So decided to post this-I can’t think of what else I could do with this scene.
So critique away 
blend file to follow soon-I have to upload it to an external site, the size was around 31 MB…and I have dial-up:eek:
31Mb seems pretty big for such a simple scene. Is the tree full-poly?
The tree on it’s own looks good, although I’m not sure that type of tree grows in a desert.
Things to improve:
-The transition between the sand and water. I think in a real oasis the falloff wouldn’t be that abrupt either.
-The sand texture could use some more emphasis.
-The lighting could definitely be improved. Have you tried Cycles yet? It’s in that latest builds.
The shadows should be softer and not as dark and the whole scene could be brighter. Either Ambient Occlusion/Environment Lighting or a better lamp setup with some colored lamps to emulate the sky and sand color would help, or all of the above.
-The vignetting effect on the border looks too strong. If you’re aiming for the effect of shade on the image from the camera lens then it shouldn’t be square either. Unless you’re aiming to just give the image a border (not a vignetting effect) something like Instagram?
-Composition wise you could get a more dynamic angle.
-And finally, some kind of atmospheric or heat haze effect on the horizon would help sell it alot, although since everything in the scene
is pretty close and the hill blocks the actual horizon it might not be necessary, but the sky is pretty plain as it is right now.
Anyway it’s a good start.
water looks great. did you use andrews nature academy for it? really seems as if you did…its way to artsy for the rest of the scene O.o
Is that a water faucet coming out of the tree? I think this idea could be pretty thought provoking but should put more focus on that faucet. Maybe camera is lower to ground. There are two trees, one with faucet in extreme foreground and one to see in midground. Just an idea.
I didnt even notice that Shibazz. Man you must have supersonic eyes O.o.
anyway its a good image, but yeah it needs work
Question and answer time!:yes:
Thanks for all of your responses.
Well considering all the textures I used are packed into it…the .blend is just a small 9.9 MB without the textures. The tree has little bit of a displacement map applied to it and a bump map to finish it up.
It’s a mirage…I don’t think it matters;)
see above
I will see what I can come up with.
Cycles…oh boy doesn’t work with my computer for three reasons: 1.) no video card:( and 2.) I am still am on Ubuntu 9.10 (for better performance:rolleyes:), oh, and 3.) Cycles is buggy and is not feature complete…
I had ambient occlusion turned up higher for the first couple of renders for some reason I turned it back down…will fix.:yes:
Decided to get rid of the vignetting effect-it just was distracting and didn’t help the image at all composition wise.
I will try to.
A haze…I will have to play around with that…I think desert skies are plain mostly in real life though…I.E.
Thanks!
Yeah, it’s a faucet and I agree there needs to be more of a focus on it.:yes:
Thanks…and no I did not…in fact I haven’t heard of andrews nature academy.
Well…now its time to get back to work…I Just hope that RL doesn’t attack (Oh…wait thanksgiving is coming up…RL attacks:evilgrin:)
Some quick progress-mostly a composition change…still have to change some stuff…I now think the sky is definitely too plain from this view…have to work on.
Crits. appreciated on the new view!
direct link to picture (much higher res): http://oi39.tinypic.com/10gwvfm.jpg
I think some heat haze effects would definitely help sell the mirage aspect.
A character in the scene sweltering to death from heat in the foreground looking at the water would make the scene more interesting. On it’s own it’s just hard to tell it’s supposed to be a mirage. Maybe if you positioned the camera so that it’s really close to the ground looking up at the water focet with the sun coming through straight at the camera through the leaves of the tree. That’d be a dramatically different image though and might require different textures and less of the sand model.
I feel like the scene really needs some kind of atmosphere or life to it though. Maybe even just some camel tracks or something.
Alternatively since it’s a mirage you could add some kind of glow effect to the tree and water or something interesting like that.