Well, I changed the POV in my "Shaft of Light" scene, and did some surfacing and populating. C + C welcome !
I think you've captured a massive sense of scale here! :) Perhaps the trees in the background could be smaller? The nearest one seems perfect though, imho.
I think the foreground tree is just right. I agree that he other trees are a little too large. It would be better if they were smaller and were in clumps; two to eight trees together.
The scale you have created is great.
Thanks for your comments. In fact, the foreground tree and the others are all part of one population, so the sizes are realistic as far as this scene goes.
Quote from: domdib on June 25, 2009, 04:49:37 AM
Thanks for your comments. In fact, the foreground tree and the others are all part of one population, so the sizes are realistic as far as this scene goes.
I already thought that you couldn't change the other trees seperate from the nearest one. In the background the trees make the terrrain look quite a bit small for my taste... ???
Why not cheating? You could create another Population with smaller trees in the background. Just leave the foreground tree there.
Btw the clouds look good but somehow splotchy.
(I have actually no idea what "splotchy" means, but it sounds exactly the way I see it. ;D)
Quote from: Hannes on June 25, 2009, 10:33:26 AM
Why not cheating? You could create another Population with smaller trees in the background. Just leave the foreground tree there.
Btw the clouds look good but somehow splotchy.
(I have actually no idea what "splotchy" means, but it sounds exactly the way I see it. ;D)
splotchy = fleckig oder schmutzig
Or if you prefer the English version: marked or covered with large, irregular spots :) That's what happens when you torture Frank's Cumulus Humilis clouds ;) Any suggestions on desplotchifying, Frank? EDIT: the cloud quality is already set at 2+ (266 samples)
fat saturated clouds (of a cumulonimbus style) have become much more difficult to manage, since fake internal scattering doesn't work anymore like it did before.
But also other, darker cloud type are now more difficult in terms of lighting.
In your case though you need get rid of the very high contrast of overcast white and the dark cloud bottoms. First of all reduce the sun glow, until it does not glow that much anymore. Then play with other lighting parameters, such as increasing the fake scattering and enviroment light slider in the cloud shader. Lastly, when bright and dark are balanced relatively to each other, increase the camera exposure.
This will definitely require a lot of tuning, unless you're lucky and find the correct balance right away ;)
Cheers,
Frank
Good luck at desplotchifying! ;D
Cool point of view. Sort of makes me dizzy. I'm with MacGyver - good luck on desplotchifying.
Here is my first attempt to fix the clouds (turned off populations to speed up rendering). Set your desplotchifiers to stun! ;)
Hi Dom, I think what you were trying to achieve with your first incarnation of this scene is worth pursuing. To me, the clouds were never the issue, in this and the previous. What I am concerned about now is what you want people to look at.
It's not a bad idea opening up your scene to full sunlight, for two reasons. One it allows you to get colours / displacements right, that when two, you roll back to your preferred lighting, you have every confidence in your scene so that all your efforts are then focussed on getting the mood right.
The tree model you've used is strong enough to be the 'hero' focus. In fact, I'd be tempted to go back to your old scene, position your camera in a spot where you can use the god rays to backlight a silhouette of Walli's model. Have a read up on the Golden Ratio. Think about where you want a viewer's eye to go first, concentrate on that, and then work on the periphery afterwards to add depth to your composition. Also use the copy coordinates feature in your preview window to position individual models exactly, it doesn't matter if things should be correct, it's more important to get people to believe in your composition.
Hetzen has sound advice. I have nothing to add.
My only problem with it is the EXTREME clipping going on in the whites near the top of the clouds. There needs to be a lot less contrast in the clouds, or you will lose a lot of details and end up with the pure white splotches you have in your clouds ;D
@Hetzen - thanks for your advice. However, I'm going to take this scene forward, for two main reasons: I don't think I have time to progress another version between now and the end of the contest; and second, I rather like this POV and lighting.
@deepdish - it's true there is overexposure on the tops of the clouds - however, this is a perennial challenge for landscape photography, as I'm exposing for the ground, not the clouds. I'm dialing down the sun in the next version, which should help.
Here is a new version with the sun toned down, so the clouds are less contrasty.
the clouds are great now! I love them!
Fair enough. Just two observations then :P
I'd be tempted to put the camera lower to the ground looking through some grass, possibly going portrait on the aspect ratio. Then I'd also want to put some yellow'er less saturated greens on your mountain grass texture.
