This one took a long time to render. It was fun watching it. Each pass and block revealed more details. Enjoy!
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2769/4188488826_7c6cf347ec_o.png :)
Njeneb , i like this render. This is maybe one of your best renders in my opinion :)
Kadri.
Thanks Kadri! I agree. I used Marc Genhart's Pines, Honey Locusts, and Beech. They really are the stars in this one.
definitely one your best !
good job :)
I agree, your best and my favorite!
I agree, one of your best. It looks like you have a bit of luminosity on the vertical elevations layer which is strikingly good.
Wow, this is impressive, and darn near photo realistic!! I'm curious about your process of surface layering. Especially in the foreground you can see what looks sort of like a small pasture with some sparse trees in it. The surface looks very natural and real. I have a hard time so far getting any sort of realistic looking surface for anything besides rock. Care to share any pointers?
Thanks!
Beautiful render, njeneb, and excellent, too. Linda
...and that must be one INSANE tree population! :D
Excellent render, Henry; and echo others who have said this is one of your best. I particularly like the tree deployment.
John
Peter Jackson-esque ;D Very good! :)
Joining the chorus - excellent job! The light is beautifully soft.
Tree distribution:
It is really quite easy to get this effect. I start by making the population and pasting the coordinates. Now I go to an overhead projection of the preview window. I adjust the population size so it will cover everything which needs covering. This makes a population which is in the millions on this type of render.
Now I add a distribution shader in the Blend By Shader input. Make Fractal Breakup selected. By using the measure tool, you can get the 'width' across the preview image. Divide this by 1/3 or 1/4. (It can be rounded up) This will give you the Scale of the Fractal Breakup. The Lead-In Scale is the full measurement. Set your altitude and slope constraints how you think they will work.
The last things to do are to reduce the coverage on the distribution shader and set the population density of the object. Preview B-box can show how the objects are placed in the landscape. If you are not happy, change the seed and /or the density of the population. If you leave the distribution shader open, it is easy to adjust these settings also.
This method can take a population down from millions of instances to a manageable couple of hundred thousand. I have not had much luck using this method for grass objects. Happy rendering!
Awesome mood! Even though the clouds are very well done IMO the landscape is the highlight of the image and looks like a photograph.
Njeneb, really cool artwork!The feeling of huge space referred to excellent!
5+!
Henry! You're definitely getting up to speed now :)
Great image. Nothing to add. Thanks for showing!
Definitely best work so far Henry!
Besides the clouds you also have a nice terrain and populations.
I use almost the exact same technique for setting up my populations and breakup, it works very well for trees indeed.
For grasses I barely use breakup, only slope/height restrictions.
Anyhow, I think this render could be even nicer when you would have more white-ish clouds and with less coverage of the sky to get more direct lighting.
If you ever intend to do these type of images again, and you will! lol , then use the new raytrace function for objects together with at least AA6. AA8 even better.
In case you don't know, the quality of raytraced objects is determined by the AA-setting. The higher the better, but you'll soon find out that AA6 gives very nice results and AA8 probably most bang for buck.
Speaking about bang for buck: to get rid of odd lighting conditions on your objects in shadow areas you might try rendering this with GI 2/4.
Keep up the improvements and good work :)
Cheers,
Martin
I have been playing with the new release. There are some real changes to get to know. But the speedier render time is huge on my machine!
When I was ready to do the render, I thought about the GI settings in the render section. I decided that they did not really add much, except render time. I did think of using ambient occlusion when I saw the shadow areas. That was 20+ hours into the render.
The new render settings will take some experiments to get the 'how' of them. I am playing with clouds now.
Of course upping GI adds rendertime, but it are these type of situations where using higher GI settings is justified/required when aiming for more realistic lighting.
There is an issue I have with GI in the lighting settings. I am never sure how much to add to the surface. I have been experimenting, but the settings I have tried wash out the image, even when very small increases are used.
Quote from: njeneb on December 16, 2009, 09:04:32 AM
There is an issue I have with GI in the lighting settings. I am never sure how much to add to the surface. I have been experimenting, but the settings I have tried wash out the image, even when very small increases are used.
I made many mistakes too with the strength on surface settings, but I learned that in the majority of cases you don't need to increase it and if so I never had to go beyond 1.5.
In some cases, with very bright direct lighting you might even reduce the strength on surface < 1 in order to avoid washed out colors/contrasts.
I'd make 2 enviro lights, one GI (untouched settings) and one with AO and set colours and strength in atmosphere < 0.5 and colours and strength on surfaces around 0.5 for starters.
Most of the times this gives me very good results, however, if I use this technique I render with higher GI quality/sampling ;)
I agree with all of the above,
this is the best render i have seen from you, njeneb; very good work.
the trees really caught my eye :)
definitely worth the time to render.
Thanks for the tips, I am trying them out now.
It's really all Marc's fault. They are his trees....
I can't say anything that people haven't said but it's an excellent render.
Thanks for all the replies and encouragement. This is my first 'hot' topic.
Very nice Henry.
Oh, the rocky surfaces are really sweet.
Marc
Great colors on the clouds. I would've cropped about ~20-25% off from the bottom of the image, then it would be perfect!
Quote from: MacGyver on December 15, 2009, 05:15:37 PM
Peter Jackson-esque ;D Very good! :)
if the tree cover was really dense it could be mirkwood like.....
...How did I missed this one njeneb ?? may be I was too busy...
Great work you've done here njeneb...
I have saved this one on my machine credited to you and use it as a wallpaper...
N.KAID
I like that one. Very nice clouds!
Man, I'm sorry I missed this, too! I just spotted it over at DA and thought... 'Eh? I haven't noticed this posted at PS forums, why?'
Turns out I just really missed it and it was a bit lower down the new posts chain for me to notice.
Henry, you have excelled yourself, this is just great. Give it the ray tracer and make it a bitty bigger, 1200px would look amazing.
EDIT: I thought this one would be the same size as the one you posted at DA. Actually, it is bigger. Still, give it the ray tracer... ;)
I may do a different POV for this one with the new version.
Wow... definitely your best.
Simon.
Holy yes! That's just pure win - awesome shot. *jealous*!