minimalist scene
 

I really liked happymat27's cat animation and the way he did the scenery, so I made myself a slightly similar desktop, and also took the opportunity to learn a bit more about texturing and shaders. Here's the result. I'm not totally happy with the water, which I would have liked to be a bit choppy, but I couldn't be bothered to model the waves and things.

Thanks for the mention there Edward,

and glad you liked the animaion. You could use a bump map for the water surface, something like the attached image will provide a ripple effect. it took a few seconds in photoshop to make so if you were to spend a little more time it could look really cool.

Take it easy,

Mat.

i'd bet any money that happymat27 just created the new 3d rage... forget dynamics, fluids, ncloth, particles, HDRI, or even global illumination - the future is in cardboard cutout sets. :P

yes, forward into the past, regress and rebirth!! I feel my childhood coming on! (although I don't mind the occasional softbody,)

The futures always been in cardboard cut outs, especially for the cash strapped single artist! He, he!

Nice little scene, you should make soem little characters to go in it too!

Thanks for the suggestion with the bump map, it works quite nicely I think:

Nicely done Edward,

one last thing that I might suggest addressing would be the reflectivity of the ground. I thought it was two different light sources casting shadows at first but realised that it was the ground reflecting (my monitor needs seeing too I think!!). Anyway, on a personal note I think it would look better with a matt floor texture.

Nice work and a good idea for a wallpaper,

Mat.

thanks. My idea is that I wanted the ground to take a bit of colour from the bushes, i.e. look slightly green, but final gather didn't do anything in this regard and I wasn't sure how to do that. Any ideas?

Just to note, the ground is a white plane only slightly larger than the area that the bushes is on and the camera background is white.

Use GI and caustics to get the colour bleed (the help files tell you all about them and the respective properties, more so that what, more so than what I could go into)

Cheers

another suggestion, i ''painted' on the specular for the river and used raytracing, in this (another cardboard cutout), it is reflecting the blue of the sky

id say less bump effect on the river i think it could use more... shine

other than that cool work man:beer:

haha soo true! cardboard cutout are the best looking things ever ... ;)