I wanted to work on some nature scenes to take a break from making robots this week. One of the biggest challenges for me is adding sun-streaks. Simply because it’s too heavy for my computer to render live as I tweak settings. The volumetric scatter approach (with a cube over the entire scene) doesn’t mix well with the sky texture node as it calculates light (I assume) bouncing from everywhere, hindering the possibility of streaks from a central light source. One solution I found that helps with this is to drop the volume scatter concept and use the compositor:
(Reduced fog glow so streaks could be more defined)
(Fog glow further reduced)
The scene I made here is only for the lighting. I plan to make a taller type of pine tree so the ground is mostly covered in shadow for a different composition. I did find some addons (already part of blender) that I think people should know more about.
One is the “add curve tree sapling generator.”
When activated, this will add a new curve option (way at the bottom of the list under curves catagory) when selected, you’ll be provided a menu just like any other added mesh where you define its attributes before scaling or moving. The tree generator’s menu is more extensive. You can define the type of tree, how many branches, and it even provides leaves for the tree (however you will need to add your own alpha leaf image for them). Even with simple colors the trees look fairly real. I used this addon, not for making the tree, but referencing the tree shape so I could make my own low poly version.
The second addon is the “ivy generator.” This will place ivy on surfaces of your choice. I haven’t used this yet so I can’t explain much of it at the moment, but I will once I create the taller trees.
My main concern for this nature project is focused on natural lighting as it seems more extensive than the trees. If anyone is interested in the node setup I have for the world and the compositor that made this scene I will provide them below (created from a mix of several tutorials).
World Node Setup
Compositor Setup
I hope this helps out anyone looking to do an outdoor scene. 