Wild Sea

Excellent scene, I particularly like the shape of the water, good job there. I'm not entirely convinced by the rain, but rain is exceedingly drifficult to do. You've made a good stab at it. Clouds, sky, terrains, sub, all look spot on, for my money, I'd say the greatest advances you could make would be in the area of lighting the scene. As things stand the lighting is fine, but I think it could be pushed further and to greater effect.

Sky, landscape, water terrain and the submarine model are excellent. Rain is difficult to get right. It is not so dark, but neither is it white. Difficult to get it right. The nice thing about presenting a picture to the peers here is that they may disagree. The colour of the water is very good, the marble pattern is amiss here. And the water looks solid, as Rashad said. Heavy waters often appear solid (due to the sediments they carry with them), but there is usually some hint of transparency for a few inches. Start any water material with 99% transparency and go from there. Reflection comes when the viewing angle gets flatter. Looking on a pond or small lake is very instructive. Of course, breakers on a sea or ocean are different. But even there - there is some hint of transparency. What you did exceptionally well are the foam crowns on the waves. And the waterfall far away is also top notch. Apart from my quibbles, this is a very nice piece of art you show us.

5/5

I agree with Renderman's observations.You have captured the feeling of weathering and a powerful storm. The water material is very good though a bit solid looking to me. Due to my familiarity with Bryce I can see the veiny marble creating the foam. A bit of transparency will add to the believeability of the water, especially in the foreground. Careful with diffussion in water mats as it can make water appear solid, something water is not. If you ever experiment creating ice mats you will notice the diffussion issue and why high levels of diffussion look more of ice than of water. David's solution for foam is a terrific one, but it is not the only option. What you have done to maximize on the potential of the material is you seem to have applied it to a terrain mesh to give real 3d waves. Pretty much any water mat you use will look great on a true 3d terrain like this one. You have added some foam of your own in all of the places it belongs. Your foam sprays level the image up alot, I mean a whole lot. Great choice!!!!!I think the rain is the only weakness I can isolate, but my skills do not extend far enough to offer you any assistance on producing rain. In truth the rain is not so bad but it looks black in color and it should be greyiish. As is currently I feel like I am seeing the shadows of falling rain but not the rain itself. My feeling is that David's water material is very effective when you need an all in one solution. But in this case you took the time to use a real terrain water surface so you have alot of options and are not limited to what a single mat can do. One option is to work in layers. Do one thing at a time. I have found that a good water mat is usually compromised when I add foam to it. Foam is whiteish and solid in color and is high in diffussion, but real (clean) water is grey or darker with little diffussion. The two are somewhat at odds. What I have done for maximum effect is to create two versions of the terrain water surface. One I give the best water material I own as just pure water. Then I create an identical copy of the mesh and raise it just a hair so that one sits on top of the other. I then apply a surface cloud texture to the mesh on top. The result is a layer of foam (cloud) sitting on top of a layer of true water. In a case like this with 3d surfaces the result is unmatched.