Snow terrain (mantra shading and render)

[OskarSwierad]

Hi,

 

Maybe you stumbled upon my video on facebook Houdini Artists. Still, I cross-post because I'd like to get your critique - which is something hard to get on facebook!

I'm working on a snow-covered terrain shading and rendering in Mantra. The geometry was sculpted by another artist but I added some details with displacements. I want to achieve a look of smooth, almost untouched snow covering rocky highlands (not Arctic glaciers). What can I improve?

 

~20 min per frame at 720p on Intel i7-3770

 

Still frame:

For comparison, original terrain model (plain diffuse material):

Edited February 15, 2016 by OskarSwierad

[loopyllama]

That's really cool! For my money, the shadows should have more blue, there should be some sharper lines and cusps, the snow is a little too glittery, and the white 3d particles resting on top look like white 3d particles resting on top.

[OskarSwierad]

Thanks. I agree with all of that

As for the blue color, you posted a very nice reference. Maybe my sky is too desaturated (though I intentionally wanted to avoid 'polarizing filter' look).

Edited February 15, 2016 by OskarSwierad

[Guest tar]

Nice work!  

 

As a critique it's simply a boring scene, where as that photo posted above is interesting; sun flare, rock, deeper blue polarised sky.

[Izat]

Hi.

Really love the snow. Especially a shiny flakes in video version.

[OskarSwierad]

Thank you both.

 

I just watched Outerra's FMX slides on procedural terrain with interesting features - not just generic. Many similar problems which I encountered were approached in clever, simple ways.

For example:

- they add horizontal displacements after the typical height noise

- slope calculations drive many things: random pebbles placement, more or less random disp, ...

- mountain peaks are extra-sharpened

I recommend reading it if you're interested in the topic - http://forum.outerra.com/FMX/presentation/

[wang850]

On 2016/2/15 at 9:35 PM, OskarSwierad said:

Hi,

 

Maybe you stumbled upon my video on facebook Houdini Artists. Still, I cross-post because I'd like to get your critique - which is something hard to get on facebook!

I'm working on a snow-covered terrain shading and rendering in Mantra. The geometry was sculpted by another artist but I added some details with displacements. I want to achieve a look of smooth, almost untouched snow covering rocky highlands (not Arctic glaciers). What can I improve?

 

 

 

~20 min per frame at 720p on Intel i7-3770

 

Still frame:

For comparison, original terrain model (plain diffuse material):

very cool！  How is this done? Can you share it? Or file

[dyei nightmare]

20 mins per frame? in mantra? or red shift?  nah, thats insane!!! not worth it,  i really think that sesi should work more on the shaders department,  subsurface and indirect  lighting needs to be faster and cleaner,   even with the clean sampling workflows you shouldnt  end with a 20 min render...   

Edited March 24, 2018 by dyei nightmare