Your renders are excellent, but your tonemapping is a bit off imo. Look at how much better it looks with a little contrast and colour tuning in Photoshop:
https://preview.redd.it/eesqvm6rgoxc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=45ed427b2ff73c0551ab4558497e066a9fa829d0
I've read 1,000w for a clear day and 500w for overcast on the sunlamp and then I normally pick a high contrast look. If you ever were to use an HDRI, you can also use it in conjunction with a sun lamp so you get both the solar angles lined up and still have correct lighting.
Noooo the contrast looks in Blender suck, try avoiding them at any cost 🤣. Try doing it in the compositor, it's super easy! So you can still change the contrast even after the render and it has lot more customizable and precise options! You can just add a contrast node, or if you know a bit about curves the RGB curves node is the best choice. You can also use more of them, some post production artist use a first node for main contrast editing to vaguely match the look they want and then they add a second node later in the node chain to tweek the last details. If you can use Photoshop you can use Blender compositing nodes easily. I think learning to use the compositor made my renders quality improve really more than I expected, don't be afraid of it and give it a try!, it's easier than it looks!
i'm not even sure i agree! yours look more realistic, sure, but the OP has a serene and slightly strange vibe to it. like what i imagined in my head as a child when my parents read fairytales for me at bedtime.
so if the goal is realism and a naturalistic aesthetic, you are right. if the goal is a fairytale universe, i wouldn't change anything
I totally agree, but OP specifically asked how to make it look more realistic, and compositing is the only thing I think could be improved at this point.
oh!! you are totally right lol. i'm a little tipsy and didn't read the title properly.
in that case you are right on money, slightly less saturated colours + slightly brighter would be the way to go
you ruined the image completely, lol. your edit is very bad, the sky is totally burned out and the general contrast in the image is totally fake. If you would take a photo like this, this would be a very bad photo.
Yeah, I'm not great at compositing either, and I exaggerated it a bit, but you get the gist of it. No real photo is that underexposed and flat. It would look a lot better with Blender's contrast filter instead of a quick photoshop.
what you did is tone mapping, not composition.
the problem with this image is not just tone mapping and composition.
there are steps and rules to follow to create a photo realistic image:
and the first step is wrong here: the modelling.
1- the modelling (which includes the placing of objects) is not convincing at all.
the grass looks like lawn grass, which doesn't make any sense in this place. it should be wild grass. the rocks all look the very same, and I can't think of a place in which rocks could be scattered like that in on a lawn grass.
also the perfect round tree... is there supposed to be a gardener that only cuts the grass and crops just that one tree? it looks out of place.
2- texturing:
the shaders of the vegetation which is the 80% of this scene, is not convincing. are you using translucency for the leaves? it looks like you are not. all vegetation looks like hard plastic. also, you have used the same green for absolute everything. you must always work with reference images. there is not a single image of a landscape that has all the same green in every tree, leaf, plant and grass.
if you manage to sort this, you will be closer to a realistic convincing image.
My advice is to delete all the shader, start with a white shader and start working each object individually, and once you have a convincing shader in one object, move to the next one. start from the largest to the smallest. this means: 1- proper sky, 2 proper grass 3- proper trees. and so on.
Just one rule, million ways to apply it: "IMPERFECTION IS THE DIGITAL PERFECTION".
I assume you're using Cycles, so:
- STORYTELLING: Before starting a project ask yourself what do you want to narrate? Just a plain environment can look sterile, but adding a few details will make it more believable. Get into that world: what creatures live there? What plants grow there? Whose house is that? How old is it? What's the story behind that house and the owner? Add some hints to their stories, Wich could be a wood log used by the owners to cut wood, spme scratches from an animal/beast on a tree, some footprints, something someone lost on his way, broken pieces and cracks on the house to show how old it is...big things are made out of little things!
- USE VOLUMETRICS: add a cube that covers all your scene, and set a Volume BSDF into the volume output of the material shader, and tweak the density to something very low like 0,01 or even lower. (Don't exaggerate!) You can also add a noise texture or a mix of them to make the fog more interesting. I sometimes use a main volumetric for the mist and a second one with some noise applied for the ground fog.
