Lake/River Scene W.I.P

Ive been working a river scene but having a problem with getting it to look right.
I think it has something do with the trees, any advice?


Absolutely its the trees… the river looks quite good, very natural and the waves look about right. But the trees look so uniform and that is what is killing it. You need a variety of different types of trees for a scene like this, as well as ground cover on certain areas. I like how you have added the floating log.

At least on my uncalibrated monitor the sky highlights look a little blown out, maybe bring the white values down some on that. The birds or duck add some nice interest into the scene.

I have added some assortment to the trees, darkend the sky tones and added some ripples to the bag in the water, also i have added some more rocks on the shore line

slowly getting to the final result.


harleynut97 is correct. In addition to what he’s said, the dirt also needs some work. It looks a bit steep and doesn’t seem to interact with the water properly.

One of the big things that is sticking out to me, is the misuse of your shores. You have some beautiful lines leading our eyes down the shore, but they don’t end up focusing on anything. Look at this image to see what I mean:


The red lines are the existing lines. These are where eyes are going to want to focus. The black like, is how I think the log should be facing. This draws another line right to that same point as everything else.

I then circled the point where all of the lines meet green. I think you should put a subject here. An interesting tree, a large rock. Just something that our eyes can focus on.

Other than that, it’s just the tree’s the sky and the shore that I think need work.

I hope this helped.

Edit: I posted just after you. Look right under your water by the shore. You can see where the shore stops.

I added aquatic grass to fix the sharp gradient between the land and water. I also fixed the composition errors with the log and focal point, Adding the Tree and lillies.

Sadly i messed up the water making it look a lot more shallower.


The grass around the shore looks really nice! Funny I like the shallower look. It’s coming along very nicely!

Thanks it is close to complete.

I’m having a problem with the mist and the map value node, any help with whats happening to the tree in the centre.


I might be wrong, but try conecting the rerout to the viewer node.

yeah i usually use this node and always get great mist results, but on this scene its having some weird results.

Im feeling a bit stupid, since it usually works


Do you usually use screen? Are you using the usual value in the Map Value node? Have you tried rerendering?

Yeah it was a mistake with the connecting everything together, but i found a fix for it.

I am pretty happy with final result. higher quality renders on my portfolio.


Final Render with Comp.


Final Render with a lot of Distortion (just for fun)

, Once again thanks for the advice guys.

Good final image. It has a very painterly feel to it.

I took a look at your portfolio, I saw two images that looked a bit familiar. One: Andrew Price’s cloud tutorial, and Two: what looks like Andrew Price’s Cabin in the woods that was in the Architecture Academy Trailer (I don’t know if this was a tutorial in the Architecture Academy or not but it stuck out to me).

It’s probably not a good idea to add tutorials into your portfolio because your showing people that you can follow instructions, but there is nothing showing them that you can figure things out on your own.

My first reaction. Skyrim! Thats cool mate! The trees are wonderful

Thanks, for the feedback glad you liked it

I noticed your right so i am going to remove those captions

very nice. the problem with the trees are, that they are in reality not growing like this in a forrest.

a fir tree only has branches to the bottom when it’s standing alone. In a forrest they begin to grow on a higher level where they can catch sunlight.

but its still pretty awesome :slight_smile:

Thanks glad you like it, i sorta did that on purpose on the trees because i usually prefer what i think looks good than going for complete realism.

Thanks again.

Really good work! :slight_smile: