I really like it, seems so quiet...as an aside, I'd have made the horse a dapple grey to carry out the color scheme, but, that's just me, Happy Winter Holiday...=)

Yeah, I thought of that, tried a solid black horse, too. Finally decided to add a dash of color to the scene. Thanks for the advice!

Yeah! Fantastic birch tex, and the steam and kick up from the horse too. Nice one.

This is beautiful!

Maybe the horse's mane should be longer? Just a thought... The Bryster

BTW: loved the snow! The whole scene is very good. How long did it take you to render? The Bryster

Ah, so pretty. I can feel the cold, crisp air!

Render probably took 3-4 hrs. (didn't have the report render on, so I don't know exactly. Render quality was 64 on a 1024 pixel wide image. Snow effect is a volume mat on a sphere that encompasses the whole scene including the camera. Thanks for the kind words, all.

Reminds me of a Bev Doolittle painting I have... dappled palomino with Native American rider in a birch forest... The horse and rider just sort of blend in.

Beautiful render tjohn.

Spectacular - have to play with that sphere/mat thing. only suggestion: maybe add hooveprints ? I.E. add a negative bool horse to the ground so that only the hooves intersect. again, very good! - TJ

Nice picture. I like it a lot. But it's true what bikermouse says about hooveprints; maybe add some in Photoshop (so you don't have to render again)? Josselin

tjohn, forgot to ask, did you create the tree texture it's relly great, I was just in an aspen grove today just outside a ghost town near Basalt, CO, and you're right on!...

tjohn, Jn the foreground there are two trees that have a "cut" in about the same place and whoever it was that commented probably just saw that similar cut in the same place on the two trees, and was too lazy to incestigate further. There's a lot of quaking aspen near June Lake one area where I did field studies. I remember A heart and DL + SH carved in one of them. THe trees look about right but these are taller than they were around June Lake. thanks for the snow sphere info. I'll check it out. - TJ

The trees do not look too regular to me, and I love the falling snow, it's very beautiful. My suggestion, fwiw, maybe a little steam from the horse's body, as though he's been running a bit. Lin

As an aside, Aspens look very much alike for a reason, it's the same reason they're found in groves...Aspens in a grove, or stand as it's called, are all clones of one tree, a parent. The parent aspen sends out underground runners and from each runner comes a tree very much like the parent...of course birds do distrubute the seeds, and should one take hold, a stand is sure to follow in time...just some more useless information rattling around in my head....=p

Zhann, Ah yes, that was what it was - I knew something didn't look quite right as soon as I realized I was looking at aspens. Those I've seen were the more than likely product of runners snd thus the distribution would be more linear. Uowever, these appear to be mostly of about the same age with no parent apparent, (althoug there are a few childern ). So in this case maybe we should just figure that the birds had a good day as it's a really good render. - TJ

bikermouse, Actually, most of them would be the same age, they're clones after all...!

They would be the same age in the bird senerio. In the runner senerio, the children of each runner would be the same age within the runner with runners of different ages at from the parent tree, trending towards the direction of least resistance and where ever water was. From my observation, runners tend to run in more or less a straight line whether hemlock or birch. My vote's still with the birds! But then consider for a moment if it was the birds, what kind of birds? - TJ

Stellar Jays, Cedar Waxwings, Common Finches, Ravens, and Magpies...I kid you not...:p

African swallows probably...no wait, they only carry coconuts. :^)

No black throated grey wobblers? We've got a bunch of them here - I try to quit feeding them about September, but they hang around all year now, even though I think it gets pretty cold for them this time of year. Did you have any luck with the plop render, tjohn ? - TJ