This is my first try at making sand. I first sued an image texture but I wanted to try procedural texture and I ended up with this. I don’t know to make the black hole disappear and make it look like the bottle is actually buried and surrounded by sand.
I will later add some imperfections to the bottle.
Hi,
Your image looks fine, but there are some things to improve.
For the sand, the colour isn’t quite right, probably a bit to yellowish while it should be a bit browner.
Here are some reference images:
https://www.google.fr/search?biw=1522&bih=718&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=desert+sand&oq=desert+sand&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0l2j0i67k1j0i30k1.121537.125527.0.125880.20.18.2.0.0.0.235.1810.14j3j1.18.0…0…1.1.64.psy-ab…0.20.1813.0CXWgHEJvSo
Also the sand could use some bump or displacement to make it less flat. Like the wavy patern you often find in deserts.
This should also be fairly easy to do with procedural textures.
For the bottle disappearing in the sand you could use a boolean modifier on the sand with the bottle as reference object. This way there wil be a bottle shaped hole cut into the sand. For this to work however the sand should have thicked, it cannot be a plane.
Finally, if you have any time left ;), you could ad DOF (depth of fields) this will allow you to put focus on the bottle which will make your scene more interesting.
Looking forward to any progression.
Thanks for the critique!
Yes, the sand looks too yellow. I wanted to make a warm yellowish scene but it is not turning right. I added the bump and displacement but it is not showing 
I will show the node setup. Probably it has some mistakes in it.
I later thought of boolean modifier I cut the mesh I will repair it. Yes, the plane has thickness. I even added the same sand texture to the volume. I have added DOF, but it not strong enough. I will make it more strong. I will soon update.
Thanks
That is much better, the hole from the bottle looks nice now.
The bump looks a bit odd however, I asume you you used bump displacement and not true displacement?
I would recomend using true displacement. Here is a good tutorial:
Bump displacement works ok for flat surfaces, but you have a ridge in your image, the bump will not effect the outline of this ridge. True displacment will so it is more realistic.
Could you send an image of your DOF setup?
Maybe the DOF would be more visible if you view your scene from closer to the ground. This way there’ll be a bigger difference between what is close and what is far away then when you watch from above.
Some final advice; were the bottle sticks in the sand there is a sharp edge, because you only used a boolean. In reality this edge would be much more distorted and wavy. Maybey there would be sand blow against one side which catches the most wind. If you want to works some more on this scene, I would recomend sculpting some vartiation in the sand around the bottle.
Looking forward to any progression
This looks a lot better than your initial image.
Nicely done:)
Which one is better? With or without Bloom?
The one with bloom gives the scene a more desert like feeling. It gives the suggestion of heat.
So I would choose that one
