Rock surface

[Henry Blewer]

I think the small fake stones may be too much. I would have used a PF for a mask which is scaled very small for a slight reflective shader. (I never do, render time...)

[domdib]

TGD, TGC and brief explanation now up at http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=8668.0

[domdib]

Here is the final version. Thanks to everyone for your comments.

@Martin - the render settings for this one : Detail 0.9, AA 6, GI 2/4, Catmull-Rom. Previous render was 0.6, 6, 1/2
Lighting and atmo on both are just the standard out-of-the-box ones.

[domdib]

Here is another version, with the addition of negatively displaced fake stones - an effect that I'd probably tone down with a painted shader if I did it again.

[Tangled-Universe]

Perhaps a tad bit too rough, but I still like this very much!

About your rendersettings, very well chosen in my opinion. The GI 2/4 really pays off I think. Hence the lighting and coloring in the shadows.
You mentioned that you didn't alter the atmosphere settings and that's probably the culprit why it isn't looking so clean.
I suggest you render this with at least 48 atmo samples, preferably with 64 or 80 for perfect clean results, but that's taking quite long.

If you need renderhelp then just let me know, I'm happy to do it for you.

Cheers,
Martin

[EoinArmstrong]

Wow - that's come on a lot!  I prefer the second last one, though

[domdib]

@Martin - well, you might have already tried this yourself now, but I tried your suggestion of upping the atmo, and didn't really see much difference. I then switched GI Surface Details on (pleasantly surprised that this only increased render time by about a third - perhaps an optimisation in 2.1??) and I think I can see some subtle differences. See what you think.

[domdib]

The next two images also had GI Surface Details on. Moved to a higher POV...

[domdib]

Then I switched the sun heading by 180, and was surprised by the difference this made to the rock colour. N.B. that's the ONLY setting I changed.

[Tangled-Universe]

Hmmm...the result is not as spectacular as I would have expected.
You have changed two things, upping atmo samples and enabling GI surface details, so it's hard to say which is most responsible for the improvement.
I haven't looked at it by the way...after seeing this my first guess is playing with the haze settings (less dense) along with increasing atmo samples slightly and see if it then looks better.

These kind of color-schemes together with heavy displacements tend to look noisy in the shadowy areas very fast. Hence some of my canyon-renders and my "inside deep forest" render. Suffering from the same difficult conditions for the renderer, I used 256 atmo samples there.

Martin

[domdib]

Finally, two closer renders - the first one shows a really weird displacement - no idea how it came about. The second one, from a slightly different POV, has Intersect Underlying switched on in the Roughen Surface node, and shows an interesting almost polished finish in the foreground.

[Tangled-Universe]

Then I switched the sun heading by 180, and was surprised by the difference this made to the rock colour. N.B. that's the ONLY setting I changed.

That's not such a big surprise honestly.
First of all you changed the POV dramatically which makes quite a difference.
Second you added a lot more direct lighting by moving the sun behind the camera.
I hope you agree with me that this looks dull, flat and much worse this way.

If you prefer to solve the lighting problem by moving the sun, instead of tinkering with the atmo settings, then I'd get back to your original POV and try moving the sun around in 10 degree increments to see if some extra direct lighting will give better results.

[domdib]

I might try upping the atmo samples further, as I didn't notice any big difference in render time. And reducing haze is also a good idea - I often switch it off altogether. Thanks for your suggestions.
EDIT: And I neglected to mention earlier that I made a render with just the atmo samples increased (to 80), and could see no difference - that's why I switched the GI Surface details on.

[domdib]

OK, switching off haze and upping the atmo samples to 200 does make a difference - the shadows are much bluer, and arguably 'cleaner'. Is this the sort of thing you were driving at, Martin?

[CCC]

Martin?