So here is a WIP render of my latest work in my Ocean Invasion series.
There are still several major problems with it, and it is not close to done (still alot of texture/lighting tweaks, making the rays more individualistic, making the individual trees look different, color balancing and post-processing, etc). But I’m waiting for my new computer to arrive in a week to finish it (I’ve really hit the limit of what my ancient laptop can handle - honestly I was stoked it could produce even this small version).
It’s funny - none of my other works in this series look that particularly realistic (lots of oversaturated colors and such). That’s just kinda the style I ended up going with. But after setting up this render, the models, initial lighting and textures all just kinda conspired together to make it kinda photorealistic. I’ll probably end up bringing up the saturation in the end, making it less photorealistic - just to make it fit with the series better.
I was surprised at how decent the forest looks - it’s only made of 9 individual trees mapped onto planes with alpha transparency. I’ll definitely do some work to make sure the trees don’t look like copies. Same thing with the mantas in the foreground.
Wow the background looks really nice with that foggy effect. But somehow the 3 or 4 rays next to the camera are looking unrealistic, maybe because they’re supersharp (especially tail and dorsal fin), I dunno. Hope this helped.
Yeah the “mist” effect is insanely helpful in adding realism to a scene. It’s quite amazing the difference just a little mist had when comparing this version to one without it.
As for the front mantas, I completely agree. The painted textures aren’t that great either. I’m definitely gonna add some details to the color and normal textures. Some depth of field will hopefully help as well (you’re right - they’re too sharp).
