View of the Cullin hills

[mhaze]

Loosely based on an old black and white photo of the Cullin hills on Skye, taken by Frank S Smythe in the 1930s.  The terrain was sculpted in earth sculptorhttp://www.earthsculptor.com/ This is a really good (and cheap) little program for sculpting terrains. Plants from Walli and Dune.

[Tangled-Universe]

What a nice render again Mick.
There are some technical issues, but first of all I've got to say I really like how this looks.
Interesting scene, atmosphere and composition. Nice details too, like the waterfall.

The displacements are a bit too much here and there. The black streaky artefacts are displacements which intersect I think.
You may consider toning them down a bit and achieve the detail through more PF's for dispalcements rather than performing strong displacements, if you see what I mean.
The foreground could use a bit more contrast in lighting. It's one of TG's weaknesses that objects in the foreground tend to not look very good, so you may consider obscuring that by playing with lighting a bit.
For example: you can create a small localized cloud and place that behind your camera so that these clouds will cast shadows into your view.

Thanks for the link to the sculpter.
Hannes made me into waterfalls and your image sparks the interest even further.
Simple sculpt programs like these are nice ways of quickly laying out how you want things exactly.
I can add erosion and channels in World-Machine then if I like.
Damn, this working day better be over quickly!

Cheers,
Martin

[mhaze]

Thanks for the comments TU.  Not sure where you live but where I live such rock displacements are common.  As a mountaineer and rock climber, I know rock very intimately.  Much of what we see in CG of rocks are the sandstone type rocks which are smoother and less shattered.  These are the tortured, very old igneous and metamorphic rocks of Scotland, cracked and shattered by ice and eroded by wind and water. Interestingly I deliberately toned down these displacements! I agree with you about the lighting I just could not find a good set up, I've not tried using small localized clouds, something else to explore.

[Kevin F]

This is a really nice scene and the rocks look fine to me. Somehow though the scale of the vegetation (mainly the grass) looks to be too big for the overall scene. If it was all scaled down slightly it would fit better and add more depth and overall scale to the image IMHO. But having said that it really is a nice crisp stark realistic piece of work.

[cyphyr]

Great image
Reminds me of walks all over Scotland with my parents when I was a kid. I was dragged up places like this complaining all the way, love it now though
Only two points let it down from being neigh on perfect imho. The waterfall and the Rowan/Mountain Ash tree (?).
Waterfalls are hard in all 3d programs, I would simply hide it behind some rocks and ferns,imply it's existence rather than show it directly.
The trees leaves are just slightly too translucent/bright/specular/saturated (one or a combination of these). Tone it down just a tad.
I don't mind the cliffs, they look realistic to me as do the rocks (although there is some slight folding/creasing dark lines on a few) and I've just noticed the daisy's are HUGE!
This really is nitpicking, I hope you don't mind
Richard

[mhaze]

Cheers Richard I agree the dandelions are too big - I was going for the after the storm wet look but for some reason I can only get the bush too work well, too well for the picture it does stand out.  Doing some more experiments now - but at 16 hrs a render don't hold your breath. Thanks for the comments I don't mind criticism as long as I can disagree occasionally.

Kevin I will play with other scales. Trouble is we are used to seeing grass that has been eaten by sheep and is therefore very short, in its wild state it can get very bushy.

[Tangled-Universe]

Thanks for the comments TU.  Not sure where you live but where I live such rock displacements are common.  As a mountaineer and rock climber, I know rock very intimately.  Much of what we see in CG of rocks are the sandstone type rocks which are smoother and less shattered.  These are the tortured, very old igneous and metamorphic rocks of Scotland, cracked and shattered by ice and eroded by wind and water. Interestingly I deliberately toned down these displacements! I agree with you about the lighting I just could not find a good set up, I've not tried using small localized clouds, something else to explore.

I totally agree with you on the look of the rocks, no argue there. The type of rocks you're after is what I've seen on many photos on the net.
I meant that the way they come out isn't looking as it's supposed to be. The black ridges are artefacts of over-displaced surfaces.
Perhaps with a couple of reference photos and a clip of your rock-displacements we can take a look together to get come out without artefacts?
Also just drop a line here if you can't get the cloud idea to work properly.

Btw, I live in The Netherlands. The only exposed rock here are roads and buildings

[mhaze]

Thanks Tu

I've just tried a slightly reduced displacement - which gives me Welsh rocks!!!  What is needed is a way to soften the edges of these extreme displacement artifacts! They are in fact sharp right angles, folds in the rock, if you like, which is OK because many shattered rocks have these features. However sometimes it would be nice to soften the edges. They are created by two displacements at redirected at right angles which gives strong shadows hence the streaks, you do see rock like this especially close up. However for the sake of the advancement of rock displacement in my work I'm going to experiment further.  An example of the small localized clouds would I'm sure be of interest to everyone including me, always willing to learn.

[mhaze]

Right....... after many experiments, reducing displacement gives a softer look - some welsh mountain rocks are like this. Adding warps gives a more British limestone sort of look.  We will have to disagree about what constitutes an artifact as what I'm seeing is right angled rock facets and not artifacts, maybe we should agree a definition I am going to try varying the angles by a few degrees to see if that softens it a little

[Tangled-Universe]

If it looks correctly close up then it's just an artefact or undesired effect when rendering it from increased distance.
There's little you can do about that. TG can have difficulties with shading these shears and cracks as if they don't receive (indirect) light anymore, resulting in what I call artefacts / black ridges here.

Don't worry too much about it though

[mhaze]

You really started something, I've got two different sets of displacement rendering!!!! for different parts of the picture. I've also changed the intersection angle and that gives a softer edge. where's that blur node!

[Tangled-Universe]

Ghehe, well sorry What counts the most is that you like the result, not me!
Looking forward though to see what you have cooking now.

[mhaze]

subtle but significant

[zaxxon]

I like the 'wildness' of the image. Interesting to follow along in this discussion regarding 'metamorphic' rock formations. The rocks in this image look right to me in terms of shape and ruggedness, but there are black streaks and spots that detract from the final quality. I'm hoping you can solve this one as I too have aspirations to create metamorphic formations in the future.

[gregtee]

I like everything abut this piece except the waterfall. My eye goes right to it being in the center of the composition and being as bright as it is.  Were it my render I'd dial that back or even lose it as I feel its not really buying anything on what's otherwise a great image. 

Greg