Edge of the World

Not an original idea, I’ve been following Martin Klekner’s excellent ‘Master 3D Environments in Blender’ Course on CG Boost and thought I’d share the result of the first topic. Criticism is most welcome!

Rendered in Cycles, 512 samples, originally 3440x1440. The trees, bushes, rocks and ice were all distributed using Scatter5, and I eventually went with World Creator for the main mountain in the centre. Due to the heavy nature of the scene, I had to split the project into different render layers. For postprocessing, I used Photoshop, mostly colour grading with some mist/cloud elements added.

Overall, I'm pleased with the result. I learned a lot through experimenting with different techniques that I can definitely apply to future projects. There is a lot I'd change, however this is my first real landscape so I feel I should not focus on the small details but move on and take what I've learned and apply that to the next project. The mountain could be more detailed, the trees could have more variety, the scattering could be less uniform, the sky could be replaced, the water shader more realistic etc. 

I would love to hear any and all criticism as I'm very eager to improve.

Thanks for your time