June 2015 New User Contest - Scenes and Landscapes [WIP Thread]

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  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,934
    edited June 2015

    First little steps into landscaping, stealing the dragonslayer rock. As I'm using DAZ I have the feeling creating original landscapes as you have already shown in nice examples will not be possible. So mistreating what is available with d-formers an the like it will be.
    I tried my hand at creating running water but its not jet what I would like it to look like. Some white foam tops and splashes would be cool but I guess that will be postwork.

    All suggestions are very welcome.

    landscape1.jpg
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    Post edited by Linwelly on
  • wohaverwohaver Posts: 36
    edited December 1969

    I am generally not too pleased with the renders that I get when I use Bryce... but since there seems to be a general focus on using it for this challenge - I thought I wou try it as well. There are still some pixel artifacts that I cannot seem to eliminate, but this is the best that I am able to achieve. I am still very new at using Bryce, so any input would be helpful and appreciated.

    Thank you...

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  • cherpenbeckcherpenbeck Posts: 1,411
    edited December 1969

    Hey Kathryn!
    That region around Mount Baldy looks a lot like what Bryce produces if I use the funktion "eroded" for the terrain. As for the San Andras fault, thyt one is famous even in Germany ( we've got our own fault line, the "Upper Rhine Valley", earthquakes and sleeping vulcanoes included, but much less impressive, much smaller). And yes, I learned a lot about geology, because it always interested me. Our planet is fascinating in itself.
    And I visited California once, directly after finishing University, visited the parks, and travelled all along the coast to Seattle and Vancouver.
    These bush fires you get would terrify me, but the land is beautiful.

    And, as you perhaps deducted from my questions, I try to make a canyon similiar to the Grand Canyon- huge, with big slates of rock hanging over in some places. Maybe that's a bit too ambitious for a beginner ...

  • kathrynlochkathrynloch Posts: 378
    edited June 2015

    Hey Kathryn!
    That region around Mount Baldy looks a lot like what Bryce produces if I use the funktion "eroded" for the terrain. As for the San Andras fault, thyt one is famous even in Germany ( we've got our own fault line, the "Upper Rhine Valley", earthquakes and sleeping vulcanoes included, but much less impressive, much smaller). And yes, I learned a lot about geology, because it always interested me. Our planet is fascinating in itself.
    And I visited California once, directly after finishing University, visited the parks, and travelled all along the coast to Seattle and Vancouver.
    These bush fires you get would terrify me, but the land is beautiful.

    And, as you perhaps deducted from my questions, I try to make a canyon similiar to the Grand Canyon- huge, with big slates of rock hanging over in some places. Maybe that's a bit too ambitious for a beginner ...

    Oh wow - the Grand Canyon! I've been there once (my family and I traveled so much to various horse shows when I was a kid that we didn't travel for anything else if we could help it. lol!) But one year my aunt and uncle took me on vacation with them and we saw the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and the Rainbow Bridge - big natural stone arch, and a bunch of stuff like that Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico too! I was really glad I was able to go because opportunities like that don't come around all that often.

    I have some friends in Germany, miniature painters mostly, but we used to chat on Google Hangouts while we painted. I remember hearing the Rhine was something of a fault line. I live in Southeast Texas now, so no more earthquakes or forest fires - we're swampland down here by the Gulf, but we do have to worry about hurricanes. We got nailed by two Hurricanes Rita in 2005 and Ike in 2007.

    I can handle the earthquakes and forest fires in stride, but riding out a hurricane like we had to do with Ike - that was SCARY. I guess it's because I grew up with the ground shaking. Out here, people burn trash outside the city limits and it still freaks me out when I smell smoke. That was always a bad thing in Southern California.

    I'd love to visit Germany some day. It's on my bucket list to visit the castles in the UK and Europe!

    But I'm getting side-tracked again. So sorry - I'm turning into my mom with the "back in my day . . ." sheesh! lol!

    The Grand Canyon might be a little much to expect from a beginner - but you don't know if you don't try!

    And if it doesn't turn out exactly perfect, I bet it will still be something really cool. You can always do what I did and change oars in mid-stream. lol! (Actually what I'm doing with this post.) If your image doesn't pass for Grand Canyon, there's always the Alien Landscape option. Or the Painted Desert is more like the fractals natural base. Just for fun I took one of those Google map images, made it a grayscale image in Photoshop, then did a Render/Clouds over it. Got a pretty neat effect. I'll post it in a bit, I messed up the sunlight so you can't even see the terrain effect. lol!

    But on my real image, I kept fiddling around with the sun and IBL settings and just wasn't happy with my results. Since I was ready to throw up my hands anyway, I decided to try night time. I like this much better.

    Well darn my computer is giving me fits and the attachment screen keeps freezing. I'll have to reboot and come back. Pic's soon!

