Islands

Here’s a scene I’ve been working on, after looking at it so many times it’s difficult to see all the flaws. Any feedback will be welcomed.


I like the depth and multi-levels. The texture of the rocks are great and having the foreground rocks in shadow does well to frame the image. I want to see more variation in the greens; not just due to lighting. Also, I’d like to see the sharp reflections of the rocks broken up by the ripples in the waves. Finally, I’m looking for something more to draw me in emotionally into the image.

Keep up the nice work! Looking forward to see more.

SB

I agree about the tree color variation and the reflections. I’m having some trouble getting the wave size smaller using the ocean modifier, it might add to the perspective to have small ripples. Here’s a revised render with more color variation and reflections.


The variation in green was an excellent idea, and really adds life to the image. Great job with that!

I really think you are doing an excellent job with atmospheric depth, the rocks in front really look like they are right there in front and that there is a good distance between the rocks and the background.

One thing that could help is some more interaction between the rocks and the ocean. Even in the calmest of ocean environments there is some sort of splashing of water hitting the rocks, especially outside of a bay. I’m not sure how you could achieve that with the ocean modifier, however…

Something like a boat or animal (basically a subject to look at) would really make this image.

Keep up the great work, I look forward to seeing what you accomplish!

I finally got around to adding a boat to the scene. There are some issues with the reflection making the boats look like they’re not touching the water. I still need to refine the details on the two cliffs and add some different types of vegetation.



There are some random dark pixels in the background where mist covers the trees and I can’t get rid of them. Anyone got any ideas what causes them?

I’m guessing they’re artefacts in your mist pass; I believe they’re usually caused when the render settings don’t have enough light bounces, because you have too many objects in front of each other. Try increasing transparent bounces in your render settings.

In my opinion the background should be a little less misty because its that not far away, i look a the mountains outside my window , they are about 10 times further away than your background and have the same mist feeling .

the rest is great especially the rock textures.

The rock models look too smooth to me. Maybe use the texture as a displacement map?

Lovely work. Atmospheric haze does seem a little strong given the clear sky and clarity of the foreground.

Try some new compositions because right now the viewer’s eye is just sticking to the middle instead of exploring. Maybe rotate the camera right or left so the gap falls off to the side slightly (rule of thirds) and you might find some nice flow lines that go around the whole image then.