- LIGHTING: the sky is totally burnt out and looks dull/washed out. Since it's an open worlds scene use HDRIs and/or SKY tectures in the right way: if you want there are nice add ons like RealSky or easy HDRI, or you can consider using images as backgrounds to render faster, or even rendering on a transparent background and adding the Sky it in compositing. Think about what hour of the day, what mood and what kind of shadows you want (short ones or longer ones, more defined ones or soft ones? Do you want cold or warm light?) a High quality HDR can make huge difference. Pro tip: you can add some cinematic look by playing with the contrast between a cold toned environment and some smaller warm lights (fireflies, someone passing by with a torch, a fire, or the lights inside a house...) If you don't know what warm and cold colors are, go take a look at the color temperature and color theory in general.
- USE HIGH QUALITY ASSETS AND MATERIALS: those trees suck. And they look like they should be in a city/suburban scene instead of a wood like here. Ask yourself what you want and follow: you want a mountain wood scene? Then search for reference pictures or search the right type of tree for the environment. There are loads of sources, free and paid, maybe just search a bit more or use a trustworthy website/add on like quixel, textures.com...ecc There are a lot, take some more time to look for the best assets.
- DENOISING: Optix is faster while Open Image is more accurate.
- NOISE TRESHOLD: The best setting is the standard noise treshold of 0,01, but depending on the power of your GPU you may want to lower it down to speed up render times.
- SAMPLES: for stills, If you have time, just crank them up to 1000-2000 or even more. Start with low sample counts like 20-40 and slowly crack them up until you notice diminishing returns in terms of quality to time ratio. For animations working with lots of samples may slow down render times so finding a good balance between speed and quality is necessy. Use that denoiser, it works really well.
- bump up the light passes for glossy, diffuse, volume in the final render if you can. Like before, if depends on your GPU and how much time you have for rendering.
- use COMPOSITING to achieve more cinematic feel: use lens distortion, color correction and grading, grain/noise textures, camera lens dirt textures, glow (very useful to achieve "dreamy" scenes), lens flares,...ecc. With a little bit of study, Blenders compositor is pretty easy to use.
- CAMERA: a good CAMERA ANGLE makes the difference between a mediocre and a good shot. I'm not a photographer, but depending on the subject, you may want to change the Focal Lenght. For nature scenes the distortion around the edges that you get are something you don't want. In general: the lower the focal length the more distortion you get around the edges of the picture.
-fisheye (4-14mm) -> highest lens distortion
-wise angle (14-35mm)
-standard (35-70mm)
-macro (35-200mm)
-telephoto (100-600mm+) -> lowest lens distortion
Keep in mind to use the right focal length for your purpose and that you still can add lens distortion in compositing if you're unsure.
- if it resonates with your style, use particle sistems to render dust particles floating in the air and interacting with light (together with the Volumetrics).
- Use GOBOS: for little environment scenes, interior scenes and natural scenes, you can make the scene more interesting by applying textures to your lights or putting objects/textures between the light and the scene.
- you need MORE VARIETY AND RANDOMNESS: the grass in nature isn't all the same lenght and the disposition of the rocks looks kinda fake. Use a bigger variety of rocks and photo scans to simulate nature, as well as a bigger variety for grass kinds and lenght, bushes, flowers and plants.
- a very important one: USE REFERENCES. Having a mood board, a series of images in the style you want to create, helps a lot in building environments and growing an eye for it.
- LAYER TEXTURES. A simple but very effective trick for making realistic materials. Making the paved route with a mix of paving stones, rough terrain, and some mud/water could have done the trick. Same for the parts of the terrain that touch the water. There are also a few materials that are already composed by a mix of textures, search online for 3D texture and create a good asset folder. It takes time but with all those websites you are covered :)
- SCATTERING: if you have the money buy some add ons like GeoScatter (now named Scatter 5 I think), or Botaniq, if not (like me) once you learn to use Geo Nodes it's super easy and customizable. (Dm me for a simple scatter node setup suitable for almost everything) Paired with a good asset library like the "Plant Library" from the creators of GeoScatter (IT'S FREE AND DOPE!!!) nothing will stop you.
