Looks great, keep it up! :-)

Something about the snow on the trees bothers me a little: single spheres of
snow at branch-tips and such... Additionally, you'll often find snow being
stacked more to one side of the tree than the other, very seldom does snow
just fall straight down from the sky, there's often some wind involved.
A hint for the background trees (though I don't know if you're already doing
it, but I'll say it nontheless): for the background it should suffice to use
a patterned slope-map as a texture to simulate a snow-like surface. It's
what I did in this image:
http://www.nolights.de/projects/missyou/missyou.html

I'd also add some more irregularity to the fence. In the above mentioned
image I've written a small script to create slightly bent logs, and I vary
the bending and sizes to get a more natural look...

Regards,
Tim

-- 
aka "Tim Nikias v2.0"
Homepage: <http://www.nolights.de>

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Always willing to give my opinion (whether you asked for it or not :-)

1. The composition is fantastic.

2. I assume the snowman is looking at the sunset with me, so he doesn't 
need features.  In fact I think he looks best without arms since they 
are more comic book than reality.

3. There is a strange horizontal line in the trees above the snowman's 
head...  looks like the snow is only on the bottom half of the trees.

4. The new sky is wonderful.

In fact everything is wonderful.  This is one of the most vibrant and 
compelling images posted to this group in a long time.  Thank you!


s.day wrote:
> I have added the snow to the trees and decided to put a fence in (not added
> the final texture to this or the trees yet). Also I have adjusted the
> colours of the sky a bit (not sure if it is better of worse as it depends
> on the angle at which you view it on my LCD). Still need to give the poor
> old snowman a face and some arms..
> 
> Any comments welcome
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Sean
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

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"Tim Nikias" <JUSTTHELOWERCASE:timISNOTnikias(at)gmx.netWARE> wrote:
> Looks great, keep it up! :-)
>
> Something about the snow on the trees bothers me a little: single spheres of
> snow at branch-tips and such... Additionally, you'll often find snow being
> stacked more to one side of the tree than the other, very seldom does snow
> just fall straight down from the sky, there's often some wind involved.
> A hint for the background trees (though I don't know if you're already doing
> it, but I'll say it nontheless): for the background it should suffice to use
> a patterned slope-map as a texture to simulate a snow-like surface. It's
> what I did in this image:
> http://www.nolights.de/projects/missyou/missyou.html
>
> I'd also add some more irregularity to the fence. In the above mentioned
> image I've written a small script to create slightly bent logs, and I vary
> the bending and sizes to get a more natural look...
>
> Regards,
> Tim
>
> --
> aka "Tim Nikias v2.0"
> Homepage: <http://www.nolights.de>

Thanks for the comments, I have tried several different levels of snow on
the nearest tree and to remove the odd spheres at branch ends I had to use
more snow which then meant the image lost the contrast of the dark tree
against the Sun. If I have time I will try to fix this before the IRTC
deadline (although I have a busy couple of weeks ahead so don't know how
much time I will get..) Thanks for the hint on the trees in the distance, I
will give it a go as I think the problem you have spotted is because I am
not covering all trees with snow due to memory constraints of having too
many blobs.
The fence is my latest addition and I agree it does look too regular I am
thinking of using isosurfaces for the wood to make it look weathered and
adding a bit of randomness.

Thanks

Sean

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"s.day" <s.d### [at] uelacuk> wrote:
> I have added the snow to the trees and decided to put a fence in (not added
> the final texture to this or the trees yet). Also I have adjusted the
> colours of the sky a bit (not sure if it is better of worse as it depends
> on the angle at which you view it on my LCD). Still need to give the poor
> old snowman a face and some arms..
>
> Any comments welcome
>
> Thanks,
>
> Sean


Wawww!.. Sean, very nice look outside the trees (same height?)

Regards.

Hasan

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Spock <Spo### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> Always willing to give my opinion (whether you asked for it or not :-)
>
> 1. The composition is fantastic.
>
> 2. I assume the snowman is looking at the sunset with me, so he doesn't
> need features.  In fact I think he looks best without arms since they
> are more comic book than reality.
>
> 3. There is a strange horizontal line in the trees above the snowman's
> head...  looks like the snow is only on the bottom half of the trees.
>
> 4. The new sky is wonderful.
>
> In fact everything is wonderful.  This is one of the most vibrant and
> compelling images posted to this group in a long time.  Thank you!
>
>
Thanks for the comments, I think that's why I have left the snowman's
features until now as I think it might actually make the image look worse.
I think the problem with the trees is because I have tried not covering all
tree's with snow due to memory problems which I hope to fix with Tim's
hint.

Glad the sky looks better.

Thanks

Sean

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Wow! Excellent image. Very realistic. I'm keeping a copy in my permanent 
archive.

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s.day spake:

> I have added the snow to the trees and decided to put a fence in (not
> added the final texture to this or the trees yet). Also I have adjusted
> the colours of the sky a bit (not sure if it is better of worse as it
> depends on the angle at which you view it on my LCD). Still need to give
> the poor old snowman a face and some arms..
> 
> Any comments welcome

Well done, I love the colors. 

One thing might be to make the sun disappear more "behind" the tree? Right
now it looks as if the sun is shining in front of the tree's branches,
instead of behind it.

Regards,
-- 
Stefan Viljoen
Software Support Technician / Programmer
Polar Design Solutions

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"s.day" <s.d### [at] uelacuk> wrote:
> I have added the snow to the trees and decided to put a fence in (not added
> the final texture to this or the trees yet). Also I have adjusted the
> colours of the sky a bit (not sure if it is better of worse as it depends
> on the angle at which you view it on my LCD). Still need to give the poor
> old snowman a face and some arms..
>

This is looking quite beautiful.

I agree with others here that the image is more "thoughful" with the
snowman's face turned away from camera. And when you add the arms, the arm
positioning (posture?) should add to that feeling.

A scarf 'round the ol' boy's neck would look nice.

I do like those tiny snow glints!  Which will be hard to retain if/when AA
is added. (This one of those cases where the single-pixel glints could
probably(?) do without AA, but the thinnest, filigree tree branches would
benefit from it; currently, they look a bit too bristel-y at the tops.)

Looking forward to the final image!!

Ken

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"s.day" <s.d### [at] uelacuk> wrote:
> I have added the snow to the trees and decided to put a fence in (not added
> the final texture to this or the trees yet). Also I have adjusted the

OK the fence texture isn't final, but the radiosity-induced color bleed
from the fence to the snow shows up too much, in my opinion.

Otherwise it (still) perfectly captures a special kind of winter
weather/athmosphere I've witnessed.  The 'hard' (icy) look in the snow
is part of that weather.

--
jussi

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"jute" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> "s.day" <s.d### [at] uelacuk> wrote:
> > I have added the snow to the trees and decided to put a fence in (not added
> > the final texture to this or the trees yet). Also I have adjusted the
>
> OK the fence texture isn't final, but the radiosity-induced color bleed
> from the fence to the snow shows up too much, in my opinion.
>
> Otherwise it (still) perfectly captures a special kind of winter
> weather/athmosphere I've witnessed.  The 'hard' (icy) look in the snow
> is part of that weather.
>
> --
> jussi

The shading on the fence looks as though it may have some ambient value.  Is
it set explicitly to 0?  If not, you may get more colour bleed than desired
from it.

-tgq

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