Lake Tahoe

[Stormlord]

Another Perspective
This time I tried to create a good Fake Stone Beach with pebbles and did some minour adjustments on the plants as well.
Now they look bright which gives the image a lively touch. To my astonishment, the shallow water colours turned out more greenish than I thought, but that's ok!

The viewpoint in this image is turned at 180 degrees in comparison to my old look from above and so the sunlight position has been changed too.

[attachimg=1]
Fake Stone Beach

STORMLORD

[Dune]

Nice work!

[DocCharly65]

The last one has a special Charme - like!

[DannyG]

Spot on, nice crisp render

[Oshyan]

I quite like this overall. The water colors are great, and the small stones on the beach are quite effective for texturing. The overhanging areas nearby are also a really nice touch. The sky continues to be great as well. I think there are a couple more things you could do to really bring up the realism though, if you want.

First, the lack of smaller vegetation, grass, bushes, etc. really hurts realism IMO. There are some free bushes in our downloads section you could try, or Xfrog probably has something too. Even just 1 or 2 models of appropriate scale scattered around would help a lot.

The beach and water's edge could also use a few things. A bit of a wet line, where the water is washing up and wetting the sand/stones and making it a bit darker would help. I would also love to see some small debris, sticks, leaves, etc. if possible. And finally some additional larger stones, scattered around sparsely perhaps.

The other thing I'll mention is the sense of scale is a little confusing to me. And I don't know if you're still aiming for a "Tahoe" look, but Lake Tahoe in real life is much, muuuuuch bigger. This is a great scene as it is, so you don't have to emulate the exact real world of course, but if that's your goal you'll want to consider how to better portray really huge scale.

Overall it has been great seeing this evolve though, and it's looking great!

- Oshyan

[bobbystahr]

I completely agree with Oshyan...almost there now.

[otakar]

I have not visited for a while so I am finally seeing all this. First, on the previous page, the beach render would do extremely well for a tropical island beach. You should save that one for another project maybe

The rocks on the next render do look way oversize, they are giant boulders in the water. I wonder if it would look more realistic to keep it as is, but at maybe one third or one fourth of the scale. It looks great by itself, but then you look at the trees and realize the dimensions...

Now, the latest render is beautiful. The snow on the mountain tops looks a bit strange here given the vegetation (more of a mid-summer look), but the overall charm of this scene is definitely coming through. Fully agree that the beach is too clean, needs some small elements as mentioned. Vegetation, dead wood, leaves, etc.

Very impressed on how this has progressed. Great stuff.

[Oshyan]

There are definitely some huuuge boulders on the shores of Lake Tahoe, but yes those are a bit *too* big. Not by as much as some might think though. Here is a satellite view:
https://goo.gl/maps/V63tvaenztLcpoRA9

And from the ground:
https://www.google.com/search?q=lake+tahoe+boulders&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiVmZbG4ariAhUPEXwKHQowCmIQ_AUIDigB&cshid=1558377928266809&biw=1536&bih=722


- Oshyan

[bobbystahr]

here's a good one to establish scale from, or at least one I'd use:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/572164baf8508222d12dcd6e/t/5b180ced03ce6431b2a6387b/1528302840641/Paddle+Boarding+In+Lake+Tahoe.jpg?format=750w

Although this one seems more inline with what you've done< guess almost anything goes heh heh

http://aboutboulder.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/IMG_8473.jpg

[Oshyan]

Yes, their sizes vary quite a lot. In the original image in this thread there were lots of small and a few big ones, which is about realistic for the general distribution. The largest ones were just a bit too large though, I'd agree. But... not *that* far off is my point.

- Oshyan

[Stormlord]

Thank you so much for encouragement!

@ Dune
Thank you!

@Otakar
Thank your for your comment, you can bet, that I keep always my scenes.
The beach is my new starter when I ceate someting with a beach zone.

@ Oshyan
Your Ideas to get a better result is highly appreciated and you're absolutely right!
I found Dunes Grass Patches here in the forum and I plan to implement his grasses into my scene. First tests and I got my  personal "Aha!" effect.
Now I know what you meant by recommending some smaller plants as well. Today I just scanning some pretty leafs here to get some good foliages
to scatter them on the ground later on (maybe?).

Also the water's edge mentioned...
I have to find out how to make it work... Just reading here in the forum, learning and try to understand as usuall.

By the way... When I rendered the first image, I immediately had to think upon "Lake Tahoe" because of the shape of the lake in this early first rendering.
While saving, I decided to take that name for my first ambitoned project. It is not intended to make a copy of the "Lake Tahoe", just trying to catch up with the original.. :-)
I decided to post this starter pictures intenionally because I like to document my first steps to see the step by step development of the whole scene (like the Project 15 Miles on the Erie Canal).

[attachimg=1]
True scale scene for smaller objects like stones and grasses
(Meanwhile in a small village in Germany)

So stay tuned, I will try to take the project further!

STORMLORD

[Dune]

If you add a surface layer after the beach surface, and set the maximum altitude a few centimeters above the water level (experiment with actual altitude and fuzzy zone, but I'd recommend keeping the fuzzy zone at 0.05 or so, rather than too high), you can easily create a darkened, wet beach area with a color adjust as child (gamma 0., and perhaps a non-RT reflective shader.
Beach debris can be made using the same technique, but with very narrow minimum and maximum altitudes, and near zero fuzzy. Just add one or two tiny scaled PF's in white and black, without any displacement (or extremely small), masked by a larger PF for patchy beach debris.

[otakar]

Oshyan, fascinating and you are right. The scale is really not that far off. Perhaps the boulders should extend onto the shore and beyond (not everywhere, as there certainly are sandy beaches) to match the real world.

[Stormlord]

If you add a surface layer after the beach surface, and set the maximum altitude a few centimeters above the water level (experiment with actual altitude and fuzzy zone, but I'd recommend keeping the fuzzy zone at 0.05 or so, rather than too high), you can easily create a darkened, wet beach area with a color adjust as child (gamma 0., and perhaps a non-RT reflective shader.

Excellent hint!
Have just tried it and it works fine, thx Dune!
(Should have know this yesterday, I just rendered another perspective which will be ideal for testing such a wet beach zone)

[attachimg=1]
Water Edge Test

[attachimg=2]
Lake Tahoe (Riverbed Stone Lagoon)

Keep on going, implanting some grasses, bushes and a wet beach zone.

STORMLORD

[mhaze]

Impressive work.