 PM
Looking great so far!  I'm glad you removed those flowers.  8)
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: Inscrutable on August 27, 2008, 03:13:38 AM
Wow. Just wow.

This is the sort of image that makes me want to cry at my own inadaquacy with TG2!  That or it inspires me to keep tying - I haven't quite figured out where I sit on that particular fence yet...

In any case, the pic is just jaw-droppingly beautiful.

Inscrutable
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: old_blaggard on August 27, 2008, 03:27:01 AM
Looking good!  The foreground is especially realistic now.
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: zhotfire on August 27, 2008, 03:27:18 AM
Great improvement in the foreground  :o  Any way to make those reeds lighter? Maybe they just need some translucency?
Awesome work so far... definate contender for IOTW!  8)
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: Phylloxera on August 27, 2008, 05:48:36 AM
Still better! This rock really is very successful!
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: Seth on August 27, 2008, 07:57:23 AM
very good render
i prefer it without the flowers too ^^
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: cyphyr on August 27, 2008, 08:05:20 AM
Looking really good, great progress. I agree with the others about the Dark reeds, (and nettles). Just up the translucency and your there.
Richard
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: Hannes on August 27, 2008, 09:34:39 AM
I love the second version. Almost photoreal!!
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: otakar on August 27, 2008, 10:58:23 AM
Another killer render! I liked the added color from the flowers, but this is more realistic :)
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: dwilson on August 28, 2008, 06:44:25 PM
Very good render.  I really like the foreground rock, clouds, and the lighting
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: Mandrake on August 28, 2008, 11:46:39 PM
I kind of like the lack of brightly colored flowers in the foreground better. Beauty
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: Marcos Silveira on August 29, 2008, 08:28:59 PM
It's so well crafted... Simply, a work of art!!!! :'(
Congratulations!!!!!
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: RArcher on August 29, 2008, 09:42:41 PM
Thanks again for all the comments and helpful suggestions.  Here is the next low detail test.  I think things are coming along fairly well, but I need to keep working on the fish splashes, before I render it at high detail.  Again, no postwork done on this yet.
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: Mandrake on August 29, 2008, 09:59:30 PM
Don't know about the fish strike, but the perfect spherical or arch of the catty9tails ain't right. It should be chaotic.. Beauty bud!!
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: lightning on August 29, 2008, 10:13:51 PM
nice update ;D love the veg just a small crit i think the stalks on the nettles are a little to vibrant i think thats my fault. to fix this either desaturate the texture map in photoshop or just decrease the brigtness in the default shader to about .5 and decrease the translucency abit ;)
maybe do the same for the reeds to they seem a little to vibrant for this scene.
but overall it a pretty amazing scene :)!
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: Cyber-Angel on August 29, 2008, 11:21:45 PM
Lightning,

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the storks of real world nettles to dense to allow for back-lighting any way so there should be no translucency whatever on the storks?  The only thing on nettle storks that would allow back-lighting are the small hairs, that at the scale of this image I can not see weather or not you model has these or not and since I do not have Xfrog I cannot say weather it allows such hairs to be added.

Just a few things I've noticed about nettles over the years.

(Sorry to be off topic).

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel           
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: lightning on August 30, 2008, 03:39:30 AM
no if you shine a nettle stalk up to sunlight it is slightly translucent anyhow i used max to create these nettles i tend to stay away from xfrog when it comes to smaller plants because it does a pretty poor job of them :-\
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: zhotfire on August 30, 2008, 04:37:01 AM
Nice update... about the fish strikes: they are rather large and have too many rings. For the scale of the lake I would decrease their size by about 1/6 to 1/10 and reduce the number of ripples to only 1 or 2. When they strike, trout that is, it is usually only a single breach of the surface. HTH ;) :)
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: inkydigit on August 30, 2008, 07:31:26 AM
great update...I love everything here!
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving
Post by: RArcher on September 19, 2008, 11:47:08 PM
Here is the final version, it is time for me to move on to something new.  I am pretty much entirely satisfied with how this has turned out.  I am sure that there are probably little tweaks here and there that I could add, but sometimes you just need to walk away.

Thanks to Lightning for the grass and some trees, Jcinbama for some trees, Klas for the grass and close up tree.
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving (Final)
Post by: bigben on September 20, 2008, 07:07:40 AM
This is a great image.  Maybe something to keep in mind for the next project...  the only tweak I can suggest for this is the distribution of the rushes in the shallow water on the left. The spacing is a bit too wide and uniform... and coul possibly extend out of the water in some places.  The rest... clouds, lighting, plants, surfacing is fantastic.
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving (Final)
Post by: MacGyver on September 20, 2008, 07:41:09 AM
Sir, I have to dub this photorealistic! ;D
My personal image of the week :D
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving (Final)
Post by: nvseal on September 20, 2008, 09:07:09 AM
WOW! :o I don't know what to say about this. This is probably one, if not THE, best TG 2 image I've ever seen using foliage. Image of the week for sure.
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving (Final)
Post by: j meyer on September 20, 2008, 10:15:19 AM
You have achieved a great result here,the plants especially
look very natural.Compliments.
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving (Final)
Post by: Alf15000 on September 20, 2008, 01:48:59 PM
Impressive ! It looks very realistic ! Nice work  :)
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving (Final)
Post by: Oshyan on September 22, 2008, 01:48:16 AM
This is a really wonderful result! I would say personally I think there is a bit too much contrast, and an odd DoF-like effect that makes the foreground tree on the right look too sharp in contrast with the background mountains. But otherwise it is superb. Well done!

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving (Final)
Post by: choronr on September 23, 2008, 11:22:09 PM
A spectacular piece of work!
Title: Re: Mountain Lake Storm Arriving (Final)
Post by: rcallicotte on September 24, 2008, 07:54:25 AM
To quote Jim Carey in "Bruce Almighty", this is g-u-u-u-u-d.