Cheers. You’re really doing well
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Thank you Spaceboy. 
Thanks…again, Paul. 
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Just a first quick test render of the jellyfish animation. I’m not really happy with the animation/simulation of the tentacles, yet. But the general direction is fine for me. Now it’s all about tweaking the cloth and hair simulation…
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Not really an update of my work - but I think a huge update to Cycles: Adaptive Sampling.
You surely all know about it for a while.
I am using 2.83 since early alpha stage, but only figured out what a massive improvement it is today! 
Ha, ha, ha. Stupid me. I noticed it before, but thought “that’s just some advanced stuff, not needed for my level”. Oh boy, I could not have been more wrong. I did a test render today - with a shot which profits enormously by it:
4K render without adaptive sampling - about 1 hour.
4K render with adaptive sampling - 5 min!!!
Obviously this is a special case, since this scene shows a lot of HDR background, which hardly needs samples to render. But also the dark parts in the landscape render extremely fast. Since I got 400 frames of this scene to render, it will make a huuuuge difference.
I’m a happy boy today! 
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Really impressive stuff here!
I will be waiting for the full movie now 
Keep up the good work 
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Thanks a lot jb4x.
The finished movie will still take a little bit of time…
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Heya dear friends, I got back to work on the train graveyard scene, I mentioned quite a while back. This time I will finalise and prepare it for the animation renders.
Here’s what it looks like at the moment… (pure render without mist and any post)
I think it’s fine - although I’m not totally happy with it, yet. But I probably gotta settle with it, because of time issues. After all it will only be seen in 2-3" animations.
I would love to add much more ivy to the trains, but I’m getting a bit concerned about the amount of polys and render times.
I simply suck in working cost effectively. I just can’t keep poly numbers down. 
I’m already in the millions and I will have to do an aerial shot of this scene, which will need quite a lot more trees. (There are already two rows of trees next to the trains. But I guess I’ll need more.)
Obviously, the trees and grass further in the distance are only billboards. (not seen from this perspective.)
Btw, I’m using a lot of Graswald here. I probably should get more into their LOD’s and stuff… but I’m just sooo lazy learning things. 
I’ll keep you posted how the wider shots / scenes are coming along…
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Here are some wider top angle shots of the train graveyard. They’re actually the first and the last frame of a short animation. Haven’t rendered the whole animation yet.
All the leaves of the trees are animated. Just with a displacement modifier and a cloud texture. But I think it looks good enough. For some trees I used a very big cloud texture to move the branches as a first displacement. And then a smaller cloud texture to additionally move the leaves with a second displacement modifier.
The Graswald plants are even easier to animate. .
I know, the roofs look more boring than the sides…but I got to match them to the real ones, shot on location with the talents. So I don’t have much freedom here. But maybe I should add some ivy on some of them…hmm.
Obviously it’s all still work in progress, but it slowly comes together…
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very interesting thread, and superb work! looking forward to your next update
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Amazing work.
As for the grass and stuff in the distance, have a look at the Scatter addon. It will also work with Graswald (or will in the near future), but even some of it’s default grass setups look really good and are perfect for larger scenes.
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Thanks a lot Karim.
Totally agree, Nitram. I do have the Scatter add-on, as well. It’s great and it’s getting better and better at a rapid pace. Really curious where it will lead to.
I need to learn it more, though. It’s not exactly a tiny add-on.
Hmmm…if only I had more time. 
For now I used Graswald plants with a low LOD in the ‘closer’ background. And very far in the distance billboards of grass and trees. I think I will get away with it, as it’s just seen for a few seconds. For a still image, I would definitely use Scatter for the distant grass.
Scatter and Graswald are really pushing the level of photorealistic, large nature scenes.
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Just a very quick update. Added some more ivy to the train roofs and added a bit of noise to the bump, to make the surface look less smooth. Well, to be honest, if at all, this can only be felt, not seen.
I prepared quite a few scenes now. And I should really start to render.
Since I’m still away from home, I can’t do the renders myself. (I don’t dare to do long renders on a Macbook. Afraid if will cause some heat issues…now or down the line.)
So I’m looking for a good online render farm, which is reliable and affordable.
Does anybody has some advice and experience? Good or bad?
Did anybody work with Concierge Render, for example?
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I’ll let others with more experience give their feedback. However I have tested renderstreet, and I found that starting a render directly in Blender using their Blender plugin to be very convenient.
You could test it out for yourself and see if you like it, you might get some free credits for your first registration.
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Thanks Karim. I will check out Renderstreet…
Here are two more test renders from another animation of the same location. I will do quite a few different animations here.
Now I will finally start to check out some online render farms. I will keep you posted about my experiences…
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While I never used Concierge, RenderStreet (render.st) always worked fine for me. They always delivered, the pricing is fair imho, it never failed me on I guess about a dozen projects of all kinds over the years. They sure saved my ass on a deadline or two. They’re also quick to respond, in my experience, and really helpful, if you have a question.
So while I’m not really qualified to make any comparison (it’s really the only renderfarm-service I ever used), I’d clearly recommend them.
A wonderful thread and a wonderful project you have going on there, by the way. Tell us when the movie gets published, I’d be curious to watch it, eventually. I have a thing for cinema, and for surrealism, so I might just like it, I guess.
greetings, Kologe
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Hi JollyJumper, I stumbled on this thread today because of a reply I saw and you have left me speechless. The amount of work you are putting in it is inspiring.
It reminds me of a physics lesson I had as a kid, -about 40 years ago ;-). The teacher said that if you want an arrow to hit a target you have to use enough force to get it further than the target. If not it would get half way, then half the remaining way and again and again until infinity, never reaching the target with any force to penetrate.
I will follow this thread to the end. I know you will finish this film because your force will drive you further.
I look forward to your updates, and your future projects.
Happy Blending 
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Thanks a lot Kologe for your kind words and the information about Renderstreet.
I will definitely let you know, when the movie is finished. And oh yes, there is some surrealism in it. 
Renderstreet surely seems like one of the best and most used render farm. I will definitely keep it in mind.
At the moment I am checking out Tresorio. It’s a new render farm with an amazing ‘green’ approach. They use the heat of the render servers to heat water. Their first installation is inside a hospital. With their render machines heating the water for it.
I really like that approach.
Additionally I saw in Haik-U’s thread, comparing render farms, that Tresorio is by far the fastest and also amongst the cheapest options. This really caught my attention.
As I understand, Tresorio has been developed for 4 years, but is just about to finish their beta stage. I’m in close contact with them and intensively testing their services for several days now. I will write a more detailed report about my experiences in a few days. Just this much - it looks very promising!
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