    ETA: Shoot! I have to wait for 7zip to finish archiving a file. I don't want to have to start over with it. So hopefully restarting Chrome will do the trick.

    The bottom image is the last result I got with my "sunset" attempt. for my contest image, the next one is the one I did using the "terrain start" from a grayscale screenshot of google maps then a cloud render over it and tweaking in the editors. But like I said, you can't see the details. The sunset is quite dazzling but this is landscapes not sunsets. lol!

    And last but not least is what my entry is looking like now. I am stuck on a couple of things tho. Yes, I know my horsie needs to get his head out of the air and his hooves on the ground. lol! But he's a very dark color and turned out okay. The second horse is gray and should be much lighter in the moonlight.

    Also, in my castle in the distance, I tried incorporating a distant light in the tower. I was just thinking of a soft glow. But even though I moved it to the castle tower and it's a looooong way away, the light still lit up the world center where it spawned. When I get it to turn off there, you can't see it at all. I think I have it as a spotlight, let me know what info I should post. I thought I saw that David Brenner had a tutorial on lights if I'm not mistaken.

    Okay, now I really gotta reboot this crazy thing! lol!

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    Post edited by kathrynloch on
  • cherpenbeckcherpenbeck Posts: 1,411
    edited December 1969

    Kathryn, I think your first picture (night landscape) looks best so far. The second one, well, the mountain is too dark, I would love to see a bit more structure on the back side.
    As for the painted desert, I think I got the idea how to work these small-scale mountains.

    Now I'll try to get a canyon.

    painted-desert1.jpg
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  • kathrynlochkathrynloch Posts: 378
    edited December 1969

    Linwelly said:
    First little steps into landscaping, stealing the dragonslayer rock. As I'm using DAZ I have the feeling creating original landscapes as you have already shown in nice examples will not be possible. So mistreating what is available with d-formers an the like it will be.
    I tried my hand at creating running water but its not jet what I would like it to look like. Some white foam tops and splashes would be cool but I guess that will be postwork.

    All suggestions are very welcome.

    Hi Linwelly! I started to do stuff in Daz and when I saw Bryce on sale, I grabbed it. lol! But you've got a great start.

    How high are you going to have the water? I'm thinking a little more rocks in the stream bed might help. And I'm wondering if the rock toward the back should be pulled together a little more, so you have a backdrop for the water. That will give the eye something to focus on, like rock that will be the back of a small waterfall. Right now it's sorta of a gap.

    I hope that makes sense. :P

  • kathrynlochkathrynloch Posts: 378
    edited December 1969

    Kathryn, I think your first picture (night landscape) looks best so far. The second one, well, the mountain is too dark, I would love to see a bit more structure on the back side.
    As for the painted desert, I think I got the idea how to work these small-scale mountains.

    Now I'll try to get a canyon.

    Thanks cherp!

    And now you're rocking' it! That looks great! I love the color too.

  • cherpenbeckcherpenbeck Posts: 1,411
    edited December 1969

    Not so much rocking, I fear. Large-scale projects need other textures, obviously. The sandstone texture I found in Bryce materials works fine for solitair rocks, not so fine for a huge mountain.
    Besides there is not enough erosion.
    And I will have to find another texture for the river.
    This looks like a model with unmatching scales.
    But then it's my first try.

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  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    Not so much rocking, I fear. Large-scale projects need other textures, obviously. The sandstone texture I found in Bryce materials works fine for solitair rocks, not so fine for a huge mountain.
    Besides there is not enough erosion.
    And I will have to find another texture for the river.
    This looks like a model with unmatching scales.
    But then it's my first try.

    You can scale textures in the Texture editor,

    BTW, you may not want to spend more money, but this is a very good product to help with creating better terrains, once you understand how the terrain editor works.

    http://www.daz3d.com/bryce-terrain-editor-advanced-filters

  • cherpenbeckcherpenbeck Posts: 1,411
    edited December 1969

    Might be worth the money. But first I'll try to resize textures. Thanks again for your help!

  • kathrynlochkathrynloch Posts: 378
    edited December 1969

    Not so much rocking, I fear. Large-scale projects need other textures, obviously. The sandstone texture I found in Bryce materials works fine for solitair rocks, not so fine for a huge mountain.
    Besides there is not enough erosion.
    And I will have to find another texture for the river.
    This looks like a model with unmatching scales.
    But then it's my first try.

    For a first try it looks great! But I agree that the image is looking a bit busy. When you think of the Grand Canyon, you think of . . . well . . . GRAND. lol! What makes it Grand is the synergy - it's greater than the sum of its parts. When I mentioned the Painted Desert, I thought of the monuments Right and Left Mitten and you just about darn near got one of them in your first image. So maybe google some images of the canyon and narrow the field of view and focus on one aspect. Like one of the Mittens for the Painted Desert only something that's unique to the Grand Canyon.

