Mobilisation

[Dune]

You could try heat distortion with a pane of finely ribbed glass halfway... and yes, I mean the cloud color.

[Hannes]

Indeed, maybe there should be some heat blur below the ship.
Ulco, yes, I was thinking about a masked and displaced plane with a glass shader. I'll keep on testing...

[luvsmuzik]

Maybe a larger area, less dense dust surrounding soldiers, and tighter, and denser in distance, like the legio image? I prefer the ones where the sparse dust extends into the whiter clouds.

Terrific scene nonetheless.

[Hannes]

I desaturated the blueish cloud a bit, which looks a bit more natural I think. No success so far in creating heat blur, but I'm confident.

I added some cloud layers and lightsources to get some sort of glow behind the thrusters. Looks crappy somehow. There should indeed be something BELOW the ships to explain the dust as you wrote. Still testing...

...and there are two additional soldiers...

[Oshyan]

Ironically I feel like the blue glow would be perhaps better if it were grainier. As it is it looks like some kind of too-smooth Photoshop effect.

Regarding the clouds/dust, I think the issue (to my eye) is that airborne dust is often a bit lighter in color than what it looks like on the ground (lighter and/or less saturated). So what we're seeing here is a very saturated yellow-orange ground, which looks dramatic and cool, but the cloud of dust is almost the same color and appears slightly too saturated (IMO). Or perhaps it is more than there should be some lighter areas along with the darker and more saturated, i.e. more variation.

- Oshyan

[bobbystahr]

I think Oshyan nailed it re: the orange cloud. I hesitate to make colour comment for obvious reasons but tonally I think his solution would work well.

[Hannes]

You're absolutely right, Oshyan. Just came home from work, and looked at my newly finished render with some major changes in the two ships right and left: I rotated the thrusters downwards, reimported them into TG and created some geometry for the exhaust flames, which I like. But the dust's color is really way too saturated. So, I'll hit the render button again... I think, it's worth it.

[Dune]

That's waht I said, indeed. You just don't listen  ........... 

[Hannes]

So you referred to the dust cloud, when you were writing about the cloud color, Ulco?
I thought you mean the blueish haze (which is a cloud layer as well).

[Dune]

Yes, sorry, I didn't make myself too clear apparently.

[luvsmuzik]

Just like siblings....hehe^^

[Hannes]

That's it.!!






Hopefully....

[Oshyan]

Indeed, better!

- Oshyan

[dorianvan]

Wow! Really nice. Downward thrusters look great. Love the guy walking the line, but one last thing I would do: vary the soldiers heights a bit more (if you did at all).

[Kadri]

Looks good Hannes.