Buttermere, The Lake District - Revisited

[LazloWoodbine]

Already uploaded this ‘scene’ of Buttermere in the Lake District (a very famous lake). However, on reflection I wasn’t happy with it, so have had another go. This comprises two versions; one is my ‘photographic’ version and one ‘painterly’ version (but more subtle and softer than I’ve been using recently).

Topography data from the Environment Agency (1m LIDAR), cleaned up in QGIS and processed in Gaea. Main material done in Mixer (this is 8k). Trees from botaniq. I’ve used the Physical Atmosphere and Starlight addon for the sky, but have had to fake some of the ‘fog’ on the trees as it kills my machine to apply it to all materials.

I wanted to do some different renders of this, but will be busy for the foreseeable future and so rather than wait I wanted to upload it now.

As always, I’d be grateful for advice on how to make more realistic, more interesting, more technically adept etc.

[gumpu]

The lake looks like it has ice on it, was that intentional? (Since the rest of the scene seems to indicate it is summer or spring).

[LazloWoodbine]

Not intentional, no. Thanks for the observation; something to work on.

[LazloWoodbine]

I wonder if this water is better. Tried a different shader. The ‘icy’ look has disappeared, but probably still isn’t quite right.
I was quite pleased with how this one had come about in general, but perhaps its a bit ‘meh’ (particularly if not familiar with the real location). Nevertheless, I still want to make improvements if I can.