The Grand Assault

PorcupineFloyd · January 05, 2009, 06:27:29 AM

The Grand Assault of Mighty Cumulus.

I've finally managed to get some use of Open EXR format. It's wonderful for setting exposure in post-process.
I still don't know if this image isn't too dark after all. I had to decide - detailed clouds or bright foreground. And well... as you can see - I went for clouds.
I've also cheated a bit in erasing some really small and annoying puffs in the space in top center part of the image but they were really disconnected from the main cloud and I didn't want to re-render after 36 hours...
Btw. Clouds are made of redirect shader technique posted some time ago on forums.

Parameters:
Q: 0.84
AA: 5 Narrow Cubic
GI: 1/3 SS
Atmo/Cloud samples: 128/500

Picture link: http://porcupinefloyd.deviantart.com/art/The-Grand-Assault-108432445

FrankB · January 05, 2009, 06:32:43 AM

This is looking very good!

As a side note:I wish you would post your image here on this forum directly. It's bit annoying to have to go to deviantart for this.

Frank

PorcupineFloyd · January 05, 2009, 06:54:41 AM

I'm always posting images as links to dA as it saves forum's bandwidth and you can access really big images without problem but if it's more comfortable to attach images directly to forum post - I will do so next time

Saurav · January 05, 2009, 07:12:30 AM

Great render, details in the cumulus look fantastic. The composition is also well balanced and the popultaion of trees fit nicely. I'm thinking the 128 samples for atmo may have been overkill for this scene.

EXR is a great workflow for post processing, allows heavy editing of colours and lighting without degrading image quality. Especially good for scenes with clouds and snow/ice.

PorcupineFloyd · January 05, 2009, 07:36:51 AM

Yes, 128 samples are quite much. I was trying to get rid of some small noise patterns on those whispy parts of clouds and I was experimenting with atmosphere samples together with cloud samples. But after all I think it would be better to lower atmo by half and instead increase clouds to 650 or maybe 700.

I've also found that touching up those small whispy parts of clouds with photoshop is sometimes a better idea than pumping up samples to infinity.

Render took 36 or 38 hours (can't remember exact number now) on Q6600 @ 3.2GHz in 3000 x 2000.

rcallicotte · January 05, 2009, 10:50:00 AM

Great render. Beautiful job and your clouds are amazing.

efflux · January 05, 2009, 01:09:12 PM

Very nice clouds. I like the lighting.

I post links to main images because this forum is not super fast at opening it's images. It's best to post a direct link to just the image though (faster) unless you specifically want the whole web site page to open.

Mr_Lamppost · January 05, 2009, 06:33:39 PM

Those clouds are looking good, the trees and landscape make it look more like a complete scene rather than just a cloud study. Excellent.

Esgalachoir · January 06, 2009, 01:39:11 AM

The coloring for the trees is better than almost anything I've seen so far...nice work.

PorcupineFloyd · January 06, 2009, 03:57:34 AM

Leaf shaders have slightly altered specular reflection tint to mach their colour. So yellow leafs have a bit yellow tinted reflections and green ones have green tint.