Pics of places that look like places from the films, or are just nice.

Dimrill Dale is proving a tricky beast -getting the three peaks behind just right the main problem- but in the meantime heres a 1st attempt at the Lonely Mountain.

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Do pines grow in a desolation?

I didn't have the book to hand so reasoned thus- the bare branched blackened ones and the stumps are the remains of the woods that were there before Smaug came and the pines are all young uns that have grown up in the relative peace whilst Smaugs being sitting on his gold- might be too many of them though.
I will need to check the book for the description. And it gives somewhere for the talking birds to roost!

Pretty far from how I pictured it, but that doesn't mean I don't like it! I guess I agree with Odo (if I interpret his comment correctly) that there are too many trees. I don't have the book at hand either, though, so who knows whether your picture is closer to the book than my (imagined) picture. Nonetheless, I'm getting more impressed with every new pic, keem them coming

From TH-

"They made north-west, slanting away from the River Running, and drawing ever nearer and nearer t a great spur of the Mountain that was flung out sothwards towards them.......The land about them grew bleak and barren, though once, as Thorin told them, it had been green and fair. There was little grass, and before long there was neither bush nor tree, and only broken and blackened stumps to speak of ones long vanished. They were come to the Desolation of the Dragon.."

The picture is looking roughly from west-ish. So the big spur you can see going south, the Gate would be on the other side of it. The view is a few miles away from the mountain so I think there should be trees, but they should stop at a distant from the mountain and only the stummps should remain, and the grass should fade out too on the mountain- and looking at Tolkiens illustration there should be some snow on top.

Your renderings are as gorgeous as ever, Petty! There are more trees than I imagined but I still like it a lot!

A more desolate take on the scene.

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And Tolkiens illustration.

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The Carrock
"...The earth was much nearer, and below them were trees, that looked like oaks and elms, and wide grass lands, and a river running through it all. But cropping out of the ground, right in the path of the stream which looped itself about it, was a great rock, almost a hill of stone, like a last outpost of the distant mountains, or a huge piece cast miles into the plain by some giant among giants."

(Its quite wide this one you may need to adjust your page size to fit)
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Rather than post the latest version of the Lonely Mt I've just replaced the old one in the above post with the new one, and a copy of Tolkiens illustration for comparison.

The new one looks much more like how I imagined it would look like, love it Your version of the Carrock is beautiful too, how do you make these pictures look so real?

"how do you make these pictures look so real?"- Ringdrotten

Patience. Swearing. Trial and error. Cursing. Waiting on render tests, a lot. Buckie. Render crash. Crabbit rage. More buckie and swearing.
And by morning I wake bleary eyed to a nice picture all going well....and celebrate with buckie.

It may also have something to do with the programs I use. World builder. Terragen 2 Deep, Gimp and all the wonderous souls out there in the world who make object models and then share them with fellow renderers for nothing but thanks- so I thank them all.

I know what you mean, I still remember the horrible experience of trying to learn how to operate blender!

Rohan this time- not much more to say really other than its another wide one.
Ally I too found Blender to be not to newbie friendly. Still not got my head round it yet.

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Perfect That's pretty much exactly the kind of landscape I imagined there would be in Rohan. It's a pitty Jackson picked such a terrible location for Rohan for the films, he should've gone to Africa and filmed it in the Savannas or some other place where the grass can do Rohan justice

Thanks Ringdrotten. I'm quite happy with the landscape- less so with the sky. I think if I'm going to have that much sky the lighting and clouds need to be more interesting and dramatic- so having another go with a different sky and lighting scheme.

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I hope that this is a commercial for the next NotP edition?

I think NotP has discovered viral marketing, to hilarious results.

All I know is they've had me putting billboard posts up (and down!) all over Forumshire all night- I'm knackered, just as well they pay in buckie, but I heard its some new interactions thingy. Newspapers 2.2. To technical for me whats wrong with just buying and reading a paper like the good old days?

Here the 2nd go at the Rohan scene- with more dramatic lighting and clouds. Now I'm not sure which I prefer! Maybe people can vote and I'll delete the loser.



The original for comparison.

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They're both great, though the darker and dramatic one seems more in line with the tone of Rohan in LOTR, beset on both sides. Either way, they both look far more like Tolkien's Rohan than PJ managed.

I saw the Rohan pics on another monitor and the dark one was so dark you could barely make out the horses. Thats the problem with different monitor types- so I asked another friend to check it out and he thought it was a bit dark too- so I've replaced it with a lighter one- it should still look stormy and dark just not so dark you cant make things out!

Looks like a happy medium to me.

My vote goes to the original I think, it's such a nice picture

Well I'm in favour of the lightened stormy version, looks as I imagine wild windswept plains would.