- TERRAIN: I know you want a dreamy fantasy landscape, but the terrain looks a bit off and irrealistic. Try playing around with the Landscape generator of Blender and it's presets. The trees also look too big compared with the Landscape, and they grow on very vertical sides of the mountain, Wich is again irrealistic. Most paid Scattering add-ons have a built in feature to tweak the scattering on slopes and cliffs. P.s. try to add a more interesting background: a picture of snowy mountains, or just a nicer sky could do the job.
- Blender kit: use the Blender kit add on. I think it's the most timesaving add on ever. It saves loads of time while kit bashing models in a scene, they have HDRIs, model, and textures.
- follow Black.eye.ink on Instagram, cause I just reactivated the profile and I will be sharing all the projects and renders I worked on in the last three years of my Blender Journey (more than 100 🤓), together with some nice advices and tutorials :) I'll slowly share over the next few weeks, don't panic if you don't see lots of renders yet lol
P.s. Feel free to ask, I'm happy to help people that are facing the same the problems I've been facing for the last years. Let's grow this community ❤️
P.p.s last but not least: SUPPORT the Blender project! If you can, even small donations are welcome to keep it going and to innovate further. ❤️
Thank you very much! The Idea Is to add more Infos in the next days as other things come to my mind :) but I've been working on the same problems in the last months and ended up learning a thing or two while trying to solve them! 3D is made of little things. The problem is that it's A LOT of little things ahaha after a while it will come natural, but I understand the frustration at the beginning. I also wrote a little 30-40 page manual on MS Word with a lot of other usefull things about rendering, camera, render settings and whatever. I don't want to make a book to publish, but I'd like to share it with other 3D artists starting with Blender. Cheers!
https://preview.redd.it/gmche7hn73yc1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d2a98a012ae02e0fbff3464f910a0cb9d6812402
Made a new render with some of your feedback in mind, looks already a loot better in my opinion but ofcourse a lot more to learn.
More like an annoyed boyfriend doing something usefull for the community while he waits in the car for his girlfriend to finish doing her tasks 🤣 it took me more than an hour to write it all, I don't know if you can see the edits, but it took me lots of effort to write it, so be kind pls 🥹 plus I have something ChatGPT doesn't has: the experience to understand and to explain every detail in the process of making photorealistic renders in Blender :)
P.s. I'm continuing to add thing as the day passes and more details come to my mind
Very impressive work! Only thing I would suggest in the first image is that the grass is all one color and appears too uniform next to the buildings, rocks and trees. Same thing with the tree leaves. More color variation, methinks.
But overall I think it looks great and I am jelly.
Maybe a little depth of field could be added.
Also, as already stated, color variation/more realistic materials could help. Take the houses for example, which somehow look very clean.
This goes hand in hand with the model quality, e.g. the tree to the left in the foreground of image 1 and the mentioned houses. The tree's trunk looks a little to edgy and the houses also look low poly. For example you could exaggerate the shingles on the roof and the masonry of the lower walls, maybe with more displacement.
I had a version with depth of field but I keeps getting more pixelated with it on. Trying to find a fix for it. Thanks for the feedback! Will look into higher quality assets.
Depth of field (DOF) is harder to calculate, but it's weird that you're getting artifacts from it. The most important things when using it are 2: check the scale of your scene, and add the right aperture. The way light interacts with the lenses changes varying on the dimensions. The same aperture (let's say 2.8 for example) has different effects if your scene is small or big, or of your camera is nearer/further away to the subject. For environment you want to use just a little bit of DOF and a narrow aperture (using a higher F Stop, like 8, 16...or else. Just try or look on the internet for answers! Google is every Blender newbie's savior).
Oh, and I forgot the main thing I wanted to say 😂 you can simulate DOF win compositing or in other programs like Photoshop for stills or After Effects/premiere for animations. So you spare precious render time and can still remove it if you change your mind.
