light on trees / trees look flat

#1

Hi again,

another noob vue question:

I have to put loads of conifer trees in my terrain (firs / spruces).
And I nee the trees to catch warm evening sunlight.
I chose the blue spruce included with vue for its low poly count.
However, if I plant a forest with it you can barely discern the single trees.
It´s all a big grainy mass.
This is because the trees don´t really catch the light properly.
You can´t really tell, which direction the light comes from.
I use global radiosity and it seems the trees catch a lot of indirect light (already visible in the radiosity render pass) but hardly any direct light coming from the sun. When I reduce the global radiosity gain the trees just get darker. I couldn´t turn it down too much for the rest of my scene anyway.
I´m afraid the spruce maybe not the first choice for the task but I can´t use trees with a higher poly count as I need thousands of them.
Is it actually due to the choice of trees or is it rather a matter of adjustment and I just haven´t found the right tweaks yet?

Cheers,
phleX

#2

Check your light balance settings in the atmosphere editor. Even though you use global radiosity your image can get washed out if the balance is turned too much towards ambient light. Choose at least a balance of 60-70 % sunlight and leave your GR gain settings as they are. Also, make sure you use an Aerial perspective of 1 (Sky, Fog & Haze Tab) which corresponds to earth’s atmosphere. Increasing the AP means decreasing the whole scene in size and thus a lot more haze is introduced which can wash out things in the distance as well.

#3

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