I've always thought Mt Rainier up here in the pacific northwest was a very pretty mountain so I decded to redo one of my early images and make it....actually good. I really need to work on the texturing for the rock surface as I boubt the rock is really that red. The trees are X-frog's Grand fir's. And as always comments and suggestions are very welcome.
Render Time: 10 hours 24 minutes
Detail: 1
AA: 8
GI: 1/1
[attachthumb=#]
Very nice work here. The scale is quite good, and the POV is nice. I would work on smoothing out the snow a little in addition to getting that red color out of the rocks.
It looks pretty good, but the one thing that I wonder about is the lighting - it seems excessively blue. Even the green of the fir trees seems too bluish. Interesting to compare this with Saurav's image of Mt Rainier of a few weeks ago at http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=5484.0 (http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=5484.0). I know it's a different POV, but the lighting in his image just seems more sympathetic - but then I like early morning/late evening sun on mountains. Good luck with developing the scene!
This is looking promising so far!
I think O_b and dombib already pointed out the most important issues as well as the stong points.
As for the lighting I might have some ideas/tips to improve it:
You may try slightly lowering the sun's elevation, about 5 degrees or so. Then decrease the haze density by about 60% and increase it's half heighth by about 50%.
Then increase the red sky decay by about 50% or so...depends of course a bit on the value you've already set. I guess it's the default.
You should now have a slight less dense atmosphere, which will give more detail to the trees, and this should also introduce some more red in the lighting.
The lower angle of the sun adds to this as well as it will make the lighting a bit more dramatic.
I hope this helps.
Martin
Thanks for the tips on the atmosphere TU, at least in the preview render that seemed to clear up a lot of the blueness. We must have different monitor settings because the scene isn't supposed to be early morning/evening...though I imagine that would look rather nice. I'll post round two when it finishes.
Here is round two. I teaked the atmosphere settings, adjusted the gamma correction and got rid of that red rock...at least on my computer. I still need to fix the snow roughness a bit and work on creating a more realistic rock texture.
[attachthumb=#]
I see you have raised the elevation of the sun instead of lowering it ;)
The lighting is a bit dull now because there are not so many shadows and they're quite light. Funny by the way, because normally many people are complaining that their shadows are too dark :) Anyway, the bluish-ness is indeed less.
This is not a standard easy to lit scene because the snow is white as well as the clouds.
If you don't mind you could send me the tgd and a link to the terrainfile and I could show you an example of what I have in mind ;)
Martin
it's easier to have some good lighting with low height sun... that's my opinion....
I agree with T-U but as some might say, it's a matter of taste, not a technical advice ;)
I think the first one looks more realistic, try taking the redness from the rock and making it really dark, like almost black. I also think the clouds could sit a little higher. But good stuff so far ;)
Looking more realistic - if that's what you're after :). I see the firs are very light green anyway.
When you say you want a more realistic rock texture... doesn't the far POV mean that changing this is unlikely to show up?
I've received the files and hope to look at it this night or tomorrow. Please be patient, I'm quite busy! :)
Here is my next go at it. I messed with the gamma so it may turn out too blue again. Also the clouds in this one really don't fit the scene so that will have to be played with some.
[attachthumb=#]
One cool experiment might be to shade/displace the snow differently based upon angle (and perhaps slope) to emulate the sun's influence as it passes over to the south every day. You could get a bit tad more exposed rock on the south side of the peak, for example, or thicker trees on the southern slopes.
The latest version seems a big step forward - the cloud distribution is more interesting, and the lighting is looking good. Bravo!
Quote from: darthvader on February 03, 2009, 07:07:06 PM
Here is my next go at it. I messed with the gamma so it may turn out too blue again. Also the clouds in this one really don't fit the scene so that will have to be played with some.
[attachthumb=#]
This is a great improvement already. The lighting is much better and the rock-colours are more interesting than previous versions. The clouds could use some work though.
At the moment I'm working with your tgd and thought I had improved the lighting already, but I think this looks even better.
