Yes another landscape. I haven't done much in A:M lately, creative block. I finally forced myself to start a new project. Still alot to do, but it's a start. This was just a test render at a low resolution and scaled up, so the quality isn't great, but it will give you an idea. The ground and water aren't textured yet and I still want to add a few more props and foliage.

Good start.

It' will need a trout jumping out of the water.

Now that looks like a place I would love to fish ,graet looking trees Mark and the layerd look is very nice

Don't forget to model the expensive new lures hanging in the trees, make sure they are just out of reach.

Looks good so far! Did you model those trees, they look great!

Photoman

Ever since the TWO landscapes I've definately admired what you're doing. I still don't get how you make such awesome trees.

Looks great so far, Mark!

Yeah! Your trees has always been impressive

Very serene... are you thinking of using hair for tall grass and weeds?

Mark, you are the man! your lighting and scene compsition are top drawer.

Steve

Looks good! I have two questions: How did you light this? (one sun or several lights) also, is that just a blue sky placed into the camera?

Seriously, a small quick text tutorial on how you made the trees would be great, haha .

Thanks everyone.

Matt, of course I'll use hair for the grass, what else would I use.

Andy, I used one sun and global ambience set in the chor, still need to work on that. The sky is a decaled dome.

Jeff, I used the treez plugin for the regular trees and modeled the pines. And of course hair for the leaves. Holmes has a tut already on how to use the treez plugin located here.


Here's a small update. The hair grass/weeds are just temporary (image used). I'll probably add a few emitter for variety.

Here's another update. It's just a screen grab with a partial render.

Modified the hair foliage, which I thinks looks pretty good. I'm not sure if I'm happy with the ground texture yet though, still working on that.

Mark:

Beautiful work! I did a water scene a couple of years ago and found that the transition from water to shore is very important. The water will have a slightly lighter appearance the closer it gets to shore, and the shore will have a definite boundary marking the different levels the water has reached. If the water moves a bit with the wind, etc, then you will also have a darker edge around the shore denoting where the water is lapping. In your scene, you may also have some water undercutting parts of the shore creating some ragged edges where the earth broke and fell into the water. Just a thought

Wow, Mark, that's really looking good!

Looking great Mark!

Looks great! I would agree with the comment about water lines, also the land near water is usually a darker brown -- I think.

Thanks everyone. Sorry I didn't reply sooner, I was having computer issues. I took care of it by buying myself a new laptop.

Here's a new update.

Wow, that water really livened up this scene. I still think you need some darker browns in there, bit it's looking fantastic!

Beautiful!
just wow!

Excellent! I think I caught a trout there once.

Thanks guys.

Jeff, I did darken it up a bit, but I guess it needs to be darker?

It might just be my personal taste, or maybe my neck of the woods (Wisconsin), but I would like at least some patches of darker brown earth in there . But like I said it's beautiful the way you have it.

That's beautiful Mark. Did you use a decal or a procedural material for the water bumps?

Yes, I used a procedural material for the bump only, pretty basic. And just used the surface properties for the rest.

Wow, that's come a long way!
Reminds me of some of those paintings I wanted to step into as a kid they felt so real.

I really like the composition.

Looks great!

Are you doing something to blow out the edges of the trees where they meet the sky?

Thanks.

I'm not sure what you mean Robert.

That's beautiful and special! The slight blur adds a sense of warmth to the scene too.

Michel

Looking great, Mark, and very refreshing in the midst of the current heat wave that we are having here in London.

Thanks guys.

Here's a higher res render.

Really nice Mark!

Steve

very realistic!

I wanna live there.

Now, I'm in love with you, haha. That is fantastic. Almost makes me want to do a joint image with you. You do landscape and I'll do some characters, haha.

Thats graet ,the water makes a lot of differance and the shadows from the foilage works a treat well done Mark

Man...that is freakin awesome!!! Its like a Bob Ross painting How did you do the earth? Is it a material or some kinda decal?

Stunningly good and also a bit intimidating, because it
shows me once more, how much there is still to learn before reaching such level.

Very nice. Good job on the trees. Gave me an idea of using sub-d surfaces and converting them into AM splines. With a little time this could work really well for complex trees that need to be animated. Too bad Onyx doesn't make a plant plug for AM.

Thanks again guys.

Matt, the ground texture is a double gradient with the attributes set as bitmaplus. So, it is a material, but it uses images for the textures.

Sorry pixelplucker, but I would never import sub-D models into A:M for any reason, A:M has the treez plugin for making trees.

BTW, both plugins (bitmaplus and treez) were created by Marcel Bricman, thanks Marcel.

Never knew there was a Tree plugin for AM, thanks.

How are the rendertimes?
Would this be suitable for animation?

At 720x405 it rendered in around 3 hrs, I think (multipass off), the last image was rendered at 1600x900 and it took 9hrs and 40 mins (multipass on, 5 passes) the longest render I've ever done. So, it's really not practical for animation. Hair and reflections usually make for long render times.

Mark,
I'm trying to model a cascade Pine Bonsai tree for a project I'm working on, and I remembered you masterful job you did on this landscape. When I first saw this image, my first thought was that the trees were from a photo.

I'd like to learn from your modeling expertise. You have such a good eye for the graceful, natural curves of the branches.

How did you handle the needles on the pine tree that's on the left side of this image?

I agree Myron, this is one of my favorite shots that Mark has done.

Steve

If you saw what those pines looked like without the needles, you'd laugh. You could probably get good results with the treez plugin, it's just alot of trial and error. The needles are hair with an image.

With all the talk about depth maps, I figured I'd give it a try.

Beautiful!

Steve

Very cool, Mark!