Re: Lake scene *UPDATED 19th august: Added fake grass and snow*

[MF_Erwan]

New rendering:soft shadows diameter 10, samples 16. 7h to render. About the size of the canoes, I don't know the length/width/height of the model, but it have been scaled to 1/10. Camera is between 1 and 2 meters above the ground.


Erwan

[Tangled-Universe]

Hmmm...the difference in softshadow-diameter is noticable but not as dramatic as I hoped it would be. Maybe crazy values are necessary, but I think I'd keep it like this. The benefit isn't big enough compared to the increase in rendertime, probably.

So about ideas for trees/bushes and clouds etc: I think it would be cool if the background hills had patchy pieces of tree-populations. In the foreground you could use some bushes, but I won't touch it too much. It's nice and "quiet" and I like that, just my taste.

For the atmosphere: your whole image is now "filled". You have a foreground with grass and sand, then water with canoes and then background hills. Also the atmosphere is filled with clouds which makes the image "busy".
I'd either completely remove all the clouds or make some very thin and small patches of streaky clouds.

Hope you'll like some of these suggestions

Martin

[Luminos]

just a suggestion try 0.15 for the scale of the boats, not quite double their current size but a little bigger. As i see it, if im standing my height away (1.8m) then im about 3m away from the water. Then again i may just be talking out of my *ahem*

[MF_Erwan]

New rendering: clouds removed, canoes resized to 0.15 and a population of "Abies grandis "(with a size from 0.75 to 1.2)  from Xfrog added with altitude and slope contraints and coverage of 0.1. 6h30 to render.


Erwan

[domdib]

This scene just keeps getting better! The increased scale of the canoes enables you to appreciate what fine models they are, and also the rippled reflection of the canoe on the left is highly realistic. The grass colour is also an improvement. Excellent!

[MF_Erwan]

Just changed the coverage of the trees to 1. 8h23 to render.


Erwan

[Mohawk20]

That's a lot better, now it's almost real!!!

[Tangled-Universe]

Great improvements Erwan!
Without the clouds the lighting seems to be way better and also the scene looks really serene now.
The trees are exactly what I had in mind
Agree with dombib about the rippled reflections, very nice!

[MF_Erwan]

Not a big change, but I have put the canoe on the right further:

Now I'm looking for some plants to put on the foreground.

Erwan

[Tangled-Universe]

Gentle but effective change. I don't know if you have mentioned this yourself but you can now clearly see that the softshadows look much softer because the distance between the canoe and the bottom of the lake has increased.

For bushes I'd suggest you don't add too much of them, primarily on the left foreground and then decreasing to the right...

[MF_Erwan]

It was a long time I didn't change a thing...so here is (again) an update: I added a reflective layer as a child layer of the "Wet Sand" layer:


And more than 18h to render!
I'm also looking for reeds to put on the foreground. And perhaps an horizontal dead tree trunk

Erwan

[inkydigit]

beautiful!

[MF_Erwan]

It has been a few months I didn't change anything in that scene, and since then I better understand how to make goog sand:
Even if it is only a quick rendering (quality 0.7, in 2h30), it is much better now (wet apparence removed for the moment, as it takes a much longer time to render it because of the reflective shader):


Next step: improve the fake mud/grass

Erwan

[Henry Blewer]

I would add some barely seen fake stones to the sand. Make them just large enough and scattered to break up the surface.
The sand really looks right. Nice.

[MF_Erwan]

Working on the soil (or is the english word for "terre" clay? earth? ground) on which I will put the grass:


Erwan