Snowscape *Finished - For Real This Time...*

[RArcher]

Been working on creating a reasonably realistic snow scene.  Suggestions more than welcome.

[PG]

Wow, the clouds and rock surfaces amaze me. Can't really decide on the snow though. It's very bright so you can't see that much detail but then snow is often like that, leading to the intended realism of the image

[old_blaggard]

Great work with the clouds, and the snow is looking quite fine as well.  The rocks are OK, but the image map gets a bit warped in parts, so I might want to revisit those a little.

[Oshyan]

Wow, I'd say that snow looks pretty exceptionally realistic. A lot more detailed than about anything I've seen come out of TG2 before. I agree that the image map gets a bit warped in the rocks, but otherwise they look nice as well. Are there any image maps used for the ice? Is this all TG2 (clouds?). The bigger, puffier clouds are quite cool and fairly unique as well.

Edit: Actually I think what's needed for the rocks is for their displacement to reflect the shading in the image map, so a bump map based on the image map. As it is now yes it looks a bit warped in places, but I think that is more odd looking simply because the terrain shape doesn't follow that warping, rather than that the warp looks fundamentally unrealistic.

- Oshyan

[RArcher]

Everything here is procedural and pure TG2 except for the noticeable rock face image map which I can tell you has been giving me trouble.  I haven't done much surfacing using maps so I decided to give it a try.  I will definitely take a look at creating a bump map and hopefully that will make it look a little less odd. 

Oshyan:  The clouds are three layers, a high level cirrus, a mid level altocumulous and a low level cumulous. The ice is just a powerfractal on top of a lake object  / water shader.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[inkydigit]

very nice!...agree with what has already been said...look forward to the next one!

[rcallicotte]

Everything looks good, but what astounded me when I first saw it was the lighting.  That's realistic!

[Zylot]

I used to live up in the pocono's, we'd have scenary like this all the time

That being said, the 'ice' is superb, and very believable, and it definately looks like a cold wintery sky.  The cloudwork is amazing here and definately looks just like i remember.  The snow, however, isn't entirely realistic, but pulls of the very difficult subject nicely. 

[GioMez]

I really like your snow! Superb!
The clouds look extremly realistic!

[efflux]

I agree with Oshyan about the snow (or ice). I know this is difficult and you've done a great job here. Clouds are also great. Very cool work.

[RArcher]

Here is the finished product.  I fixed the image mapping by getting rid of it and doing the rock surfaces with powerfractals like I knew I should have from the beginning.  Thanks for the earlier suggestions.

Render settings were:

Detail: 0.85
AA: 8
GI 2/2

Total render time 16 hours over 2 cores.

[Tangled-Universe]

Neat work
The blown snow is very very convincing, also because the clouds give the impression of a windy environment. I love the ice too
The terrain has improved, still think it could be better...I know you
Great work in overall!

Martin

[rcallicotte]

@RArcher - Sign me up for the tutorial.   

[Seth]

good one. i prefer this last one than the first you post ^^

[MacGyver]

I already had your first version as my background pic at work, we have 30°C here at the moment
Astonishing work!