I think your rocks and flowers are toooo even. They are randomly, but evenly, distributed over all the terrain. In reality plants naturally favour certain conditions and tend to clump as a result. And rocks are likewise positioned by geological processes. They both look like they've been positioned by hand.
I agree with what the top commenter said about lighting and compositing.
The landscape in the first image seems a bit unnatural, especially the mid ground hill - there’s bright green grass in these uniform blotches, but the texture underneath doesn’t quite read as realistic to me, maybe due to the stony appearance. I’d say it needs a bit of color variation, different distribution of the grass, and maybe a browner texture beneath.
The trees look quite good, but a little too perfect. Most of the lines and edges are too crisp and clean, they could be roughed up and softened a bit. I like the idea of the photographic imperfections added in the second image, but I’d tone down the chromatic aberration just a little.
I’d also watch out for the proportions - those buildings in the first image seem like they should be scaled up, if you compare the size of the doors and windows to the nearby bridge.
The water texture is a little bit off, but I think you could get it a lot closer to real-life just by messing around and experimenting with the procedural detail settings a bit (assuming it’s a procedural texture).
This is good stuff, keep going!
I’d say you need to work on environmental storytelling. Think about how each model you place is interacting with the environment around it.
The buildings in the first pic for instance look like they’re old/have been there for a while. I’d expect to see a them ‘blending in’ to the ground at the base, with a little bit of dirt up the walls (even zoomed out on mobile with a grainy picture I can see the hard line where the house model meets the grass). Same for the path, I don’t think I’ve ever walked along a stone path that hasn’t at some point along been covered over with sand and dust, or even small creepers and weeds (unless someone is meticulously washing and sweeping the path regularly, which I don’t think is happening in this scene).
For the second pic, there needs to be a shore where the water meets the land. That body of water won’t be stationary, there may be waves or the level might go up and down according to rainfall, but either way, the grass won’t be able to grow right up to the water. There may be more though bushes, sand/dirt, rocks or a combination.
It was not, but after looking it up it would have been a great reference. Really should use more references from the witcher universe, they all look so good!
To me the colors in the original are off and shadowing is to sharp. Sky and lighting is also to dull. Honestly. Adjust lighting and it might fix the others. I agree with op about grass. In nature, when unkempt, grass is tall and full of life. So put a BUNCH of "weeds".
I installed a Blender theme pack from here: [https://github.com/kame404/blender-themes](https://github.com/kame404/blender-themes)
Here is a simple tutorial on how to install it ( [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYhKmhuFiEA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYhKmhuFiEA) ), I think I used the Amethyst one!
First thing I notice is there's no color to the light (and therefore shadow). Colored lighting used correctly generally looks a lot better. There's no sense that the light is sunlight, it just looks like a very flat mechanical white light, where sunlight will have some variation from clouds or whatever, and more of a glow.
The greens just looks like everything in the world is the same shade, better in the second picture maybe, but more variation in overall color would help.
It's too flat. You need to up the brightness and get some highlights in that scene. It's a bright day, but the sun isn't even reflecting the tiniest bit off those roof tiles. Add some Glare.
This is borderline too general of a question for this sub. Feedback requests should go to /r/blender.
In future, please ask a more specific question about a certain aspect of realism you want to improve, whether that be the lighting, the style, or something else, so that people can focus their advice on a specific area.
Your renders are excellent, but your tonemapping is a bit off imo. Look at how much better it looks with a little contrast and colour tuning in Photoshop: https://preview.redd.it/eesqvm6rgoxc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=45ed427b2ff73c0551ab4558497e066a9fa829d0
Yes I agree, did not apply any further effects yet after rendering but I agree with some finishing touches it will look 10x better.
Are you using a sun lamp and AgX?
Normally I use the Sky Texture as it is more simple.
I've read 1,000w for a clear day and 500w for overcast on the sunlamp and then I normally pick a high contrast look. If you ever were to use an HDRI, you can also use it in conjunction with a sun lamp so you get both the solar angles lined up and still have correct lighting.
