Dutch Village from above

[Dune]

Silly title, but it says what it is; a Dutch village from above. A commission to show what the landscape will look like after some 'landscape rearrangements'. Small village with some farms, some moist meadows with Marsh Marigold fields, as well as fields with cereals or bare, and heathland surrounding it.
I have to render it bigger, this is a WIP, and waiting to be improved. I think the textures of heathland are ok, but the meadows are too rough. What do you think? Any comment, what can I improve? Lighting? It doesn't look photographic enough to my eye.

[FrankB]

It's another great Dune shot, most definitely. But I agree there is something that's not photorealistic enough about this, and if you ask me, it's the light. It's too bland. What if you give the whole scene more light and contrast, and perhaps also render at a higher quality?

Cheers,
Frank

[Tangled-Universe]

It's another great Dune shot, most definitely. But I agree there is something that's not photorealistic enough about this, and if you ask me, it's the light. It's too bland. What if you give the whole scene more light and contrast, and perhaps also render at a higher quality?

Cheers,
Frank

Yes, hits the nail for me as well.

[Dune]

Thanks, Frank (and Martin). I did this with 2 fill lights and GI 1/1, but I dumped the fill lights and set GI to 2/2. I also used soft shadows, so the render took 4 hours at detail 0.55 and 5. I am now rendering at 0.7 and 5 without soft shadows, and it will probably be much better (and faster). The softness of the shadows is hardly visible anyway. I changed the exposure to 1.1, sun strength from 3.5 to 4, gamma from 2 to 2.1. We'll see how this goes.
But I think the roughness of the grass is also a big culprit. I changed it and it looks much better already.

[Dune]

Next iteration, with the aforementioned changes, and a little curves post in PS. Faster indeed, this rendered in 1.5 hour. I still think it can be improved. For one thing, the objects seem to stand out too much. Perhaps the cloud shadows give it too much of a 'model' look. Any comments, guys? Perhaps I will still need an extra overhead shadowed sun to get darker shadows under the trees?

[Onyx]

Good period with very nice pictures from all here !

[FrankB]

Much better Ulco, wouldn't you agree?
The objects that seem to stand out... maybe that's due to too much sharpness? If this were a photograph, I reckon all the objects would be blurred a little bit more, especially the forest canopies.

Regards,
Frank

[Henry Blewer]

You might try changing the pixel filter. B-spline would be too blurry, but maybe box or tent would work.

[Dune]

It is indeed much better, but I want it perfect! This filter is Mitchel-Netravali, I'll test another one, and maybe I'll work on the object textures a bit, they seem very 'gray'.

[Tangled-Universe]

I think MN is a fine filter. The setting of 5 for AA is probably a bit less and also the use of odd numbers for AA isn't ideal.
I can't remember if Matt explained this here or on the alpha forum some time, but the AA settings work ideally with powers of 2. So AA8 would work "best", but that's quite slow.
In my opinion the most bang for buck for any filter is AA6 with full sampling.
That looks at least as good as AA8, but is significantly faster.

[FrankB]

I would actually apply the blur in post. To high AA will maybe kill detail where you rather want to preserve it. It's hard to say, but I would try and take the render and fine tune it in post, just to see if that gives you more control.
Otherwise, TUs suggestion on AA 6 is generally good advice - judging from my own experience.

Frank

[Dune]

odd numbers for AA isn't ideal

Interesting to know. Thanks. I even employ 0.65 sometimes... Perhaps 8 would be fine here as this render took only 1.5 hours. Immensely faster than we used to experience. So, for a final render of 4000-4500 px wide detail 0.8 and AA4-6 would not be too long either (half a day perhaps). I'll do some crop tests...

[dandelO]

Nice scene, as usual, Ulco! Cool.
I also like the MN pixel filter, it's a great balance between hard and soft, gives a lovely definition around high contrast areas very well. I think a higher detail is all that's needed here. I think that cubic B-spline would destroy too much of this, already soft looking, render.

Matt explained the odd number of AA thing in the 'guide to raytracing in 2.1' sticky thread.

[Dune]

I'll have look there, thanks, probably missed that among all the daily things to read.
Here's a new iteration, good enough IMO to send off as a concept for the client. He has to say whether fields are placed right and such things. This was done in 1.5 hours, with soft shadows at 1 with only 4 samples, detail 6 and AA4 (default samples). Just one sun, and GI 2/2, so very basic really. Contrast at 0.25 and gamma at 1.8. I later had to decrease the gamma, raise the lightness and contrast to get this.
I noticed that I had some displacement in the buildings, which of course is absolutely unnecessary here. That's why they became so dark I think.
I also did some crop tests with different detail settings at 4000px wide, but I could hardly see any difference, so that's why I chose the fastest option to render the complete thing. I'll post the result here as well.

Oh, the top right needs a cloud, as this is where my masks didn't go.

[Dune]

sampletest