Colchuck Lake

[pixelpusher636]

Couldn't find a better resolution terrain but I'm fairly pleased with the plants and trees.

[aknight0]

I really like the trees on the left side, that looks nice.   Interesting color variations on the conifers especially, I wouldn't have thought of that.  There's something off about the middle of the image, the area where there are rocks and snow, in the top left as well.  Maybe the rocks are too sparse there for how steep the slope is?  Or maybe it's the part where you can see the rock shapes under the snow?  I think either the snow layer needs to be a little thicker, or it should be melted where the rocks are poking through.  What if you use your fake stone layer to mask out those spots in the snow?  

[Hannes]

Great image!! I agree with aknight about the rock distribution.

[mhaze]

Excellent! Agree about the rocks.

[Stormlord]

Much better Viewpoint and better iteration (agree to aknight also).
Especially the subtle debris trees in the water looks great imo, maybe you shopuld use some sand at the shoreline?

Overall a great scene until now.

STORMLORD

[pixelpusher636]

Thanks for the kind words folks! This one reached the point with all the populations and different shaders where everything was slow and heavy.

[pixelpusher636]

I really like the trees on the left side, that looks nice.  Interesting color variations on the conifers especially, I wouldn't have thought of that.  There's something off about the middle of the image, the area where there are rocks and snow, in the top left as well.  Maybe the rocks are too sparse there for how steep the slope is?  Or maybe it's the part where you can see the rock shapes under the snow?  I think either the snow layer needs to be a little thicker, or it should be melted where the rocks are poking through.  What if you use your fake stone layer to mask out those spots in the snow? 

Thanks for the kindness. I agree that the broken up snow isn't perfect but I've given up trying to to figure it out. I think the oddest thing is the vegetation going into the glacier. They call it "Colchuck Glacier" but it looks like it's days are numbered with the earth heating up and not much of it left to begin with.

[pixelpusher636]

Not sure if this is better or not, I've definitely lost some of my bright green veg in taming it from running up into the snow.

[Mahnmut]

Beautiful render!
as you are still tweaking it, I hope you will not mind some points of constructive critique:
When looking at photos online, the water seems even more intense in colour (or are these manipulated?), while to my eye the rock of the central mountain seems somewhat darker.
You mentioned the limited resolution of the DEM, maybe a method I often used for my Marsscapes may help:
Take an alpine fractal as child layer of the the steepest surface layer, with small sizes (50-100m feature size), even smaller displacement (maybe 10 m and displacement offset of -5m), tweak these numbers till you like what you see...
Your original mountain has quite a classical alpine fractal look to it, so this may provide convincing fake detail.
Best Regards,
J

[aknight0]

This is a great update!  The talus looks much better.

[Stormlord]

The water ist much better,  it looks very natural this way.
But the details in the water, snow and mountains could be much better!

What helps to get more fine and faint details (you don't see crisp details at the surface of your lake, its all slushy and unsharp).
Just render it four times greater in resolution than you actually need it.

For example.... if you desire 1920x1080 scale your rendering up to -> 7680x4320. After rendering shrink it down again to your desired resolution (1920 x 1080).
You will notice that you get far more fine details compared to a rendering with just 1920x1080. It will be the same image, but far better, much sharper and with more details!
This is because each pixel in your shrunken image gets the information also from all the pixels beside. From below, top, left and right pixels.

Give it a try and see for yourself the differences. Especially compare your water surface details!
Surprise, suprise is guaranteed!

STORMLORD

[Dune]

It's a great update.................. but I still have some problems with the snow having a fake rock appearance up left (you see it most there). Might be the 'problem' of a DEM, but if this were pure TG, you can use 2 masks for snow and rock debris by using 2 compute terrains with different patch sizes, deriving a mask from either, fed into a snow layer and the other in the fake stone layer.

[pixelpusher636]

Beautiful render!
as you are still tweaking it, I hope you will not mind some points of constructive critique:
When looking at photos online, the water seems even more intense in colour (or are these manipulated?), while to my eye the rock of the central mountain seems somewhat darker.
You mentioned the limited resolution of the DEM, maybe a method I often used for my Marsscapes may help:
Take an alpine fractal as child layer of the the steepest surface layer, with small sizes (50-100m feature size), even smaller displacement (maybe 10 m and displacement offset of -5m), tweak these numbers till you like what you see...
Your original mountain has quite a classical alpine fractal look to it, so this may provide convincing fake detail.
Best Regards,
J

Thanks for the critiques mahnmut! I have used the alpine fractal in similar ways after learning this from a file Mr. Glimmerveen shared on the forums, I will definitely give this a try here. 
The water has been tamed considerably from the true color of the lake water. Depending on the photo you see, the color varies a bit but is always some very saturated greenish blue. 

No manipulation on this version. The first image I posted I believe I adjusted the contrast and brightness a bit, maybe that's why this version looks dull. 

Thanks again mahnmut!

[pixelpusher636]

The water ist much better,  it looks very natural this way.
But the details in the water, snow and mountains could be much better!

What helps to get more fine and faint details (you don't see crisp details at the surface of your lake, its all slushy and unsharp).
Just render it four times greater in resolution than you actually need it.

For example.... if you desire 1920x1080 scale your rendering up to -> 7680x4320. After rendering shrink it down again to your desired resolution (1920 x 1080).
You will notice that you get far more fine details compared to a rendering with just 1920x1080. It will be the same image, but far better, much sharper and with more details!
This is because each pixel in your shrunken image gets the information also from all the pixels beside. From below, top, left and right pixels.

Give it a try and see for yourself the differences. Especially compare your water surface details!
Surprise, suprise is guaranteed!

STORMLORD

Agreed Stormlord! I am familiar with downsizing and sampling by nearest neighbor and I would love to render this oversized and do just that but here is the thing, and we have all heard this one before. An amateur such as myself knows just enough about TG to get into trouble... and I have.

I probably have MANY nodes that serve little purpose other than slowing my renders down and slow it is. With the PT 1920 x 1080 this is a 2 hour 23 minute render. I might just go through the nodes today and try and optimize this so when I get everything as it should be I can do a large render with higher AA and detail.

[pixelpusher636]

It's a great update.................. but I still have some problems with the snow having a fake rock appearance up left (you see it most there). Might be the 'problem' of a DEM, but if this were pure TG, you can use 2 masks for snow and rock debris by using 2 compute terrains with different patch sizes, deriving a mask from either, fed into a snow layer and the other in the fake stone layer.

You and me both Dune. I don't know what the hell that is all about. My best guess is I've misused one of the nodes in the snow you shared some weeks back.
I say this because I have masked out the rock under all the snow but something in the top left snow is troubling me. I think I'll take a closer look at the snow layer as well.

By the way Dune.. the only time I become aware that English is not your native tongue is when you speak Terragen.   You said:
"Might be the 'problem' of a DEM, but if this were pure TG, you can use 2 masks for snow and rock debris by using 2 compute terrains with different patch sizes, deriving a mask from either, fed into a snow layer and the other in the fake stone layer."

I followed it all the way up to the 2 masks fed into 2 separate compute terrains of a different patch size. I admit I love a good puzzle and experimenting but alas I would never figure this out soon enough. The patch size or where I was adding these masks and computes into the network. You really are "Fluent in Terragen" as your title says. I do appreciate your wisdom you bring to the forums and guidance you offer.
Us amateurs still learning are better for these forums.

Off to dig through the TG file.....