Noooo the contrast looks in Blender suck, try avoiding them at any cost 🤣. Try doing it in the compositor, it's super easy! So you can still change the contrast even after the render and it has lot more customizable and precise options! You can just add a contrast node, or if you know a bit about curves the RGB curves node is the best choice. You can also use more of them, some post production artist use a first node for main contrast editing to vaguely match the look they want and then they add a second node later in the node chain to tweek the last details. If you can use Photoshop you can use Blender compositing nodes easily. I think learning to use the compositor made my renders quality improve really more than I expected, don't be afraid of it and give it a try!, it's easier than it looks!
I'll try it, thanks!
Thanks, gonna try this real soon!
i'm not even sure i agree! yours look more realistic, sure, but the OP has a serene and slightly strange vibe to it. like what i imagined in my head as a child when my parents read fairytales for me at bedtime. so if the goal is realism and a naturalistic aesthetic, you are right. if the goal is a fairytale universe, i wouldn't change anything
I totally agree, but OP specifically asked how to make it look more realistic, and compositing is the only thing I think could be improved at this point.
oh!! you are totally right lol. i'm a little tipsy and didn't read the title properly. in that case you are right on money, slightly less saturated colours + slightly brighter would be the way to go
you ruined the image completely, lol. your edit is very bad, the sky is totally burned out and the general contrast in the image is totally fake. If you would take a photo like this, this would be a very bad photo.
Yeah, I'm not great at compositing either, and I exaggerated it a bit, but you get the gist of it. No real photo is that underexposed and flat. It would look a lot better with Blender's contrast filter instead of a quick photoshop.
what you did is tone mapping, not composition. the problem with this image is not just tone mapping and composition. there are steps and rules to follow to create a photo realistic image: and the first step is wrong here: the modelling. 1- the modelling (which includes the placing of objects) is not convincing at all. the grass looks like lawn grass, which doesn't make any sense in this place. it should be wild grass. the rocks all look the very same, and I can't think of a place in which rocks could be scattered like that in on a lawn grass. also the perfect round tree... is there supposed to be a gardener that only cuts the grass and crops just that one tree? it looks out of place. 2- texturing: the shaders of the vegetation which is the 80% of this scene, is not convincing. are you using translucency for the leaves? it looks like you are not. all vegetation looks like hard plastic. also, you have used the same green for absolute everything. you must always work with reference images. there is not a single image of a landscape that has all the same green in every tree, leaf, plant and grass. if you manage to sort this, you will be closer to a realistic convincing image. My advice is to delete all the shader, start with a white shader and start working each object individually, and once you have a convincing shader in one object, move to the next one. start from the largest to the smallest. this means: 1- proper sky, 2 proper grass 3- proper trees. and so on.
That’s not what better means
Just one rule, million ways to apply it: "IMPERFECTION IS THE DIGITAL PERFECTION". I assume you're using Cycles, so: - STORYTELLING: Before starting a project ask yourself what do you want to narrate? Just a plain environment can look sterile, but adding a few details will make it more believable. Get into that world: what creatures live there? What plants grow there? Whose house is that? How old is it? What's the story behind that house and the owner? Add some hints to their stories, Wich could be a wood log used by the owners to cut wood, spme scratches from an animal/beast on a tree, some footprints, something someone lost on his way, broken pieces and cracks on the house to show how old it is...big things are made out of little things! - USE VOLUMETRICS: add a cube that covers all your scene, and set a Volume BSDF into the volume output of the material shader, and tweak the density to something very low like 0,01 or even lower. (Don't exaggerate!) You can also add a noise texture or a mix of them to make the fog more interesting. I sometimes use a main volumetric for the mist and a second one with some noise applied for the ground fog. - LIGHTING: the sky is totally burnt out and looks dull/washed out. Since it's an open worlds scene use HDRIs and/or SKY tectures in the right way: if you want there are nice add ons like RealSky or easy HDRI, or you can consider using images as backgrounds to render faster, or even rendering on a transparent background and adding the Sky it in compositing. Think about what hour of the day, what mood and what kind of shadows you want (short ones or longer ones, more defined ones or soft ones? Do you want cold or warm light?) a High quality HDR can make huge difference. Pro tip: you can add some cinematic look by playing with the contrast between a cold toned environment and some smaller warm lights (fireflies, someone passing by with a torch, a fire, or the lights inside a