Portal and Boardwalk

Hello everyone!

This is a work I made some time ago, but I was hoping to get some feedback on it! In particular, I had questions on:

  • How can I improve the overall composition? (In the timelapse below I changed the perspective quite often).
  • How can I improve the background? The stars and light gradient feel subtle but almost too basic to me.
  • Does the fire and water look realistic? If not, how can I improve them?
  • Does the directional blur and grain add to the realism? Or does it detract from the quality of the work?
  • Is the texture on the boardwalk visible/appreciable? If not, how could I make it more apparent? Or should it be more subtle? (Near the end of the timelapse the textures I used are more clear during production).

If there’s anything else you think could be improved or changed in this work, please feel free to comment on that as well!

Thanks in advance for your consideration and constructive criticism!


Here is the timelapse I mentioned in the original post:

Hi -

The image overall is good, quite balanced and will probably stand out from “other” works at a distance.

What I think could go some ways to justice the image…

The stars are all the same colour/size. Adjusting size & colour will give depth.

The pathways starts well from the sea, it has an aura of mystery. But as it get to the purple fire…a confused moment arises…In my opinion you need to get rid of the shiny flat surface. My intuition tells me you need ant sized space ships coming in/out of the portal to give scale, as the waves below look huge.

Maybe my opinion is a bit radical but i don’t think the perspective works at all. You should either overemphazise or underemphasize the image. (think taking picture from ground view or from bird view, but not just a bit from above cause it looks weird). I would actually recommend lowering the camera and emphasize the tallnes of the structure.

Also, the portal could do with something inside of it (where does it lead to?) or making it grope inwards like a wormhole. Imo the portal should be more in focus.

Thank you Representative and Skoldelid for the feedback! I took into account your suggestions and have created an updated render below. The stars now have size and colour variation, there is a ship flying out of the portal, the portal now has a more ‘wormhole’-esque style, and the camera angle is much closer to sea level.

Anyone have any thoughts on the new render? It’s my first time designing a spacecraft, so any feedback there (design, scale, integration with scene) would be great, thanks!


How can I improve the overall composition? (In the timelapse below I changed the perspective quite often).
More even lighting? And the blur on the stars just doesnt look right to me. They look good, but my opinion steers towards crisper

How can I improve the background? The stars and light gradient feel subtle but almost too basic to me.
The basic of the stars works in your favor. You don’t want the background to overpower the foreground

Does the fire and water look realistic? If not, how can I improve them?
The water looks great. I didnt see that as fire when I looked it it before I read your post, it looked like a magical plasma to me

Does the directional blur and grain add to the realism? Or does it detract from the quality of the work?
The grain of the water makes it more surreal than real, but doesn’t detract

Is the texture on the boardwalk visible/appreciable? If not, how could I make it more apparent? Or should it be more subtle? (Near the end of the timelapse the textures I used are more clear during production).
the texture itself is very nice, I do have trouble seeing it closer to the bottom though. Maybe some ambient light that extends over there?