Something new for you guys. Hope you like it:) 43hr to render 175 samples 2000x2400.
NEW: (only 300 samples and med resolution:o)
OLD:
OLD:
I really like it, but it’s a bit harsh on the eyes for me not sure why though
The trees textures are a little bit too … i don’t know…sharp? But the image is great!.. Need to ask - How much memory was needed to start this render ?
So much detail in this scene! I love it. Great Job
I agree, it is a very nice picture, but it almost hurts to look at. I maybe wrong, but I think that it is because the leaf colors and trunk colors are extremely saturated, but surrounded by very dark shadows, creating a very chaotic clashing and unsettling appearance. In nature colors tend to be more soft and pastel-like. For example, look at this photo of the forest:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]342437[/ATTACH]
All of the colors blend nicely together and seem very “soft,” and the leaves are not quite so saturated or yellow, and the shadows are not so sharp and dark. I hope you find this useful!
Also, I hope you do not mind me doing so, but I experimented with some of the colors in Photoshop to try to help you see what I mean:
wow, nice render!
Fantastic scene, Derek! The density of this scene is just mind-blowing. Your patience definitely paid off. 
With such a variance in distance of the trees, some DoF is really necessary here. It will make the image alot easier on the eyes. Also it seeems a little too saturated. But it is a very nice nature scene indeed. GJ man !
Looks pretty real to me
Nice work / render. Composition may need some work. Overall image is confusing to the viewer.
Anyone trying take a photo in forest knows how difficult it is to make a good image. The contrast is simply too grate and scene is in chaos. What you see in forest can’t be easily translated into good photographic image.
Here is an example photo:
There are leafs all over the place with blown out sky. What do you think photographer was trying to shoot at? Just imagine if sun was shinning on those leafs!
Blender has this tool called Luma display. It shows distribution of brightness across the images. Ones eye get attracted to brightness in the image. And, Luma display shows how ones eye moves along the image. In the Tall Forest image, the brightest spot is to the left bottom corner; the sunlit leafs. That is the hottest spot and eye get attracted to that. But the image is not about the left bottom corner is it?
yeap the image is very grain, very good so far, but I dont know if it need more cycles samples or a bit compositor magic.
For some reason this reminds me a lot of the atmosphere in the forests of the game Gothic 3, great game and great render
well since this is not a commercial project and you could spend on it any time you wanted i have to notice something
1-st, rectangle area looks absolutely amazing - just like real photo of Cannon or another professional camera.
2-nd, all other image looks almost flat to me, i think it is because of too low indirect clamp value - try keep it around 15
3-rd, i overlined a very noticeable texture tiling on tree trunk
4-th, water looks a bit unreal because near to the camera water should be a bit transparent and we could see something like waterplants or it has to be some duckweed at the edge of the shore.
but i carp, really very beautiful image
WOW:) Thanks for the great feed back guys. Even some playing with the image and a draw over. I really appreciate the time taken. I’ve decided to go a bit further on this and hopefully resolve a few issues you guys have pointed out.
I hope to better the composition and create some focal point. This is a bit difficult in a very organic environment created at random by particle systems but I think I have come up with something better. I’ll post a quick low sample render this afternoon and hopefully a high res high sample render tomorrow morning:)
In regards to my machine its nothing too fancy, here are the spec:
Intel® Xeon® CPU E3-1220 V2 @ 3.10GHz
8.00 GB
64-bit operating system
NVIDIA Quadro 600 video card (No CUDA 
)
My machine at home is a bit more powerful with a 2GB CUDA enabled video card but its not enough memory to render this beast:) I believe it hits around 3GB or memory when rendering and the blend file is approx. 500Mb.
Lots of particle systems…12 I believe:) I’m not sure on the total number of faces but I’m estimating around 500 million. I wish cycles would display the face count like blender internal render did:)
Wow, absolutely stunning! One of the best renders I’ve seen.
OK so be gentle this is a quick render very low resolution and samples but at least you can see where I’m going with this. Do you guys like it more or less? Is the composition better or worse? Thanks for your time:) Higher res render with more samples to be uploaded tomorrow:)
The second image looks fantastic! I would love to see a better resolution/samples render! Keep up the great work!
Thats IT !!!
the second image is a real photo!
I like both renditions. Though I can agree with people that the first has a highly “sharp” look I was guessing/hoping that was what you were trying for. It would be interesting to see various renders both softening the overall feel and decreasing the harshness of the lighting. My guess is that you would get a wonderful range of looks. I think you’ve done an amazing job. Hopefully the comments help you to decide exactly what look/feel you truly want.