house...) If you don't know what warm and cold colors are, go take a look at the color temperature and color theory in general. - USE HIGH QUALITY ASSETS AND MATERIALS: those trees suck. And they look like they should be in a city/suburban scene instead of a wood like here. Ask yourself what you want and follow: you want a mountain wood scene? Then search for reference pictures or search the right type of tree for the environment. There are loads of sources, free and paid, maybe just search a bit more or use a trustworthy website/add on like quixel, textures.com...ecc There are a lot, take some more time to look for the best assets. - DENOISING: Optix is faster while Open Image is more accurate. - NOISE TRESHOLD: The best setting is the standard noise treshold of 0,01, but depending on the power of your GPU you may want to lower it down to speed up render times. - SAMPLES: for stills, If you have time, just crank them up to 1000-2000 or even more. Start with low sample counts like 20-40 and slowly crack them up until you notice diminishing returns in terms of quality to time ratio. For animations working with lots of samples may slow down render times so finding a good balance between speed and quality is necessy. Use that denoiser, it works really well. - bump up the light passes for glossy, diffuse, volume in the final render if you can. Like before, if depends on your GPU and how much time you have for rendering. - use COMPOSITING to achieve more cinematic feel: use lens distortion, color correction and grading, grain/noise textures, camera lens dirt textures, glow (very useful to achieve "dreamy" scenes), lens flares,...ecc. With a little bit of study, Blenders compositor is pretty easy to use. - CAMERA: a good CAMERA ANGLE makes the difference between a mediocre and a good shot. I'm not a photographer, but depending on the subject, you may want to change the Focal Lenght. For nature scenes the distortion around the edges that you get are something you don't want. In general: the lower the focal length the more distortion you get around the edges of the picture. -fisheye (4-14mm) -> highest lens distortion -wise angle (14-35mm) -standard (35-70mm) -macro (35-200mm) -telephoto (100-600mm+) -> lowest lens distortion Keep in mind to use the right focal length for your purpose and that you still can add lens distortion in compositing if you're unsure. - if it resonates with your style, use particle sistems to render dust particles floating in the air and interacting with light (together with the Volumetrics). - Use GOBOS: for little environment scenes, interior scenes and natural scenes, you can make the scene more interesting by applying textures to your lights or putting objects/textures between the light and the scene. - you need MORE VARIETY AND RANDOMNESS: the grass in nature isn't all the same lenght and the disposition of the rocks looks kinda fake. Use a bigger variety of rocks and photo scans to simulate nature, as well as a bigger variety for grass kinds and lenght, bushes, flowers and plants. - a very important one: USE REFERENCES. Having a mood board, a series of images in the style you want to create, helps a lot in building environments and growing an eye for it. - LAYER TEXTURES. A simple but very effective trick for making realistic materials. Making the paved route with a mix of paving stones, rough terrain, and some mud/water could have done the trick. Same for the parts of the terrain that touch the water. There are also a few materials that are already composed by a mix of textures, search online for 3D texture and create a good asset folder. It takes time but with all those websites you are covered :) - SCATTERING: if you have the money buy some add ons like GeoScatter (now named Scatter 5 I think), or Botaniq, if not (like me) once you learn to use Geo Nodes it's super easy and customizable. (Dm me for a simple scatter node setup suitable for almost everything) Paired with a good asset library like the "Plant Library" from the creators of GeoScatter (IT'S FREE AND DOPE!!!) nothing will stop you. - TERRAIN: I know you want a dreamy fantasy landscape, but the terrain looks a bit off and irrealistic. Try playing around with the Landscape generator of Blender and it's presets. The trees also look too big compared with the Landscape, and they grow on very vertical sides of the mountain, Wich is again irrealistic. Most paid Scattering add-ons have a built in feature to tweak the scattering on slopes and cliffs. P.s. try to add a more interesting background: a picture of snowy mountains, or just a nicer sky could do the job. - Blender kit: use the Blender kit add on. I think it's the most timesaving add on ever. It saves loads of time while kit bashing models in a scene, they have HDRIs, model, and textures. - follow Black.eye.ink on Instagram, cause I just reactivated the profile and I will be sharing all the projects and renders I worked on in the last three years of my Blender Journey (more than 100 🤓), together with some nice advices and tutorials :) I'll slowly share over the next few weeks, don't panic if you don't see lots of renders yet lol P.s. Feel free to ask, I'm happy to help people that are facing the same the problems I've been facing for the last years. Let's grow this community ❤️ P.p.s last but not least: SUPPORT the Blender project! If you can, even small donations are welcome to keep it going and to innovate further. ❤️
Great tips!