I also made adjustments to the clouds. I'll send you a tgd within a few hours.
Martin
I'd do something with aerial perspective to improve the sense of scale and distance.
Other than that - looks very impressive.
The next render has a different camera angle that way serve to make the image a bit more unconventional, though I am somewhat biased towards the view from above since it is how I see the mountain whenever I travel by air.
Round 4. I grabbed a screenshot because it has looked like it was done rendering for almost an hour without actually being done. If I keep this camera angle I will probably put mt adams and mt hood in the background to give the image more depth.
[attachthumb=#]
Great! The tilted angle of the camera isn't seen many here and I think it works fine here :)
What did you keep of the file I've sent you, the clouds and snow? Or maybe nothing? ;)
I really like this! I agree that the tilt is good, and the lighting is much improved as well, bringing out more detail and contrast. If you add the other mountains in the distance, I might also consider adding more haze to help bring out a sense of distance.
Thanks ;D
TU, I kept your settings for the trees leaves, I used your clouds as a base before modifying and tweaking the density fractal and blending shader, and I used a modified/towned down version of your lighing settings and reflective shader on the ground...so I actually kept a fair amount of your work...just modified a little ;)
Quote from: darthvader on February 05, 2009, 08:41:48 PM
Thanks ;D
TU, I kept your settings for the trees leaves, I used your clouds as a base before modifying and tweaking the density fractal and blending shader, and I used a modified/towned down version of your lighing settings and reflective shader on the ground...so I actually kept a fair amount of your work...just modified a little ;)
It just sounds like you only improved the things I did for you, which is great! You probably learned more this way than rather use it straight away :)
TU, your file was a lot of help, there were several settings in it that had never messed with before and I think those reall helped to develop the image. The next render should be up in about 30 minutes or so.
Here the next version is. I'm starting to like the camera tilt less so I might tone it down a bit. I also came across a ter. of the area surroundng these mountains so that should provide a more realistic envioment...that will be mostly hidden by clouds. The clouds could use some work, I don't really like the ones hanging over the trees near the bottom of the image. Also the added have seems to dull up the colors a bit so I will need to work on that.
[attachthumb=#]
A few suggestions I like to make to this image.
1. Have a arid area between the tree line and the snow as is in this example photo of Mt. Rainier.
http://www.micktravels.com/panoramas/mt-rainier-sunrise-point-panorama.jpg (http://www.micktravels.com/panoramas/mt-rainier-sunrise-point-panorama.jpg)
2. Add fractal details on the rock surface.
But it's looking good so far.
Quote from: Saurav on February 06, 2009, 11:38:11 PM
A few suggestions I like to make to this image.
1. Have a arid area between the tree line and the snow as is in this example photo of Mt. Rainier.
http://www.micktravels.com/panoramas/mt-rainier-sunrise-point-panorama.jpg (http://www.micktravels.com/panoramas/mt-rainier-sunrise-point-panorama.jpg)
2. Add fractal details on the rock surface.
But it's looking good so far.
Good suggestions, I agree.
After that it is finished, if you'd ask me :)
Very nice work!
Martin
Next version. Though the barren area is accurate to real life it just looks...wrong. Mabye I'll tweak it some more to make that area more satisfactory or I may end up going to the earlier simple tree line.
[attachthumb=#]
I'd make the restraints of both the arid area as the tree-line a bit more fuzzy, so that the arid area becomes thinner and the transition will become smoother. The transitions are a bit harsh, though it is indeed quite accurate to nature.
This may be the last version for a bit, my computer wants me to render something else for awhile. I may come back to this and get rid of the barren area above the tree line, i liked it better without it even if it isn't completely realistic.
[attachthumb=#]
Wonderful! You could always come back to it after a couple months .. ;) Really neat to see the progression here.
The image looks quite realistic as far as I am concerned. :)
Question: are the trees really that big? I haven't seen pictures of the actual mountain, so I don't know it. Subjectively they seem a bit too big to me.