For a National Geographic thingie...don't ya need a polar bear....National Geographic always has polar bears....even if they film in Antarctica they will ship one in I think.... Excellent Scene!

HaHaha, chuckles, You know, I was contemplating a polar bear for the longest time. The I thought penguins. For a while there was this lone tree in the image. I kept moving it further an further back an I finally ditched it. Since I do not have susquatch or any other hair/fur plugin. I decided the bear was out. The penguine is a Zygote/daz penguine and would have the anti poser clan harrassing this image to no end. So I left it bleak. Like I said before. My main objective was to make it COOOOOLD looking. Brrrrrrrrr. For the lack of achieving the National Geographic look "ala sans polar bear" at least it looks cold.

Excellent Scene! Makes me want to see more of the model thow.

With all due respect to all the viewer of thi image. I can bearly contain my self. Fillingim craweld into my head and had to mention the POLAR BEAR. This was the very first suject I envisioned for this image, from the rear quarter gazing out towards the horizon. The Classic National Geographic shot. I agonized over this element for days. And when I realized, other than compositing in a photograph of a polar bear into the image, I was not going to be able to get satisfactory results. I shelved the idea. Alas no susquatch or shave and a haircut, to be able to create a self respecting polar bear. Rather than posting a nude polar bear I decided to go the route you see now. National Geographic will import a bear if one is not available, I WISH, that cracks me up.

looks very good. the shadows could use a touch of softening - theyre a little too geometric and harsh. but the silhouetting and off-centre shot make for a great composition. cheers, gabriel

lol the polar bear is there he's just camoflaged : ) great scene the subtle bump on the snow is excellent... only one thing the clouds in the sky look kinda blocky.

A comment was made about the geometric shadows. This is a artifact of the technique used to creat the icy snow crust. The ground is two identical meshes. One placed slightly lower in Y than the other. I found that I could not get the sublty I wanted using a single surface onbject. So the bottom mesh carries the white color and difuse, textures and maps. The top is tinged blue and is highly transparent and carries the bump, specularity and reflection maps. So the shadows are falling on two surfaces and the light bounces around. Resulting in the shadows, but also in the nice snow effect.

Great scene. Love the lighting and the ambient ;-)

The scary thing about this is, I've been this cold. JUst looking at makes me glad to be warm and inside.