So I’ve been working on this render of a grassy field with some mountains in the background, and I just figured that I would see if I could get some feed back on it.
Any comments, critiques, suggestions and or criticism that you may have is welcome.[ATTACH=CONFIG]147871[/ATTACH]
Work on the lighting is all I can say. The sun is still up but the image is too dark, other than that, nice work! 
With the position of the sun so low in the sky it would either be sun rise or sunset, and the colours of the sky don’t relate to this. Googled sunrise over field I Fell it would add more interest with the added colours it would bring the image alive .
Looks good, agree with more lighting, also maybe some variation to the grass (flowers/longer grass), etc.
Okay! So I have brightened up the scene a bit, and I have also made an attempt to have it look a bit more like a sunrise/sunset. As well I have also put together a comparison of all the version of this I have gone though to track my progress.
The comparison can be seen here http://www.timothyyoung.ca/images/lensflare/sidebyside.png
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First one and last one are the best in the comparison;D
What might be nice is if you model a flower or something similar and add another particle system, set it to hair, and in the render tab of the particle settings choose object and then select the flower. Just don’t have the amount too high. Might be worth trying…? Though what you have now sort of reminds me of a mongolian steppe. :eyebrowlift:
To be honest I purposely didn’t put an flowers or anything like that, although I do agree that it might add some more life to the image. I might look into giving it a go.
Hey Timothy… don’t forget your rule of thirds. Push your horizon line up or down so that you don’t split the screen in half.
Hope this helps. The grass looks great!
There is nothing inherently wrong with splitting the screen in half. The “rule” of thirds is more like an option* of thirds. There are many other beautiful and interesting way of laying out a scene.
If you’re good enough to break the rules then you don’t need the advice of a professional.
Personally, I’d have to agree with dansafee on this one. The rule of thirds isn’t as much of a rule as it is a option (one of many), and normally its one that I really like to use. However in the case of this render I found that when I tired to split the scene into thirds based on where the horizon line is I found that there was either to much sky or too much grass, and it just made the scene look heavy (if that makes any sense).
I have been thinking about adding a tree with a tire swing or something, as well as some rocks, and maybe some old abandoned fence posts off to the right side of the scene just to give it some more life, and have it tell a bit more of a story. As well doing this would break the scene up into thirds a bit better, if I wanted to do that.
I think your sun needs to have more light scattering/softening/ transparency around it’s edge as it looks a little solid . Also a few better shafts of light around edge would help, particularly coming from the sun over the mountains to the ground in the direction of the view point. Google lens flare and look at similar images for ref.
Grass looking much better
I wouldn’t worry too much about rule or thirds as they are meant to be broken, much better i think to concentrate on deceiving the eye that the flat plane is 3 dimensional (a shaft of light or two leading the eye from front to back will help do this like a path/road/ river does in other works ) and to produce works that are aesthetically pleasing to the viewer
Okay, so I have made a few minor adjustments to the original image. As well I have added a tree and a few rocks because trees and rocks are awesome.
I have noticed that if you look closely at the rock that is in front of the tree it appears that the grass is passing through the rock. I have collision turned on in the hopes that this wouldn’t happen but apparently that isn’t working. I have also tried turning on a force field on the rock in the hopes that it would kind of push the grass aside and around the rock, like you see in real life, but it didn’t seem to do anything at all. So if anyone knows a solution to the problem that would be sweet, and greatly appreciated as well.
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I’m guessing this is from the Nature Academy? It’s a nice one.
I find that most people (maybe even Andrew) overdo the blurring of the Montain. It looks fake. I was under that urge as well, I learned a cool technique and now It’s hardly visible in my render? Still subtle changes under the motto less is more add to your image.
Also, you probably used something less than 25mm for your camera? it kind of makes the tree seem to lean out of the picture.
See you wednesday (how the heck do you spell that day?), I guess.
As for the collision: that only works when you enable Hair dynamics and for a grass field that big, it will probably crash. Eiter use the cut tool (Particle Mode) or weightpaint, make a texture that has black holes in it and set it in the particle Textures to desity oder length. This way you wont need as many vertices as with the weight paint.
