Green Lake

[Gannaingh]

Just a little something I created over the past couiple days. The terrain is Diablo Lake in the norther Cascade mountains near where I live. I've always been intrigued by the greenish tinge of the lake so I decided to create my own version. I might tone down the wave roughness since it seems a bit heavier/less peaceful than the rest of the image. Thanks for taking a look!

http://gannaingh32.deviantart.com/art/Green-Lake-271200650

[Tangled-Universe]

Great work
What rendersettings did you use? The trees look very crisp in the foreground, yet quite soft in the distance. Very realistic work!
I like the tinge of the water, always wanted to do something similar. I'd not lower the roughness that much, but would rather decrease wave size.

Cheers,
Martin

[Tangled-Universe]

Perhaps it would be a cool idea to create some clouds which hug the mountains in the background.
Using the cloud function tutorial can give you a guide on how to achieve that.
Otherwise we can try it together

[AP]

That mountain is just blanketed in trees. I like the minor color variations in the trees as well.

[Saurav]

Really nice render, very well executed.

[Alcaeru]

Wow! Love this render. It reminds me of some of the vivid aqua lakes that you get in the south Island of New Zealand.
And if you don't mind sharing...
What did you use to make those rocks poking out of the mountain?
Also, have you used any transparency in the trees?

[Redwolf]

i seen the image u tried to copy in google images, well impressed at the nearly got it terrain.......loose the reflections perhaps as it is looks like the lake is a glass sheet

[Gannaingh]

Thanks everybody!

@TU: The render settings are

detail:.9
AA: 8 ray trace objects/atmo on (default settings 1/4 samples)
GI: 2/4

The cloud idea around the far mountain sounds cool, I'll have to mess around and see what happens. Although if you want to play with it as well (I know you're interested in some sort of collaboration) shoot me PM.

@Alcaeru: The rocks poking out of the mountains are part of the terrain, I just limited the tree's slope to allow the rocks to poke through. Also, the trees don't have any transparency, just customized translucency values as part of the leave's default shaders.

[otakar]

Right up my alley! Great stuff! Maybe a couple of dead trees for the foreground, but that's as far as I'd suggest 'improvements'.

[Dune]

Incredibly pleasant and realistic image. Copied it to my folder of favorites. Very inspirational as well. I wouldn't change much. Perhaps a lone (sailing) boat or a flock of birds (not the ugly ones), but it might also spoil the serenity.

[TheBadger]

Yes do share! How are you getting your realism? Great work

[Alcaeru]

@Alcaeru: The rocks poking out of the mountains are part of the terrain, I just limited the tree's slope to allow the rocks to poke through. Also, the trees don't have any transparency, just customized translucency values as part of the leave's default shaders.

Sorry, meant translucency. Thanks for letting me know. Also, with the rocks, I more meant, did you use a power fractal shader for the colour/how many surface layers?

[Tangled-Universe]

Thanks everybody!

@TU: The render settings are

detail:.9
AA: 8 ray trace objects/atmo on (default settings 1/4 samples)
GI: 2/4

The cloud idea around the far mountain sounds cool, I'll have to mess around and see what happens. Although if you want to play with it as well (I know you're interested in some sort of collaboration) shoot me PM.

@Alcaeru: The rocks poking out of the mountains are part of the terrain, I just limited the tree's slope to allow the rocks to poke through. Also, the trees don't have any transparency, just customized translucency values as part of the leave's default shaders.

Can't refuse that offer
I'll send you a PM soon!

[inkydigit]

awesome render, what are the tree(s) models?

[Gannaingh]

@TheBadger: That question is harder to answer than I initially thought. I would say that getting the lighting right in a scene is the most important factor for an overall good looking picture. Getting the lighting right is tricky since what works for one scene won't work for another so a lot of trial and error (and lots of test renders) is involved. Also, I've been recently been learning the importance of stuffing lots and lots of objects into a scene...at least for forest scenes like this. If you look at pictures of real life forests the trees are packed absurdly close together which is hard to duplicate without a powerful computer.

@Alcaeru: The rock surface is really simple. It is just the base color shader and a surface layer with Mr. Lamppost's procedural granite surface as a child layer.

@inkydigit: The models I used are the medium and young versions of the freely available x-frog grand fir as well as a population of dandelO's larch tree.

Thanks for the comments everybody, I'm glad you like it!