EMAIL:philippe.jacqueroux@wanadoo.Fr
NAME:philippe jacqueroux
TOPIC: spectacular landscape
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: After Rain in Utah
COUNTRY:France
WEBPAGE:http://www.digimind.org
RENDERER USED:terragen 
TOOLS USED: 3dem  photoshop
RENDER TIME: 2h30
HARDWARE USED:p2 350
IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A real valley in utah just after the rain.
Take with my digital camera ;-)

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED

When i saw the current topic for povray, i immediatly think that if i can enter one day in the top three pictures, it will be today!
Building landscape is my favorite work.

I use mainly Terragen to do it 
Even if it' s an easy program to start, it needs work and work to know all features and designing real beautiful place. I work on it every weeks since more than two years.

Terrain is a real digital elevation model from utah in usa.(30M résolution).
First converted to terrain with 3DEM.
I have made some little change on the heightfield under photoshop for a better river system, and build overlay picture.

I use several procedural textures and one big external overlay (30MB).(it can be mainly seen on the right shadow part, doing some crack on the floor.)Clouds are 3D and  cast shadows to give that different light level on the floor.
On the water you can see transparency, peak reflection, and sun reflection.

I want to do something different from pure realistic landscape.
Even if i made it realistic, i use some trick to give it a more fantastic mood.
First terrain is little overscale in height to give that massive vertical effect, and i use some volumetric light with rays.
Atmosperic,colors and water looks like after rain.
(i think ;-) )

Hope you enjoy it as i enjoy to do it.
All data are available in request except overlay (30mb).

philippe jacqueroux