No Landing v.1

[JimAward]

" The Cessna approaches a strip of cut forest which unfortunately is not suitable for landing..."

Well this is one of my first attempts with populations and surface mapping. The main 'problem' I faced in this project was: how to tweak the population density parameters to avoid razor sharp area borders? The clouds are a variation on the "Wildness" tutorial. Sharper clouds is a matter of cloud and atmosphere quality I guess? I used 80 samples for both the clouds and the atmo. I work with the Free Edition so far.
As a TG2 rookie I am anxious to hear from the veterans and from anyone who wants to comment on this image   Thanks.

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[rcallicotte]

Pretty good.  I like the clouds and the setup.  Atmosphere is better at higher quality - this cleans up a lot.  Your clouds look pretty good and could use a little more quality, but still look good at this distance.  You might want to consider touching up the translucency of your tree leaves for better realism.  Setting the sun at a lower angle and upping the sun strength will produce better shadows and be more dramatic.

I'm not one of the seasoned veterans, but I've been around since December of 2006...or is that 2007?  Anyway, welcome to the fun.  Hopefully, these ideas and others you see / hear will inspire a future of imaginative renders.

[Oshyan]

Sharper clouds will come mostly from the cloud Density and Edge Sharpness settings. Cloud Samples just increases quality (reduces noise).

What are you using to restrict your population distribution?

- Oshyan

[JimAward]

Thank you for your feedback  .
Actually I used nothing to restrict the population distribution as I did not figure out yet what shader(s) to use to achieve a more natural distribution.
There is a whole lot to learn before the dream scene in my head just pops up on the screen! But it's really fascinating and there are some excellent tutorials to do. I wish I had more time...
Cheers, JM

[JimAward]

Here's a new version with the sun lowered. That makes a difference. Thanks for the tip calico .
The clouds haven't got much better yet due to the fact that I did not change the edge sharpness setting.
Next topic for me is the soil and the fake stones...

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[rcallicotte]

The mid-most trees in the front don't look 3D; I'm not sure why.  I like this lighting and still like the point of view.  Keep working on it.  Consider atmospheric and environmental lighting changes.  Maybe even try some AA.

[Oshyan]

Ah! So these are just the square edges of the population then. That makes sense. Well, what you can do is make a single, larger population, and then attach something like a Distribution Shader or Image Map Shader to your Density Shader in the Population node, and then you can control distribution of your populated objects using these other nodes. The Distribution Shader would allow you to control by slope and altitude for example, while an Image Map Shader would let you use an externally loaded image map to control distribution.

- Oshyan