    And at the risk of a terrible pun here - the Grand Canyon wasn't formed in a day, (Ba-da-bum! Thank you, I'll be here all week.) Sorry I'm a bit tired and I get goofy when I'm tired. ;)

  • kathrynlochkathrynloch Posts: 378
    edited December 1969

    Okay here's what I have now. I managed to get the horse brighter using a light in Bryce - in fact I think I went a little nuts with the lights. lol! I'd better quit now otherwise I'll overwork the darn thing like I always do. Any ideas or suggestions?

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  • MN-150374MN-150374 Posts: 923
    edited June 2015

    Linwelly said:
    First little steps into landscaping, stealing the dragonslayer rock. As I'm using DAZ I have the feeling creating original landscapes as you have already shown in nice examples will not be possible. So mistreating what is available with d-formers an the like it will be.
    I tried my hand at creating running water but its not jet what I would like it to look like. Some white foam tops and splashes would be cool but I guess that will be postwork.

    All suggestions are very welcome.


    To create different shapes, you can scale the rocks just along one axis. Even if it is the same prop, it will appear more flattend or thinner than the original.

    To create larger formations, you could try to weld a few rocks together, like it is described here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/57461/

    There is a list of free trees, bushes and so on: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/24646/

    CGtextures might have some useful water textures: http://cgtextures.com/

    Post edited by MN-150374 on
  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,934
    edited December 1969

    MN-150374 said:
    Linwelly said:
    First little steps into landscaping, stealing the dragonslayer rock. As I'm using DAZ I have the feeling creating original landscapes as you have already shown in nice examples will not be possible. So mistreating what is available with d-formers an the like it will be.
    I tried my hand at creating running water but its not jet what I would like it to look like. Some white foam tops and splashes would be cool but I guess that will be postwork.

    All suggestions are very welcome.


    To create different shapes, you can scale the rocks just along one axis. Even if it is the same prop, it will appear more flattend or thinner than the original.

    To create larger formations, you could try to weld a few rocks together, like it is described here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/57461/

    There is a list of free trees, bushes and so on: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/24646/

    CGtextures might have some useful water textures: http://cgtextures.com/

    Thanks a lot MN-150374, there is a lot of cool stuff in your links, I will try around with that.

    Thanks as well Kathrin, stones in the water is a good idea, I originally didn't think to make the water much higher but I guess I will aply some d-formers for more aktion in the water. with the water shaders from that site that might come up to something. And yes havin Bryce or something like that at some point will be a coll thing but for the moment I will keep on my struggel with DAZ.

  • MN-150374MN-150374 Posts: 923
    edited June 2015

    It took a little bit of research, there is a way to get Dreamlights 3D Canyon for free: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/30456/

    It still works, just subscribe to the newsletter. ... and unsubscribe when it gets annoying. ;-)
    I don´t know if the free version is the same than the one in the DAZ Shop, because the free one is the only one I have. ;-)
    For sure the free one is a pretty good base for larger environments in DAZ Studio.

    Post edited by MN-150374 on
  • cherpenbeckcherpenbeck Posts: 1,411
    edited December 1969

    To Kathryn (and perhaps some others):
    The picture shows basically the same fractal. First rock (left side) is fresh fractal (fractal1). Second rock (right side) I used Dampen, Round Edges, which made the rock softer, but also lower. Had to use Raise/Lower to rise it up again, plus a bit more Dampen and Smoothing. Then it was too sleek , and I had to add a bit noise, Basic Noise and Slope Noise.
    You see the result. (fractal2)
    Texture is : Terrain / Rocky / Canyonlands

    You can import the fractals if you wish to experiment, I declare them free.

    fractal2.jpg
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    fractal1.jpg
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    Desert-Rocks.jpg
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  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656
    edited December 1969

    To Kathryn (and perhaps some others):
    The picture shows basically the same fractal. First rock (left side) is fresh fractal (fractal1). Second rock (right side) I used Dampen, Round Edges, which made the rock softer, but also lower. Had to use Raise/Lower to rise it up again, plus a bit more Dampen and Smoothing. Then it was too sleek , and I had to add a bit noise, Basic Noise and Slope Noise.
    You see the result. (fractal2)
    Texture is : Terrain / Rocky / Canyonlands

    You can import the fractals if you wish to experiment, I declare them free.

    Looks very nice cherpenbeck. Sorry I have not been much help. I barely know how to open Bryce at the moment. So by "free" there is no copyright reserved?

  • h_habashh_habash Posts: 230
    edited December 1969

    Greetings, I've been playing around with Bryce for the last few days to see if I'd participate in this contest, I've made some couple of scenes and finally managed to create this one, I'm still trying to make it more realistic, anyway as a start here is the first render of my Island.. :coolsmirk:

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  • cherpenbeckcherpenbeck Posts: 1,411
    edited June 2015

    Yeah, no copyright reserved, Dollygirl. Take what you need.

