Avalanche Lake - Final

[Gannaingh]

Avalanche Lake is a little old lake sitting in Glacier National Park. I've never seen it personally, but the google images of it make it seem like a lovely place, so I thought I'd have a go at it in Terragen. There's lots of little improvements to be made: water coloring, population instance placement (btw Planetside, the instance editing feature is amazing), a bit more noticeable color variation in the trees, etc. It's also a little sharp, in my opinion, so I'll soften it just a bit.

[Oshyan]

Good start. But I don't get a really good idea of the scale, perhaps mainly because of the water, not sure. A different perspective or lighting might help.

Glacier NP is a wonderful place, I haven't been there since I was 13 but would love to return.

- Oshyan

[Gannaingh]

I see what you mean about the sense of scale and I think you might be right about the water being the problem. It is a shallow lake so the transparency, despite being only 4 meters, looks deeper than it should when compared to the trees. I'll check out other POV's and lighting setups to see if that will help.

[Gannaingh]

OK, pretty much everything has been changed except the base terrain DEM. I think it's much improved over the previous version. I'm not the biggest fan of the amount of snow on the far mountain top, I think there's too much of it. I love the soft reflections on the water, they turned out better than I thought the would. Render time, however, is a long.

[choronr]

Beautiful work!

[yossam]

I agree about the snow............your eyes go straight to it. IMO the right side of the mountain could use a little reflected light. Overall much better. 

[TheBadger]

Scale is fine I think. Just need some birds and maybe a fisherman in a boat to drive the effect home, things that are more relatable.

I agree about the snow at the top stealing the POF. But if you look to the right the snow there is actually helping a lot. Play with shadows from Clouds to gain command of the light or move the sun... Probably both.

IMO, you approach your renders more from a photographers perspective than say a painters or illustrators. This makes sense to me. But probably the best way to do a render is a mix of the photographer and the painter. Keep your realism but add the drama of a painter. If you can keep this realism but add the control of a luminist to the lighting, then I would say you have reached a master level of this software.

Just a thought.

[kaedorg]

Great POV here. I agree about the snow.

[Dune]

Yeah, this is a much nicer POV. Very nice ocverall, but I also agree about the snow. It also gives this white patch on the water, which distracts. What causes the long render time? Probably the render subdiv settings. So if you only make the frontal water transparent, and the further water only reflective, you gain time.

[Gannaingh]

Thank you all. Here's my first attempt at getting some more details in the shadow areas. I used a fill light and adjusted the gamma and contrast settings. The rock looks nicer, but the trees seem to "glow" in the shadowy areas. Please don't mind the blue holes in the terrain geometry, I didn't bother to get rid of those this time around. I think I might cheat a little and make the rock surface slightly luminous and ditch the fill light.

The Badger: You're exactly right. I do approach terragen as a 'photography' tool. Most of my pictures are inspired by pictures of real places and I try to replicate them as best as I can. I unintentionally try and stay away from too 'painterly' images. I've seen too many over the top Vue images lol. But, I agree it is something that I can work on.

Dune: The long render time is caused by the soft reflections I have on the water. On the image attached to this post you can see how a regular water shader looks in comparison. I tried getting softer reflections with a regular water shader, but so far I've just switched to the reflective shader.

[EdBardet]

If you are going to Glacier - better hustle - we were there a couple of years ago and things are melting fast.
Ed

[Kadri]

Looks nice!

[choronr]

Much improved with the thinning of the snow; and, the improved light on the right side.

[Antoine]

This is an impressive render!

[kaedorg]

much improved for the snow and light. but i prefer the 2nd POV.