Touch the earth, love the earth, honour the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. Ernest Dimnet Dimnet (1866-1954) was a French cleric, author and philosopher. His works include The Bronte Sisters, The Art of Thinking ( both 1930) and What We Live By (1932). Sometimes I work something so hard it becomes hard to see how to improve. What do you think? What do you see that I haven't? All C&Cs gratefully accepted. Mike

3:25pm central time - Going to workin a few (tutoring) be back at 7pm to continue Thanks all.

i can see a lot of good elements that don't quite fit together. i like the ground, perhaps with a bit more bumpiness. i like the textures overall, but i think they should be influenced by altitude a bit. the water is fine, but some ambience could be taken away. it attracts the eye too much. as well, for the sky, for so much good work you've put on the ground, it seems like you haven't given much effort to it. what else... oh yeah, the other cloud plane, the one that's supposed to be fog, it's rather fake in my eyes and should be switched with an actual fog layer, preferably something that can maintain the quality of the ground texture :) all in all i'd say it's a decent composition with some very good elements in it. it's just a matter of fiddling with a few details. cheers! drac

One thing that seems out of place to me, is the foreground trees. Unless they're enormous trees, they make the scale of everything out of proportion. When I look at them and the distance between them and the fence, then the fence and the back mountains, the distances don't seem right. The easiest fix, even tho' I really like the trees, would be to make them smaller. Either that, bring them up off the grass plain onto the fore mountains so it's obvious they're closer to the viewer. I agree about the fog around the central structure. It looks fake where the material intersects the walls. I also think the background foothills are too close to the walls. It again screws up the sense of distance and proportion, I think.

Well I gust spent 25 min. composing a post and it just went poof! This time I will copy before posting :| Thanks drac, I very much appreciate your comments. 1. More bump on the ground. 2, Less ambience on the ocean. 3. Altitude variation in textures. 4. Sky s_cks (my words), and you're correct. No real thought or work there. 5. Fog terrain replace. That is the thing I am most unhappy with. Haven't found an alternate solution for that yet. (Btw the rock tex in the foreground is the mossy sandstone from my gallery. It pleased me.) #2 Much of the tone and hue of the scene is very delicately dependent upon the sky settings. esp the 'ambience of the 6 ocean terrains. It will take some experimentation. #3 I don't understand what you mean. The biggest challenge of this work has been scaling the texs for each ones relative distance. The far hills are 'painted' with the scaled texs to look like rock and scrub vegetation. What variation in altitude do you think might improve them? Again thank you so much for taking time to comment. * Mike hurries to post this one before the lightning outside frys his post/computer. Severe weather has arrived to NW Arkansas.* Later Mike Note: 11pm server not found, net gone, when posted. BUT I copied this time. Storm stronger now. Bye.

Well after getting blown of the internet last night, I am finally able to post my saved message. Heck of a storm. Thanks eelie! For your imput on the scale issue. The trees are meant to appear to be placed on the slope below, (left to the imagination, not shown.)like the ones in the distance. Perhaps, as you suggested, I should reveal the slope or scale the picts smaller and plant a terrain behind them. hmmm food for thought. Thanks to all for your kindness and time. Now, back to Bryce. Mike