    Now I found out how to make these terracings which are so common in the Grand Canyon:
    For the fractal, take white plane to start with, paint the valley greyscale, and then:
    Just use the terrain-function "Posterize".
    And I added a little bit of erosion.

    canyon1d.jpg
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    Post edited by cherpenbeck on
  • XangthXangth Posts: 127
    edited December 1969

    Hi all. I thought I'd try my hand at this one. I have a few ideas. Here is the first; "Where Eagles Roam"
    This is a Daz Studio and Bryce Combo. Thoughts, suggestions are always welcome from everyone.

    where_egals_roam.jpg
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  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656
    edited December 1969

    Xangth said:
    Hi all. I thought I'd try my hand at this one. I have a few ideas. Here is the first; "Where Eagles Roam"
    This is a Daz Studio and Bryce Combo. Thoughts, suggestions are always welcome from everyone.

    I would like to see more light on the wolf and Indian. You might try a gamma correction render which will give you a more realistic distribution of light. Your background is pretty bright so the light under the trees should be a bit higher in ambient and the shadows should be a little softer.

  • cherpenbeckcherpenbeck Posts: 1,411
    edited December 1969

    @ Xangth: The trees in the background are too evenly spaced. Try to arrange them in groups, or make a dense forest.

  • wohaverwohaver Posts: 36
    edited December 1969

    Yes this is better. I would work on adding some foliage to the foreground.


    Thank you Dollygirl!

    I have added a couple of trees and some ferns to the foreground of this image - this made a nice improvement. I also soften the ground shadows a little and adjusted the lighting a little.

    What do you think?

    dsLandscape.jpg
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  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656
    edited December 1969

    wohaver said:
    Yes this is better. I would work on adding some foliage to the foreground.


    Thank you Dollygirl!

    I have added a couple of trees and some ferns to the foreground of this image - this made a nice improvement. I also soften the ground shadows a little and adjusted the lighting a little.

    What do you think?

    Try more foliage on left side to hide the blurry foreground.

  • LyamLyam Posts: 137
    edited June 2015

    Well, here's my try. I don't use Bryce so it'll have to be Daz for this landscape scene. I call it "Night in Perspective". Not sure what else to do with it. Maybe a little fog or mist in post work (and some color adjustments of course)?

    Night_in_Perspective.jpg
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    Post edited by Lyam on
  • wohaverwohaver Posts: 36
    edited December 1969

    Try more foliage on left side to hide the blurry foreground.

    I tried to add the suggested coverage without creating the impression that the wooded area is closing around the couple.

    dsLandxcape.jpg
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  • cherpenbeckcherpenbeck Posts: 1,411
    edited June 2015

    Hallo Wohaver!
    I think the landscape looks nice. The is just one thing which bothers me. What is the main subject of your picture? If it's the landscape, the people are too big, and you need to zoom out. If it's the family, the people are too small, and you need to zoom in.
    Just my opinion, others might think different.

    @lyam04:
    I like your picture. Looks like something which could become a book cover.

    Post edited by cherpenbeck on
  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656
    edited December 1969

    Hallo Wohaver!
    I think the landscape looks nice. The is just one thing which bothers me. What is the main subject of your picture? If it's the landscape, the people are too big, and you need to zoom out. If it's the family, the people are too small, and you need to zoom in.
    Just my opinion, others might think different.

    @lyam04:
    I like your picture. Looks like something which could become a book cover.

    Yes I agree with cherpenbeck. If you look at landscape paintings the human and animal subjects take a back seat to the terrain. If you want your open spot to stay open then add low bushes or grass to the area. The blurriness of the foreground is dominating the scene and making it look unnatural.

  • cherpenbeckcherpenbeck Posts: 1,411
    edited June 2015

    I'm learning how to make these canyon structures. This is the next one. Again, the terrain fractal is free for anybody who wants to play with it. This time I painted the structures with a star-shaped brush. Again added erosion.

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    Post edited by cherpenbeck on
  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656
    edited December 1969

    I'm learning how to make these canyon structures. This is the next one. Again, the terrain fractal is free for anybody who wants to play with it. This time I painted the structures with a star-shaped brush. Again added erosion.

    Looking good cherpenbeck. So on your water. I take it that you want to do the Colorado River or some similar structure. So on the GC float trip I took last year the water is pretty much green and you can not see very deep. Once the Little Colorado merged into the Colorado then the water went milk chocolate. Lots of silt in the water. If you pull a bucket of water out of the river and set it on the bank for about half hour it would be crystal clear and the bottom of the pail would be reddish brown. Kind of cool actually.

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