Clouds still look great. ;D
Thanks gentlemen. Now that the clouds are working, I can focus on the terrain. I was already contemplating mixing in another population of grass that was a bit yellower - although perhaps Hetzen you are referring to the colour of the underlying texture? Mmm - and the light on the terrain isn't quite as bright as I'd like it now - would an extra EL with AO fit the bill? Or maybe I just do some Photomatix postwork massage? Questions, questions...
Get it right in full light first, sort out the lighting later. Your surface layer for the grass seems to be two hard colours of green and brown, however you've mixed them, there doesn't seem to be shades, rather just shadows. I'd be tempted to try and get patches of difference in the greens. Something I picked up on these forums, which I've got to say is quite brilliant, and I forget who suggested it, sorry, is to get a reference image of the terrain you're basing your scene on, then convert it to a gif, with a very limited colour pallete, something like twenty shades. A bit like posterising, so that you can colour pick key colours in the spectrum of your reference image.
Here is a crop, at final render size, of the terrain. I'd appreciate any C + C, and especially any technical advice on how to increase realism. Thanks!
Nice POV.... Have you adjusted the clouds as they now seem to glow/bleached out (in the V of the mountains)? The colour of the grass doesn't look quite right. In reality it would have some yellowish textures and a few interspersed dead bits. The displacement is great. I think a bit of realism could be added after in Photomatix or Photoshop... i.e. fine tuning the lighting and contrast. Keep at it. ;)
Thanks for the comments. I wouldn't worry about the clouds - they will be dealt with in postwork (in Lightzone, efflux's favourite prog). There are some yellower patches of grass but perhaps the effect is too subtle - might add a few patches here and there.
I think this is pretty near the final version, unless anyone has any thoughts...
Are you going to use any grass objects? If not, I would make a color node tree to shade the grass. Mix some browns and yellows, but have the greens dominate. It is coming along quite well.
Hmmm... There are five populations of grass, plus a double layered grass shader underneath. How much more grass do you want? :)
Those clouds are looking pretty damn nice now.... the grass looks much better with the dry patches, it breaks it up a bit. I really like the little outcrops in the displacements near the top.
Sorry, it's my crappy monitor. :-[
Pretty much the final final...
Nice, the clouds are pretty spectacular and like I said before, I like the rounded outcrops.
This looks cool, great sense of scales this way.
I'm wondering, how long does it already take to render this and can you post all the rendersettings and especially of your atmosphere/clouds?
Martin
@littlecannon. Thanks. The rounded outcrops are, as you probably guessed, just spheres with displacements and texturing (specifically, Goms excellent micro-cracked .tgc)
@TU - The render time is actually surprisingly reasonable. This final one took just over 7 hours on quite a slow processor (Pentium Dual E2180 2 Ghz) with the following settings:
Detail 0.7, AA10, GI 1/3, GI blur 8, SS on. Detail jittering is on. There is one cheat though - Ray traced shadows are OFF. The reason for this is I was having big problems with patches of blackness on the terrain, perhaps due to missing data (it's a DEM). I can get away with it because the sun is almost vertical, so the foliage and rocks don't cast visible shadows on the terrain.
Clouds and atmo settings are reasonably high; Atmo at 128, Clouds at 266. If you want, I could send a stripped down .tgd of the clouds and atmo with the final render. Unfortunately can't post it here, as it's based on Frank's Cumulus Humilis from the pack.
OK, here is the final version as submitted.
Credits: FrankB for the clouds (NWDA Cumulus Pack), Walli for green grass clumps + pines, Sonshine777 for dried grass clumps, Elegac for grass + soil shader, Goms for micro-cracked texture (colour + displacements on hero rocks, colour only on base rock layer). And finally, Matt Jo and Oshyan, for making this awesome program!
Postwork: PS, Photomatix and Lightzone (which is on summer sale just now at half price - well worth it)
Good luck to everyone, and I hope we see a few more submissions before the deadline.
Really nice clouds are particularly impressive.
Just found this post from another one, glad to see tou appreciated my "soil and grass" shader. Did you choose anything, like the slope constraints? At that time I didn't really know what values to choose...
Erwan
Lovely shot this, well done.
Very nice lighting and landscape.
It make me nostalgic for the peak district in Derbyshire.
Good luck with the competition. (oops, didn't look at the dates)
Chris
@elegac - I probably did, but I'll see if I can check in the scene file tonight.
@Chris, thanks for the compliment, but the competition took place quite a while back! (When is there going to be a new one, Frank? :))
Quote from: domdib on January 26, 2010, 10:54:56 AM
(When is there going to be a new one, Frank? :))
I don't know... do you want one? ;)
Why don't you start a poll? ;D
Very nice render. Pretty much everything in the scene is great.