Well after 40 mins there is a clear difference. The raytraced lake surface looks like a photo! I am providing before and after renders.
No Post Work Render (raytraced):
No Post Work Render (using env maps):
Below are the finished images.
Raytraced:
Env Maps:
Raytracing works well, but I did have issues. First of all it is a little slow compared to other non-Blender raytracers. My second big problem was crashes while rendering this scene at 1024 x 1024. At that resolution, Blender would freeze/crash after about a half an hours time. I watched, and after five or ten minutes, there was no more render progress. However when I clicked the “75%” button in the render tab, the render completed in 40 mins. The difficulty may be because of complexity of my file/scene. Also is the environment (world) mist being included in the raytrace? I can’t tell with this file.
This is a great scene, I like the ray-render beter, but the windows on the boat seem a bit too tinted in that version IMO. But hey, thats just me … besides I’ve always like B&W pics. Did you use a radial blur after render ?
[edit] What fog/mist settings did you use ? It really adds to the scenes mood. [/edit]
To your question about the mist, I think the raytraced one has no mist because if you look at the far boat the water below it is clearly seen, I don’t think you can do mist in this version with ray-traced, but it is definitly in the env-maps.
Or if you look at the far boat you can see further in the raytraced one, I’m changing my opinion. In the ray traced scene mist is more subtle. Ok so that is my answer to your question by the way Env-maps bring out curvs in water better and ray-traced is good for close water being really realistic. I really like what you’ve done too!
something caught my eye… lol im sorry i dont know why but its one of the first things i seen… the ropes around all the pillars, you have one loop around the pillar, so the rope should come out on the same end, but you have them coming out on opposite ends… hmm hard to explain, but look at the bottom right pillar and follow the rope around with your eye and youll see it doesnt match up
couple of things
shadows may be a bit too soft… are they raytraced shadows in the new version? you should try that cause regular soft shadows sometimes leave no shadows directly around the object, like the boxes… it makes them sorta seem like theyre floating(even still a little in the final versions)
also that paper thingy next to the boxes seems out of place… the whole scene is really clean then you have that one crumpled up thing down the middle… if you put a trash bin next to it then alls good =)
i dont se a major difference worth using raytracing.
plas it looks as if you changed certain things in teh raytraced version, for instance the bumped cans and the boxes have better textures; hardley worth the extra render time