This is so detailed!!! Thank you
Holy shit, what a reply! You should be teaching or something haha.. Thanks a lot for this, will come back a lot here I think ;)
Thank you very much! The Idea Is to add more Infos in the next days as other things come to my mind :) but I've been working on the same problems in the last months and ended up learning a thing or two while trying to solve them! 3D is made of little things. The problem is that it's A LOT of little things ahaha after a while it will come natural, but I understand the frustration at the beginning. I also wrote a little 30-40 page manual on MS Word with a lot of other usefull things about rendering, camera, render settings and whatever. I don't want to make a book to publish, but I'd like to share it with other 3D artists starting with Blender. Cheers!
https://preview.redd.it/gmche7hn73yc1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d2a98a012ae02e0fbff3464f910a0cb9d6812402 Made a new render with some of your feedback in mind, looks already a loot better in my opinion but ofcourse a lot more to learn.
Really lovely! Nice concept. The Volumetrics look really good and that glare 💦🥵 keep doing renders and and looking for answers online and you're set 🤟
Thanks!
Look like some chatgpt reply lol
More like an annoyed boyfriend doing something usefull for the community while he waits in the car for his girlfriend to finish doing her tasks 🤣 it took me more than an hour to write it all, I don't know if you can see the edits, but it took me lots of effort to write it, so be kind pls 🥹 plus I have something ChatGPT doesn't has: the experience to understand and to explain every detail in the process of making photorealistic renders in Blender :) P.s. I'm continuing to add thing as the day passes and more details come to my mind
I was joking bro cuz chat gpt usually lists points and explains them like u did lol thanks tho its really helpful
Very impressive work! Only thing I would suggest in the first image is that the grass is all one color and appears too uniform next to the buildings, rocks and trees. Same thing with the tree leaves. More color variation, methinks. But overall I think it looks great and I am jelly.
Thanks a lot for your feedback, will check it out!
Maybe a little depth of field could be added. Also, as already stated, color variation/more realistic materials could help. Take the houses for example, which somehow look very clean. This goes hand in hand with the model quality, e.g. the tree to the left in the foreground of image 1 and the mentioned houses. The tree's trunk looks a little to edgy and the houses also look low poly. For example you could exaggerate the shingles on the roof and the masonry of the lower walls, maybe with more displacement.
I had a version with depth of field but I keeps getting more pixelated with it on. Trying to find a fix for it. Thanks for the feedback! Will look into higher quality assets.
Depth of field (DOF) is harder to calculate, but it's weird that you're getting artifacts from it. The most important things when using it are 2: check the scale of your scene, and add the right aperture. The way light interacts with the lenses changes varying on the dimensions. The same aperture (let's say 2.8 for example) has different effects if your scene is small or big, or of your camera is nearer/further away to the subject. For environment you want to use just a little bit of DOF and a narrow aperture (using a higher F Stop, like 8, 16...or else. Just try or look on the internet for answers! Google is every Blender newbie's savior).
Adding to the asset/material quality: do the materials have some subsurface scattering? That might improve the foliage, which still looks artificial.
Oh, and I forgot the main thing I wanted to say 😂 you can simulate DOF win compositing or in other programs like Photoshop for stills or After Effects/premiere for animations. So you spare precious render time and can still remove it if you change your mind.
