Man this thing is a beast. I would love to get 1000 samples at 200x2400 but I think its going to take forever. I’ll try over this weekend and see how far it gets. Here is a cleaner version rendered as 1000x1200 at 300 samples which took 15hrs.
Thanks easydream and Nita, I appreciate the kind words. I’m glade you-re liking the change in composition:)
Congratulations on your artwork going to the gallery! You deserve it!:yes:
Great stuff Derek! Many congrats on the feature, well deserved! 
this is some badass work. New version is definitely better, I agree the first one was too sharp/contrasty. Good stuff.
Hey Derek , man where have you been , its been so long that i have seen you in news , and i am glad to see you back . awesome job and tremendous amount of details there , good job man keep it up 
The water looks fantastic !
Did you use sapling/tree addon for the pine trees ?
Wow, that second render. So close to photorealism, just slightly off. Really great job.
This is impressive! Really you are so close to the look of a real photo.
What did you do to fix the first one looking sharp? Just blur, or did you change camera settings?
There are only two things I can think of that could make this more real.
Thanks for sharing.
WOW guy featured! That totally made my day:D It’s something I’ve been working toward since I joined Blender Artists and this is my first:)
ItalianJoy - Thanks I really appreciate the kind words
VickyM72 - Thanks Vicky I’m honored to have made it up there.
Kemmler - I’m glad you like the new version better. I think the composition and feel it a lot closer to what I was originally going for.
draguu - I’ve been around man:) Glad to hear from you…I assume you have been quite busy as well. Thanks for the kind words.
Alex0944 - The water was a bit tricky…subtle ripples and coloring I think sell the water look.
DJ Barney - Actually I’ve been using both Sappling and Arboro. Arboro does a much better job of creating UV mapping for the leaves. I will say that there is a lot of hand modeling in there as well. I actually used several particle systems and small tree branch geometry for most of my pine trees. If your interested I’m selling various trees on the Blender Market. All of this work was in efforts to create some pine tree and shrub vegetation to add to my Blender Market Nature products. I find the best way to test a model is to really use it in a scene or environment. It definitely makes a difference from a standard studio setup.
TARDIS Maker - Thanks for the “Wow” 
I’m hoping to get a 1000 sample render over this weekend and upload that image. I think that will eliminate some of the fuzziness and noise in the water.
Quantum Anomaly - Well I believe I went over board with the contrast and gamma correction in the original version. I also changed the camera angle to create a better composition trying to draw the viewers eye around the bend to the area of sunlight shining on the forest floor. When I post the final high res 1000 sample render I will adjust the god rays a bit. I go agree they might be just a bit strong. Thanks for the feedback and the questions:)
This is realy great, thanks for posting.
Thanks, that java povray tree generator looks intersting. I’ll try my own hand at it, but might come back to you for a tree 
Great work, Derek! I agree, your revised composition is by far an improvement! Instantly I can tell what I’m looking at, and there is not much distraction. In the first image, I never even noticed the water until I zoomed in. Outstanding work!
Out of curiosity, would you ever be interested in using scanned data like rocks, tree stumps or partial landscapes? I’d be happy to share some assets as I continue my scanning adventures.
Thanks davincheaney I’m glade you like it:)
DJ Barney have fun with the generator and remember trees have anatomy like a human, reference, reference, reference
James Thanks for the great feed back and the offer. I’ll say that I am a fan of your scans but to be honest they scare me a bit because of the high resolution textures and meshes. I suppose its all in the software settings but I would definitely be interested in some workable resolution tree trunk scans and of course some rocks. Some old tree stumps would be really interesting as well. Would be cool to see if I could take a tree trunk scan and combine it with an Arboro or sapling created tree mesh. Get the high resolution base with all that yummy texture and geometry with the lower resolution top tree braches and leaves. The biggest trick would be getting the bark texturing to appear seamless with the lower unscanned upper portion of the tree. But I do love a nature challenge:) Shoot me a PM if you would like to try some stuff out.
nice one derek!
