I have been fooling around with the terrain editor today. Ended up with this image. Still not satisfied with it, but it is coming along. I really like the 4-D clouds, they render fast and look great. Still learning my way around the shader editor, as a result the texturing isnt exactly what I want. Not to mention that I need to go in and tweak the leaves on the vegetation. They look so plain with the single color. Donnie

Looks like you're progressing quite nicely with this! Keep at it! - TJ

Thanks TJ. I've been having a blast learning Carrara. Thought I would try something that would be fun to create and still help educate me with regards to Carrara.

I want to concentrate more on Carrara as I've been spending too much time in Bryce and I think I've reached the point of diminishing returns there but I guess you could say the same thing about my attempts poser, truespace and wings LOL. As a pratical critique based more on my Bryce experience more than Carrara I'd say that probably the next thing you want to concentrate on would be to scale down the texture shaders in the terrain; it looks as though you have the potential to get really good with this! - TJ

Thanks again TJ. I will work on the textures later this evening. Wife says supper is ready, so I will work on it later. Donnie

bah..what kind of carrara user are you...choosin to eat over using the software???!!! I bet you sleep too! ;) Some depth of field would really help the image I think. Brian

Put something in the water for a point of focus like a duck, seaplane, necked woman on an innertube, big floating carrote or a drowning chipanzie. Not the same Brian but another Brian

Good work dbigers.I See that you have used VUE as well. I have just started to experiment with landscapes in CARRARA 3 and have found them to be a little disappointing. I have managed to bring a terrain over from VUE with colour and bump maps, under HDRI lighting it looks cool. Have to work in macro way though as the maps get blocky if you scale up too much! Just thought that you may be interested!! Regards Rokol.

Resizing terrain in any 3D app is not the way to go, unless you want to resize everything else in the scene as well.

Don't forget to apply one of th preset tree materials to your trees. they'll look a lot more realistic...

I often resize terrain. If it is in the distance it is someties necessary to resize it. Especially if it is supposed to be a distant mountain. This way you dont have to change haze settings to make it appear that is in the distance. Up close is a different story. It is best not to resize. Instead model or create the image map accordingly. For distant mountains, usually I can resize them and then adjust textures accordingly. Since I'm not worried too much about high physical detail in these areas it usually works. Thanks for the suggestion on the shaders brainmuffin. At this point I am more or less still experimenting with the program. I completely overlooked the shader for the plants. Donnie

you're welcome. I only just discovered them recelntly myself...

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=614282

I have to say that I disagree with Shonner about resizing terrains. I think it is better to create terrains at realistic sizes compared to objects in the scene. A mountain should be really large and really far back. I've found this to be true in Bryce as well as Carrara. The lighting, atmospheric effects and textures look more natural that way. The terrain in this link in the back is 94,000 in. x 54,000 in. and 20,000 in. tall. It is placed at y-100,000 in. Anybody interested in more options with terrains should check out the Ground Control plugin from DCG, which allows terrain info from Terragen, World Machine and DEM files to import into Carrara. Patrick Tuten

Veyr nice image. Good job!! Actually, that is what I was eluding to in my post. For distant terrain, that is "supposed" to be big. It is ok, to resize it, as long as you texture it accordingly. Donnie