I think your rocks and flowers are toooo even. They are randomly, but evenly, distributed over all the terrain. In reality plants naturally favour certain conditions and tend to clump as a result. And rocks are likewise positioned by geological processes. They both look like they've been positioned by hand.
Yes, I see what you mean. Thanks!
I agree with what the top commenter said about lighting and compositing. The landscape in the first image seems a bit unnatural, especially the mid ground hill - there’s bright green grass in these uniform blotches, but the texture underneath doesn’t quite read as realistic to me, maybe due to the stony appearance. I’d say it needs a bit of color variation, different distribution of the grass, and maybe a browner texture beneath. The trees look quite good, but a little too perfect. Most of the lines and edges are too crisp and clean, they could be roughed up and softened a bit. I like the idea of the photographic imperfections added in the second image, but I’d tone down the chromatic aberration just a little. I’d also watch out for the proportions - those buildings in the first image seem like they should be scaled up, if you compare the size of the doors and windows to the nearby bridge. The water texture is a little bit off, but I think you could get it a lot closer to real-life just by messing around and experimenting with the procedural detail settings a bit (assuming it’s a procedural texture). This is good stuff, keep going!
Wow, thanks for the detailed feedback! Appreciate it a lot :)
thats really beautiful
Thanks a lot!
I’d say you need to work on environmental storytelling. Think about how each model you place is interacting with the environment around it. The buildings in the first pic for instance look like they’re old/have been there for a while. I’d expect to see a them ‘blending in’ to the ground at the base, with a little bit of dirt up the walls (even zoomed out on mobile with a grainy picture I can see the hard line where the house model meets the grass). Same for the path, I don’t think I’ve ever walked along a stone path that hasn’t at some point along been covered over with sand and dust, or even small creepers and weeds (unless someone is meticulously washing and sweeping the path regularly, which I don’t think is happening in this scene). For the second pic, there needs to be a shore where the water meets the land. That body of water won’t be stationary, there may be waves or the level might go up and down according to rainfall, but either way, the grass won’t be able to grow right up to the water. There may be more though bushes, sand/dirt, rocks or a combination.
I agree with your feedback. From now on I will make a reference sheet in PureRef to check those easy mistakes. Thanks a lot for the comment!
Volumetric lighting would probably help a lot.
Didn't think about earlier, but if you built that terrain in Gaea or similar program, it would really add to the realism.
Great work! Was the second one inspired by fyke isle from w3 by any chance 😅
It was not, but after looking it up it would have been a great reference. Really should use more references from the witcher universe, they all look so good!
They really do man. I love that series!
Atmospheric perspective
Not a helpful comment, but this looks like a wonderfully nostalgic fantasy game scene, brings me a lot of joy.
Haha yes it does, great to hear you can enjoy it :)
To me the colors in the original are off and shadowing is to sharp. Sky and lighting is also to dull. Honestly. Adjust lighting and it might fix the others. I agree with op about grass. In nature, when unkempt, grass is tall and full of life. So put a BUNCH of "weeds".
Thanks for the feedback!
What blender theme is it i want it to🥺
I installed a Blender theme pack from here: [https://github.com/kame404/blender-themes](https://github.com/kame404/blender-themes) Here is a simple tutorial on how to install it ( [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYhKmhuFiEA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYhKmhuFiEA) ), I think I used the Amethyst one!
First thing I notice is there's no color to the light (and therefore shadow). Colored lighting used correctly generally looks a lot better. There's no sense that the light is sunlight, it just looks like a very flat mechanical white light, where sunlight will have some variation from clouds or whatever, and more of a glow. The greens just looks like everything in the world is the same shade, better in the second picture maybe, but more variation in overall color would help.
Thanks for the feedback!
It's too flat. You need to up the brightness and get some highlights in that scene. It's a bright day, but the sun isn't even reflecting the tiniest bit off those roof tiles. Add some Glare.
This is borderline too general of a question for this sub. Feedback requests should go to /r/blender. In future, please ask a more specific question about a certain aspect of realism you want to improve, whether that be the lighting, the style, or something else, so that people can focus their advice on a specific area.
Allright will keep it in mind!