Land of the Giants

[Whaat]

This is a scene I have wanted to create and render for a long time just to show that these types of renders are possible out of SketchUp. Of course, I had to use dummy components (proxies) and make use of instancing. I'd say this one is about 80% done.
TODO
- fix floating branches
- better high res tree bark texture with displacement
- add some more variation in the ground and more small plant life

Any other suggestions to improve this one?

[Godzilla]

Fog would be cool.

[Pibuz]

Whaat! COOL!
You really have to share the technique! the trees are great, and the foliage to the ground is fantastic! Could you give us some hints? A SU screenshot?

godzilla:
I can be wrong but it seems like there already IS some little amount of white haze in the scene..

[Zom-B]

Great work Whaat, I realy look forward to the 100% image

The hardest stuff for such tree scenarios is the area where the tree hits the ground!
Some more roots that spreads out of the bottom and get into the earth, and also some deformed earth at this area would raise the believability of the image much...
Here a very EXTREME image of what I'm talking about: http://www.jonathans.me.uk/pod/tree_roots.jpg

Some Sun based Bokhe would be really awesome for the top area of the back trees: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3322/360 ... 7bae59.jpg

[CTZn]

more small plant life

Agreed, some more varieties wouldn't hurt (e: or bunches of ferns).

Looking promising !

[Pibuz]

One thing is to say when dealing with such images: neither sketchy or Indigo are born specifically for natural environments like the one Whaat is trying to represent.

Sketchy in particular, seems not to be able to handle too complicated geometry. ZomB is right: the trees often have some roots coming up from the ground beneath, but I really think that would be a NIGHTMARE for sketch to model and handle those geometries!

Indigo itself has no problems about rendering one thing instead of another, indeed. My thought is that probably a software like Vue (I mention this for I know it a little, but there are certainly many many others equally efficient), being a studio core integrated with the renderer, better optimizes the geometry or the calculations. It is not unbiased, though.

To sum up: Whaat is making a great effort here, with all this trees and vegetation. I'm personally amazed from what he obtained until now. I'm sure I'll be even more amazed for his future updates, but I'm not expecting him to reach extreme levels of realism.

This is totally NOT a critic to Whaat's work.

[Whaat]

@godzilla: There is a small amount of fog already. I tried a render with more dense fog but I didn't like it as much (I'll post one later with denser fog)

regarding the roots, these types of trees tend not to have roots coming out near the surface (based on my reference photos) so I probably won't change this. However, I will try to add some more details where the tree penetrates the ground.

Thanks for your comments!

[OnoSendai]

Very cool render Whaat.
I think it needs
* more plants on the ground, so that the ground triangles can't be seen.
* higher poly + higher res tree textures.

Apart from that it's perfect!

[CTZn]

The haze is some medium isn't it ? It's looking nice.

[Whaat]

@CTZn: Yes the haze is medium with very small amount of subsurface scattering.

Here is a new test with a different bark material and sun position. I was hoping it would turn out better...

[Jambert]

Very nice work

You could try to model some roots ad maybe some stones, the ground is a bit clean for a forest

edit:

[CTZn]

yeah, whaat stated in his first post that there were floating branches to fix

Okay I'm popping a lot here, I hope you don't mind... well, I wanted to say that the second image may look less interesting because the scene lacks variance, direct lighting balancing the fact in the first one.

Let me illustrate how this reduces realism:

- the homogeneity of the crawling grass colour in the background is not real. My suggestion would be to divide the instances (because they are, aren't they ?) between 3 or more variations, in size and perhaps shaders.

- the uniformity of the tree/ground interface. I don't believe that these giants need to show their roots more, but this zone must look different for each tree as it participates strongly to its identity. The ferns will help there just like they do for the one Jambert marked.

Man is a field's tree

[zeitmeister]

This is gonna turn out very nice... keep it on!

[djegoo]

hi. i am so amazed to see a 3D of a forest! and it looks promising!

i have one suggestion, maybe, if the light rays came from the side and not front, so that sometime it could create volumic light rays in the haze through the trees. i guess it is longer to render because of the fog?

maybe covering the ground with much more leaves or bushes and giving more relief. i agree that is is quite clean for a forest floor !

i hope to see the progression of it! sounds good
http://www.photo-paysage.com/albums/for ... ncy-42.jpg
here i googlised some forest images, and i found this, i hope it can inspire you!

[Godzilla]

The area where the dirt meets the grass on the ground looks very blocky.. Perhaps add a few twigs and branches on the ground, or a giant log where the grass meets the dirt, to cover it up