"P Brewer" <pbj### [at] wowwaycom> wrote:
> My wife and I do some amateur photography, and have done a good job of
> decorating our house with prints. The dining room has been an issue though.
> I would love to put a three or four panel image up showing a large solitary
> oak tree in winter, summer, fall, and spring. I can imagine it quite well,
> but can't seem to find a good subject despite always keeping my eyes open.
>
> I was thinking this weekend, heck, why not make my own reality. I'm getting
> the hang of semi photo-realistic renderings with lots of detail in POV. I
> may as well put it to good use.
>
> Here are the fruits of my labor so far. I think I've got something that's
> pretty close to realism for the focus of my image. I was hoping to get some
> criticism it.
>
> It's an xfrog model with texture maps applied. Rendered with a little
> radiosity and one light source. One problem I'm having is getting the look
> of filtered light through the leaves. I get some unrealistic dark spots
> under the canopy. Making the leaves partially transparent doesn't seem to
> do much unless I over do it. Then the leaves on the fringe are too
> transparent. Any ideas?
>
> Also, I mentioned above the 4 seasons idea. What can I do to differentiate
> spring from summer? I'd like 4 distinct images. I was thinking a foggy
> picture for spring with some small patches of snow?

Wow, very nice picture. I love the look of your tree, but I don't know how
to get better-looking leaf transparency. Good luck on that- although it
looks very believable to me right now. Perhaps faking it with a little
ambient (glowing in radiosity) on the leaves? --might look a lot worse
though. Or you could try a no_shadow fill light lighting only the tree
(light_group I think).

As for distinguishing seasons, in my neck of the woods grass is lighter and
greener in the spring, darker and browner in the summer. Also (as someone
said) you may be able to get leaf buds in the spring, and smaller leaves,
maybe some acorns (If it's a good POV-year :) that fall to the ground in
summer. Mostly I think of the lighter green and flowering in the spring, if
there are any other plants in the picture.

(off-topic) I downloaded the source to your image from last IRTC and have
been playing with it- your rust textures are really, really good (and
clever). Amazing work.

I bet that tree-radiosity took a while, eh?

Looking very good, good luck!

-Stefan

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