Storm

[Mohawk20]

Thanks...
@ Calico: Sure the foreground needs light, but right now, it looks like a brown pincushion...
I'll try rendering with real grass, but I fear for loads of renderbucket memory leaks...

[Mr_Lamppost]

I know that there is a great temptation to "Improve" but oftem what you first thought of is best. 

[Mohawk20]

True, but I first thought "I really should use real grass, but I don't have the time now, because of the contest deadline"...

So perhaps getting some grass in wouldn't be such a bad idea...

[rcallicotte]

I agree.

I know that there is a great temptation to "Improve" but oftem what you first thought of is best. 

[Oshyan]

I like the subtle backlighting on the trees. It's got a great feel overall. Rendering with "real grass" would be nice though, and those bucket rendering problems ought to be fixed in the future. So it may indeed simply be something to wait on.

- Oshyan

[Mohawk20]

Bucket problems don't show up when rendering at 1024x768, so here it is.

Grass from Lightning.
Increased the enviro light settings to 6 in order to get lighter shadows.
Adjusted the exr output in Photomatix.

[darthvader]

I love the sun causing the clouds to glow

[Tangled-Universe]

Wow man, that atmo is really sweet
I see you cranked the light settings pretty much...too much to my taste, because the grass and trees lack shadows now.
Maybe you could lower your light settings back to your original 'dark' version and then add a light opposite to the sun angle and direction.
This lightsource casts no shadows or anything and strength = 0.2 - 0.4. This way you can easily control lightness of shadows without losing the natural sense of lighting.
Another nice thing to try maybe is to add some (more, if you already did) specularity to the grasses (like the patchy distribution). Some translucency will also greatly add to realism.
If you feel up to putting more and more work into this

Martin

[mrwho]

really like how the clouds are illuminated by the sun, nice work

[rcallicotte]

Sun and clouds are cool.

[Mohawk20]

Wow man, that atmo is really sweet
I see you cranked the light settings pretty much...too much to my taste, because the grass and trees lack shadows now.
Maybe you could lower your light settings back to your original 'dark' version and then add a light opposite to the sun angle and direction.
This lightsource casts no shadows or anything and strength = 0.2 - 0.4. This way you can easily control lightness of shadows without losing the natural sense of lighting.
Another nice thing to try maybe is to add some (more, if you already did) specularity to the grasses (like the patchy distribution). Some translucency will also greatly add to realism.
If you feel up to putting more and more work into this

Martin

I have experimanted with extra lightsources, and found that they end up less realistic than with GI / Higher Envirolight only. I'll decrease the Envirolight settings and see what happens.

Translucency is at 3 for the trees and at 2 for the grass, which is high enough. Specularuty could be an option, but I fear for increased rendertimes...

[Tangled-Universe]

Wow man, that atmo is really sweet
I see you cranked the light settings pretty much...too much to my taste, because the grass and trees lack shadows now.
Maybe you could lower your light settings back to your original 'dark' version and then add a light opposite to the sun angle and direction.
This lightsource casts no shadows or anything and strength = 0.2 - 0.4. This way you can easily control lightness of shadows without losing the natural sense of lighting.
Another nice thing to try maybe is to add some (more, if you already did) specularity to the grasses (like the patchy distribution). Some translucency will also greatly add to realism.
If you feel up to putting more and more work into this

Martin

I have experimanted with extra lightsources, and found that they end up less realistic than with GI / Higher Envirolight only. I'll decrease the Envirolight settings and see what happens.

Translucency is at 3 for the trees and at 2 for the grass, which is high enough. Specularuty could be an option, but I fear for increased rendertimes...

Ah I see....the strongly increased translucency could also add a little to the lack of shadows.
If you use non-raytraced specular highlights then it won't add that much rendertime.
Adding additional lightsources really works well if you choose your settings carefully

[Mohawk20]

Okay, last version, more shadows and reflections...

[rcallicotte]

Pretty good, but I would expect to see in the valley where it's all dark.  But, you're finished with it.  Anyway, I love the clouds and sun and this point of view.

[old_blaggard]

The reflections look a little overdone on the left, but the right foreground looks great, as do the clouds.