With verve into the light

Thank you guys.
Let me see if "Big K" can answer those questions correctly.

-how did you make those smooth mountains or hills ?

Smooth hills are done in 3ds max.
I subdivided a plane and used the shift brush.
Very simple, but effective

Basemesh16.jpg (89.29 KiB) Viewed 9434 times

-and how did you get those futuristic urbanscape (steep walls with apparently flat roofs)

The displacement map from verve is just 1280x720. The steps are the pixels.
I didn't displaced the geometry with a modifier directly, I displaced AND bumped it with the material in corona itself.

Basemesh17.jpg (71.55 KiB) Viewed 9434 times

I have still not a clue how to show corona material in max viewport. Everything is not really expectable.
Comparison max view and render:

Basemesh18.jpg (138 KiB) Viewed 9434 times

- what about the skies ?

I used a simple daylight system as it is described on the corona page:
https://corona-renderer.com/getting-started/first-steps-in-3ds-max/
Put the corona sun on manual and low and the corona sky enviroment:
Voilá a nice evening atmosphere.

This is possible with any decent renderer.
Cycles can do this too, also geographically correct, if you want:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xskrL_jsLcI

The cool thing about corona is, that it's super easy and very fast with a hyper realistic result.
iray, cycles, mental ray and vray of course, they all do a very good job if you know how to use them.
But one get easily lost.

I guess there is still a standalone version for use with i.e. blender available:
Check out here...42pages
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?299637-Addon-Corona-Render-Exporter-v1-9-2/page42
Will be easier to use cycles, should do the same.

What really surprised me, was the soft way the renderer displaced.
I made some tests in zBrush displacement. No way to come even close the result.
Displacing the geometry in 3ds max also didn't come to such a nice result.

In short:
1. Make hills in rendering app.
2. displace AND bump with material.
3. Use daylight system



EDIT: One thing I forgot. I lit the displacement map up in photoshop. A lot!

OK, I got it, thanks a lot Knacki

Some more from that verve pic:

Iceverve-web.jpg (233.76 KiB) Viewed 9415 times

IcePlanet-01web.jpg (235.43 KiB) Viewed 9415 times

IcePlanet-04web.jpg (230.56 KiB) Viewed 9415 times

IcePlanet-07web.jpg (238.69 KiB) Viewed 9415 times

Amazing planets from an alternate universe ! I like these strange stalagmites that are perpendicular to the local curved surface instead of being vertical. Very inspiring. IcePlanet-01web is my fav.

3D LIKE ! and full thanks for this lesson Knacki !

Thanks Knacki! I like this approach.

Very convincing!

Thank you for the insights! Last ones are very »cool« indeed!
Like your experimental approach (graphix-labs-sw-xover-thingies)

Thank you all for your nice comments.

Had some quick but serious fun with a trick discovered yesterday, drawing this lady:
(attention mature content!)
http://www.taron.de/forum/viewtopic.php?p=10911#p10911


This turned out. 100% verve (a bit of references were used to get the feeling):

cactus.jpg (204.86 KiB) Viewed 9316 times

Could fit nicely in one landscapes above.

Just an additive layer (+) behind cactus and brush #9 with 10% bristles and white col for stings.
Something even more dramatic will happen, if you duplicate the layer.
Put the lower layer on +
On top layer reduce opacity slowly until you get an interesting effect.
Play around now, erase bits of top layer, draw on layer below etc.
It can turn out like a SSS subsurface scattering effect.
Fun