gazebo

[gao_jian11]

Piled out of the rock.

[Henry Blewer]

The lighting is not so good here. If you were to bring the sun around so more of the rock face was lighted it would be a huge improvement. Then we may be able to help more. (Try a smaller 640 x 480 render to check out the light. It will; render faster.)

[Tangled-Universe]

The lighting is not so good here. If you were to bring the sun around so more of the rock face was lighted it would be a huge improvement. Then we may be able to help more. (Try a smaller 640 x 480 render to check out the light. It will; render faster.)

I do not really agree. The lighting is interesting, because it is challenging to underlight your subject and to make it look good.
The only reason why I think you don't like it is because the shadows are too dark.
I bet when he adds a bit of Ambient Occlusion, ups the GI a step and maybe using soft shadows (though that's pretty slow) it will look really good.
He could bring the sun around, but personally I wouldn't do that too much.

Anyhow, it's all a matter of taste

Martin

[Henry Blewer]

Martin you may be right. Ambient Occlusion and GI may do the trick. I am not good using GI, so maybe you can give gao_jian some pointers.
I would try the ambient occlusion settings to white for color and 2 for strength of the surfaces.

[gao_jian11]

Thank njeneb  and Tangled-Universe , I really like the strong chiaroscuro effect. But the above image is indeed too dark. I re-rendering, adjusting the angle of the sun, using GI.

[gao_jian11]

Bright[attach=#]

[EoinArmstrong]

Actually I prefer your second render   Nice concept and good rock mats/shapes.  I might introduce a little redness into the green your using.

[Tangled-Universe]

Actually I prefer your second render   Nice concept and good rock mats/shapes.  I might introduce a little redness into the green your using.

Completely agree here. This looks good as is. You've moved the sun around at the max I had in mind. Nice striking light and still lots of shadowed areas. Good dramatic lighting now

Martin

[gao_jian11]

I opened the soft shadows of the sun, but do not see significant results?

[Tangled-Universe]

I opened the soft shadows of the sun, but do not see significant results?

The default diameter of the softshadows is 0.5 degrees with 9 samples.

The reason you can't see signifact results is either:

1) the softshadows diameter is too small. You could increase the diameter of the soft shadows and also increase the samples.

My sort of rule of thumb is:

0,5 degrees @ 9 samples
1 degrees @ 11 samples
2 degrees @ 13 samples
3 degrees @ 15 samples

This should give you clean soft shadows in the majority of cases.
Too low sample-amount gives noisy soft shadows.

2) The scales in your project are too large. 0.5 degrees is as in real life, so if you go for real-world scales and want to stick to 0.5 degrees soft shadows, then reduce the scales of your project (I mean powerfractal scales and displacements etc. etc.), but that's a real hassle often and getting the exact same result is impossible.

Martin

[Henry Blewer]

The second render is almost exactly what I had in mind. Nice work. I like the displacements on the rock face.

[gao_jian11]

Thank you Martin, I have conducted tests of soft shadows.

[Linda McCarthy]

I really like your last render, gao_jian11- as is.  Great work!  Linda