okay, this is an image I'm working on, and I think It's pretty much complete. What you are looking at is an un-antialiased render of it. 5 minutes ago, I went into the render options and pretty much turned everything on, and started a new render. It hasn't even gone halfway through the first time down yet, and it hasn't even hit the mossy water yet, sheesh...................... I'm gonna take a stab at it and guess that it will take around a week to render (I guess really high, that way I'm pleasantly suprised if it doesn't take quite as long!!) While I'm waiting, please let me know what you think. I don't know if I'm quite satisfied with the lighting. I'll post a message in this thread when the image has finally finished rendering.

With an image like this, I suggest doing a double resolution render at the default quality with AA, then sizing it down 50% in photoshop. This is not the kind of image that will benefit from an effect aa render. If you want DOF do it in photoshop using a Distance mask render as a "mask" for a gausian blur in photoshop.

Btw how the hell did you do that mossy water, it's amazing.

Hey br, this is looking great! That is one spooky looking swampy forest. I think the "mossy water" is great too. I would be watching every step looking for quicksand. I see that you are seeing the potential of your new material. By the way, thanks for offering to share it. :-)

Looks very nice. I'll be back later on my own comp with a monitor that can show the darker details too. very nice haze color too.

Terrific atmosphere, and the bushes are very real, and the water, what can I say, superb...:)

THis looks like it'll be great once premium rendered :-)

The water is fantastic, the background I love, very 'enchanted forest' looking. The only thing for me is the rocks in front of the tree have a kind of 'glow'. It should be well worth the render time when it's finished!

Wow, it looks great. And, I agree with everyone else about the water, it's fantastic. Happy rendering!

Beautiful! Best yet I think. Love that mossy water and the background is fantastic too. Those special shrubs in the midground make a great transition between foreground and background.

Spectacular. The mossy water is incredible! I agree with Ornlu: I don't know if such an image could benefit form a premium render. I fear that you could lose some of the wonderful details in the mossy water. And pay attention to true ambience: if you haven't set the ambience values properly, it could give some unexpected outcome. I can't wait to see the final.

Thatsa pretty darn good!! Cannot wait to see what it ends up like...even after 3 weeks of rendering ;)

Ornlu- the mossy water is very simple. I have one ground plane with the "deep blue" water texture applied to it. I pulled the bump height to 0.5. Next I created another ground plane, and made another seamless photo texture in photoshop with a picture of my lawn (lol) and applied it to the diffuse color, and ambients. then I put the transparancy dot onto a channel with the "red fractal" preset, and messed with the noise and frequency in the DTE. there it is. Moss made with a picture of my grass. Thanks for all your comments!! I'm glad some of you noticed my foliage texture I posted about a while ago. I was driving to work the other day, and I was observing the scenery, and I came to the conclusion that my texture would work best as the surrounding foliage on a forest floor. DC and Ornlu- You may be correct. I dont' actually have the DOF selected. I did plan on Photoshoping a few things, and the DOF is one of them. thanks again, brholte (Benjamin Ross Holte).............still rendering :)

Wow, that's amazing. The greens are beautiful. You might want to do a small plop render with the premium settings, to be sure you're getting what you want. Sometimes the premium settings make you lose detail, and aren't even worth the extra time. I hate when I render for hours, and the normal AA looks better.

brilliant stuff!!!

Okay, I'm back again with better detail on the monitor. There's really a lot of detail I've missed. I'd make the colors of the leaves on the trees in the background way darker and I'd probably change their hue a little more towards green too. And the ambience on the rocks is way too high. With dark scenes like this the ambient texture channel is your worst enemy :) it takes away all the depth. I like to keep ambience at 5 or lower with this kind of lighting. The water is absolutely perfect. I love it. The scene needs a little bit of work, but if you fix the little details it's going to be a stunning piece of artwork well worth rendering. If everything is going to be as good as the water and the volume plants (they are volumes aren't they?) then I want a high-res version to print and put on my wall.

Rayraz, I'm glad you pointed these things out to me. I've decided to make a normal AA render with double resolution before embarking on a week long render. That way, I can make the necessary corrections. This morning, the render line was only half way through the second time down. I see what you, and others, are saying about the rocks and their ambients. the other thing I'm going to fix is adding a little more foliage to cover up the bottom of the tree where it meets the ground, and whatever else looks unnatural.

quick question... I've rendered this thing in double resolution now. Here it is. My problem is, I can't see my whole image in my scene window, and I want to plop render the rocks again after fixing the ambients problem, but I cant click and drag cause it's outta my view. any way to pull the image over so I can see them in the scene window???? thanks for all your guy's and gal's help!! brholte

I'd lower the ambience on the plants in front to zero. Flat black looks way better then flat green. I like what you've done with those lightrays. For zooming use the zoom icons at the bottom right of the screen.

You can also use the 'hand' icon under the zoom icons to pan the image so that you can access the part you need to. By the way, looks fantastic!

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=465290&Start=1&Sectionid=2&filter_genre_id=0&

I'd like to thank everyone for helping me out with this image!! You've helped me perfect it, and it's now complete and in the gallery!! feel free to see it with this link!! and leave a comment. thanks again, brholte

A very beautiful scene brholte, especially the water.