My first attempt at using UV mapping. (Sun and DOF added in the gimp.
Iiiiiitttt… It looks good, to me, from what I can see, but your photoshop lense flare and backlighting make it REALLY hard to make out details. Can we get a more regular front-daylight/3-point-lighting type render?
Here ya go… i must admit it looked much better before XD
Naw, it didn’t really. The lens flare kinda cheapened it. 
Anyway, post-production does help a lot of things, but you have to bring out your source material with post-production, not hide it.
Anyway, just a few things, to start you off. The hills shouldn’t have particles on them like that, the grass looks too long and rubbery. Try shorter, thicker, yet softer particles. I have tips on improving them if you’d like, and there’s a good guide in the mediwiki. Also, you can blend the density of the particles with vertex groups.
In contrast with the giant grass, the water seems really small and far away cause the ripples are so tiny. So. Grass a little smaller, ripples a little bigger. Just to even things out.
By the way, for that flare between the mountains it looks like you’re using a point lamp, try a sun lamp instead. Hmm, I saw a guide on how to light a scene effectively once, but I forget where I saw it. Can anyone here help?
That said, the actual mapping of the shield seems good. There aren’t so many problems with the shield I can see as with the background. /:] Though it does look like the bump map is on a bit too strong.
One other thing. Try and soften the distance with a faint distance fog. And throw a couple extra hills back there to give the scene more depth.
Is been a few days, i finally got some time…
heres the results
http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=4531575
Pfft gimme some feedback please. Your guyz’s crits are essential.
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Well, it’s—Brb, getting coffee. I’ll finish when I get back. /
Much better, the water effect’s very good there:D
Shouldn’t the sword and shield be a bit bigger though?
Seems pretty obvious to me what needs improved…
The water is much too bright, and the reflection of the shield isn’t being affected. It looks awkward around the banks because it is flat compared to their angle.
The grass/plants on the land need their color fixed. They appear to be white…
The shield itself looks good, but the texture of it looks awkward, as if it were bumpy. Smooth it out.
Good work, there’s definate improvement from screen to screen.
Heh, they already said it. I was wondering what else I could say when it hit me. It isn’t that the water is too bright, it’s that it’s too reflective. It’s like mercury right now, almost.
When you stare a pool of water, or a pond, or a lake, notice this, the sharper an angle you look at it, the more reflective it is. When it’s close up to you, it’s on a really direct angle, so it’s see-through.
There are, in fact, a whole bunch of properties water possesses, and they’re all hard to explain without an aid. So, this blend file might kinda suck, but it’s the best I could whip up.
This is a little big (4 megs) but that’s because I packed the sky texture I used in with it so there wouldn’t be any problems.
http://zombiedog.spindash.net/blender/demo_water.blend
I used a sun lamp to do the direct light of the sun and a hemi-lamp to do the general light of the sky.
Now, take in mind, this water is very simplistic and texture-based, like a Cyanworlds Myst/Riven ocean. If you want a more 3d, complicated type, check here http://www.cogfilms.com/tutorials.html in the new ocean technique tutorial.
Ok, first thing you’ll see is that the colour ramp I’m using replaces all solid colour completely using a normal ramp to get a nice tonal change. Darker is further away because we’ll be getting less colour(surface diffuse light) and more reflection(reflected light)
There’s no transparency here, cause the colour fakes the ocean depth, and no-one can see to the bottom of an ocean anyway except in special circumstances. There is, however, ray-traced reflection, set to a very high ‘fresnel’ angle, or angle at which the reflections happen. A very sharp angle, meaning that only stuff on a really oblique angle will reflect anything at all, much like–once again–water.
Anyway, I dunno if you’ll be able to use this material, cause it’s more Caribbean looking that the type of rock lake you seem to be looking for. Still though, it’s a reference, how good it is is anyone’s guess, though.
A quick note, I added mist to make the distance farther away, and exaggerated how big the surface of the water was by raising up the distant vertices to match with the camera’s horizon.
link is broken XD… thanks for the help though.
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It downloads perfectly for me. <:P I’ll email it to you or upload it again if you want.
It works now thanks… ill do that