Cinema 4D - Holiday Snow scene

Getting in with the Holiday spirit of things after my posting my image of a gear turned into a "frozen Ice sculpture punch bowl" I started playing around with a winter scene.

So I created a hilly landscape and a stock tree from with-in C4D and started working on a winter scene. Something I haven't seen in real life let alone tried to make, texture or light in C4D or any other 3D app. I really thought it would be a simple task and prove some good practice texturing.

I don't know why but snow and lighting this simple scene proved quite a challenge for me let alone my computer which crashed 20 to 30 times over the three days it I took to make this simple image.

Here is the final outcome:

View the full size version Here

And Happy Holidays to all of you btw...

The scene was to be animated. open field, you see foot steps walk through leaving foot prints in the snow and BAM! - the text coming up from under the snow with snow falling off the letters and the wishing well roof. Simple enough, though my comp didn't think so and flat out refused to deal with the animation.

Texturing the well, was well, a lot of texturing. And I was really happy with the results. It's probably the best part of the image imo.

But... then came the snow. And there is a lot of it in this scene.

The stock tree comes with a snow texture and there are a couple with in  C4D itself, but in my self dignified way I decided I didn't want to use the stock snow textures. And set out to make my own. Oh don't get me wrong, after 16 hours I did try the stock snow textures and did borrow some techniques used but the stock texture didn't work in the scene.

It was a challenge to get it right and I still wasn't completely happy with my snow texture in the end. 

The problem I ran into was I was fighting between the material and the lighting to get the right contrast. That and eye fatigue from staring at a nearly all white screen for 8 to 10 hours a day and compounded by all the crashes as my system locked up trying to animate the scene.

Be that as it may, by itself, the snow material looks really good lt a certain way - it does.  It was a matter of getting a single texture to work for the trees and the front lanscape and the far landscape and the well with the Sun lighting that was a real challenge.

If I were taking a photo of this scene I could do so all day long with great results. And after three days, I finally gave up and rendered out the best I could and took it into post for what you see above.

Now that I'm online I'm looking at a few tutorials on creating snow scenes. Hoping to do better. I learned a lot about texturing and lighting a snow scene. And I wish I could give you some tips o creating snow in Cinema 4D. But though I learned much and discovered a fix for one issue since this render. I can't.

The only suggestion I can give you at this point is Google some tutorials on Snow textures and materials and lighting in Cinema 4D and watch them first. Look at the given snow textures in C4D and see if that helps you create your snow. Hopefully will save you some frustration. And your render will come out better than mine did.

As far as the post work I did, it was simply a matter of using an ND filter on some areas to bring out the texture features. Being very selective and sutle when using your post ND filter.

And even though my snow scene could be better in my opinion I do hope you like it.

- it's the thought that truly counts. Isn't it...?

That's all for this post, and if your not out playing in the snow, you might as well be rendering 

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

- chase -