FINAL - Playing with NWDA Pines - by the lake

[JimB]

Nice image, Frank. Another way to add ambient fill lighting is to use a sphere with a constant white colour shader. Switch off the sphere's shadow casting and visibility to camera, copy the coords and radius from the planet to the sphere and double the radius.

[Henry Blewer]

Nice image, Frank. Another way to add ambient fill lighting is to use a sphere with a constant white colour shader. Switch off the sphere's shadow casting and visibility to camera, copy the coords and radius from the planet to the sphere and double the radius.

That's a great idea. Does the illumination setting need to be increased? (This may be my stupid question of the day)

[FrankB]

Here is a second iteration. Still WIP, but getting closer. I forgot to switch on soft lights though. My grass population on the far shore doesn't extend enough to the left. also, the far shore grasses are too bright.

I have better shadow lighting now from using an ambient occlusion light in addition, and from making better use of the exr output.

http://www.nwdanet.com/images/by%20the%20lake%2010b.jpg

Regards,
Frank

[inkydigit]

this is shaping up well Frank....very nice!

[dandelO]

Looks great, Frank. The only part I'm not so sure of is the yellow grassy area across the lake. Otherwise, beautiful!

Henry, the default background node is black so adding colour and/or luminosity is a good way to increase ambient lighting. You might remember I wrote about using an inverted sphere to encapsulate the scene in my TG2 GI examples page a while ago. https://sites.google.com/site/d4nd310/tg2gi

[dandelO]

I can almost feel the scrapes on my hands from those ragged bushes we're crouched in!

[Tangled-Universe]

I agree with Martin about the yellow grassy area.

Honestly I think the lighting in the second version is quite inferior and cheaper looking than the first one.
The first was much more natural.
I know we differ in opinion about lighting a scene and that you like it contrasty, but I think you got a bit carried away this time

[FrankB]

I probably need a few more iterations to get this to 100% right. I like the foreground as is. Midground I'm working on, and background is kinda ok. The lighting as mentioned isn't ideal yet but a lot of that can be adjusted in post. Just need to find the right "workflow" for this scene. I don't want the sky to be so blown out white.

Cheers,
Frank

[Tangled-Universe]

Looking forward to those as it definitely is a great scene

[:)]

why is there funny looking cone shape poking from middle tree? I never see this in real trees, could make better by more noise and more segments.

for lighting, can also use overbright cards in scene to make natural looking reflected light, terra does not do the light most good and ray tracing is only sketchy, needs to include final gather for best looking.

[Tangled-Universe]

why is there funny looking cone shape poking from middle tree? I never see this in real trees, could make better by more noise and more segments.

for lighting, can also use overbright cards in scene to make natural looking reflected light, terra does not do the light most good and ray tracing is only sketchy, needs to include final gather for best looking.

I agree about the coneshape, for distant renders it's not an issue, but for close up it might look a bit odd.

Final Gather, suppose you mean it from a mental ray point of view, is an algorithm for indirect lighting/colour bleeding.
In TG2 this algorithm basically is GI and I bet that has been used here.
The postwork which I already commented on makes it look very contrasty as if it only uses direct lighting.

[choronr]

One of the most difficult set ups to work with in a scene is when the sun is over your shoulders. You struggle getting the atmo right. I would be tempted to try the sun's position either from the right or left side just to see what you come up with.

Your image is approaching the wow factor Frank, I believe you're going to get there soon ...looking very good.

[FrankB]

Here is a version from yesterday evening, a little smaller in dimensions this time though. I've worked a bit on the far shore primarily.
It's still hard to get the lighting of shadows just right. I'll experiment further with this.

http://www.nwdanet.com/images/by%20the%20lake%2011c.jpg

[Henry Blewer]

The shadows on the tree trunks look very good. Somehow they are nearly lost on the grass objects.
I am not sure what Walli built the pines with. They seem to render very dark.

[FrankB]

nah, don't give too much about the lighting on the rendered images so far, there is a lot of postwork in these, and I haven't always done a good job with that. Now, the pines textures are just right. There is no issue with them. But in pines, there are needles over needles stacked over each other, and one branch casting shows on the next, and all is very very dense, and all the time one shadow is added to another. It's just a TG2 GI problem coping with that. It's a tough job for the renderer. But I think I can work around some of those limitations.

Regards,
Frank