Cornucopia3D "Making of"       Each week, Cornucopia3D is turning the spotlight on a member of the Vue community. There are so many interesting people doing wonderful things with the Vue line of products, we wanted to share the wealth! Every picture (and rende) can indeed tell an entire store, and this week, Mary shows us how she created a lyrical and mysterious image that does just that. And her lovely image shows the importance of lighting and atmosphere to enhance the mood.   Making of "Abandonned v.1" by Mary Sylvia Hines I like images that have a story to tell. In this image, the first impression of course is of an abandonned dwelling, but it also might bring to a viewer's mind the question,''who might have lived there at one time? Perhaps a miner, a logger, or maybe it was just used for a vacation getaway in the mountains.....'' But now, its only residents appear to be the forest dwellers that fly above its chimney. I started out with a procedural terrain for the background, then added a standard terrain to the forefront. Then to the standard terrain I added an ecosystem of trees and bushes, using the EcoPainter. For the ecosystem, I used the Cornucopia3D Scots Pine, the RA Pandora Dogwood Tree and RA Witch Hazel from the Realms Art Lower Slopes Forest Plants. Then I added the 'Abandoned House'. I used the Terrain Editor to shape the terrain so that the ground underneath the house was level. I used the 'show all objects in scene' option for that process. I added ivy to the Abandoned House using the EcoPainter. I added a cloud that was used as a fog layer, then I added my atmosphere to the scene, and turned down the sunlight to about -1.17 . Next, I added quad spotlights to the background (with volumetrics turned on), turning them down to a low setting, app 20, then added more quad spotlights to the forefront (with volumetrics turned on and with low settings..app 20). I turned those lights to a yellowish/orange hue. Then I added  2 spotlights (with volumetrics turned on) right above and angled to the right of the house, I turned them to a higher setting than the rest of the lights (app 70). A note about the lights - I turned the shadows down to about 62 on all of the lights (sunlight, all spot lights). I added an EcoSystem of grass using the EcoPainter. I find that that the EcoPainter is very useful for lots of reasons, but the main reason I used it for the trees, bushes and grass. Instead of just populating the scene via the EcoSystem, I use the EcoPainter because with this tool I can put plants only in the area of the terrain that will be rendered, which saves alot on resources. I manually added the 2 bushes and dogwood tree that reside close to the house. This could have been done using the EcoPainter, but putting them in the scene manually allows me to move them around for positioning. Now after the fog/cloud object  was added, I couldn't see anything in my working viewports except for fog, but thats where the 'View thru' option helped out tremendously! I was able to click on any of the lights and view the terrain through them, which helped to position the lights. I hope this has been helpful and if you would like more info on this project, feel free to contact me at the Cornucopia3D forum or the Facebook 'Vue Galleries Group'. Items used in this image: Cornucopia3D Scots Pine, Realms Art Lower Slopes Forest Plants, Small Flock of Sparrows, Abandoned House LightTune for Vue 8, EcoPainter for Vue 8, Botanica for Vue 8, EcoSystem for Vue 8 Thanks! Mary