the water looks WAY better now 
good luck on the leaf and the girl!
Now it looks not so diaram alike, platic water etc. same green (moss, lichen which are actually sometimes white or yellowish) on permanently humidity area on the stones maybe. Havent used but specular maps for the stones also could help for feeling the wetness just around the waterfall.
Looking much better now, you might want to specular all over the rocks and that river looks like it’s going to inundate the camera with a massive wave any minute now.
Waterfall could be a lot wider.
I like the texture on the water. That is fluid sim right? Do you have a tutorial or could you show how you made the water texture, that is sweet.
Keep it up this is some good work.
Sweeeeeeet! I love the time snapshots, almost like a video tutorial without words. I had low hopes when you started with the box, but I think your work here is very inspiring to all modelers who wonder how they can start.
Are you using Nurbs or Mesh? How do you get it so Clean?
@maybeapreacher: thanks. Indeed I haven’t rendered the background and the girl into one image anymore. I don’t know how it looks, but I hope it will be ok.
@lexi and Krayon: I’ve added specularity on the other rocks too, but I need to do the rock textures a bit more specific. Right now I focussed more on the waterfall.
@HJ05: to be honest, I’ve started all over again, and the water is now handmade compared to a few renders before the last one. The water material is a modified version of the meta-water found in the blender material repository.
Apply a few cloud textures on a subdivided object for displacement and also a decimate modifier to make the water more vivid.
@PapaSmurf: thanks for the energy boosting words. It was a dificult start, but the key is not to give up easily. I’ve also learned a lot in the past modelling ‘Elissa’, so I had a good idea where to go.
@Frank_robernson: its a mesh for sure, but what do you mean with clean?
I’ve made another update, adding extra water to the waterfall making it wider and adding a more ‘splashy’ look.
I need to remake the big rock texture, because it is not to my liking… but that’s for next time
Difinitely improving, the waterfall can still be larger, considering how the pool section down below is a heck of a lot larger, you might want to increase the size or change the view so that we know it’s a waterfall into a pool, not a waterfall into a river.
On the upside, this is definitely looking a lot better, not sure about the defocuse nodes though.
Keep it up.
Rendering all together:
looks way (!!) better then before!!
Thanks, but I think I now need to work on the clothing again. It is not really ok. Also the lighting could be done better… So, the next focus is on the girl and clothing again…
As you can see i’ve applied DOF to the camera whicih blurs out the details ont he background, just to keep a focus on the main subject.
(Before this render I had some wrong settings for some things, which made the render take 2,5 days to render! It appeared that I had some insane settings on the hair, and lamps, materials etc. Right now it renders under 1 hour.)
You have come a long way with the water, now it look a lot more believable. Too bad you had to blur out the waterfall , seems like a wasted good effort. Also the water seems a bit glass like , around the woman’s leg but It is not a big problem.
Overall I really like your image and I will keep an eye on your progress.
A few changes going to the right direction:
Sepia will always have its appeal but I think I prefer the colored version. It is a pity to bypass all this effort.
The sepia one does not work for me. There is a lack of contrast that makes the subject disapear within all the background noise.
Hi kilon and ypoissant, thanks for pointing that out. You are both right. If you look to long on a certain images you don’t see any ‘mistakes’ or bad things anymore. Problem is that I want to finish the work on this WIP as soon as possible now.
I uv-mapped the girl and she’s actually textured. I tried to make better skin, but I don’t succeed in that very good… I know there’s an SSS skin test thread. I downloaded the skin, played with it but it doesn’t work very well for me because I need to create a whole different kind of maps then… Anyway I’m just writing down my thoughts now… I’ll return to the colored version and we’ll see.
I just feel like I’m still missing something on the latest color render… or is it just me? because I’m looking to long at the same thing.
You know as much we try , we will be always limited by our skill. And building skill takes time. Thus I am against FOREVER WIPs , if you feel that is time to leave the project as its and call it finished , do not feel any remorse just do it.
Already your image is very very good, very sexy and sensual. I think it has aliasing problems on the cloth edges and water edges but they are easily fixable with gimp’s or photoshop’s blur brush.
If you feel it is time to move on then it is time to move on, to better more exciting things. Giving yourself a limited time frame is very good idea to help you be more creative and smart as to how you spent your time.
Great modelling. Can I suggest reflection from the water (caustics) and some fill down the left side from skylight. I haven’t read all of thread but are you rendering with SSS? Much as I like the water fall, modelling shoots are conducted at the end of VERY long lenses. This gives greatest depth for seperation from background and compresses the subject to the background too.
I still have problems with that hair. You either need to make it thicker or change the colour, or spec or something. Just make it look more like hair and less like… I don’t know, it doesn’t look like anything in particular.
I think your main problem with the colour is that it’s literally perfect. That body hasn’t got a single mole, spot or wrinkle. Also, the colour choice makes it look like she’s wearing make up, except all over, not just on the face.
The water coul probably be reworked a bit, so less glass like and more waterfall turbulent like.
So a darker, muddier, more opaque look would be better. Knock off some of the reflection and shine.
Lighting could probably do a rework. I took a good look at the sepia one and you’d do better if you had more contrast. The sepia one does that quite a bit. You can see more detail because there’s more contrast. It also stands out more. Right now the colour one looks a touch on the flat side.
You planning on doing some bump mapping any time soon? That would be great to see. Perhaps you have, if you have, you’ll need to either size up those renders or work the light so that it shows up.
Good job, keep it up.