Blender : Modelling with cross sections
By Olivier Saraja
S  t  e  p     8 :
 
And now, the trickiest part...

If you render now your picture (F12-KEY), the surface of the lake will be almost entirely black, because the reflection angle has been calculated from the Empty point of view, and the Empty sees only the part of the landscape under our Ob:Lake ! What make sense for us being reflected is the part of the landscape that is over the water plane !

So go in top view (NUM7-KEY) and select your landscape. Then enter the shaded view (Z-KEY). Edit (TAB-KEY) the vertices of your landscape, and select (B-KEY two times) those who are strictly under the water plane, and up to the camera. With all these vertices selected, press the P-KEY. Validate the separation. Leave the Edit mode (TAB-KEY) and select the separated part. Move it on the same layer than the lake object (the third layer) with the M-KEY, as we did before.
At last ! You have nothing to do but to render your picture, now ! Select all the layers you have put something in (the three first layers), and make sure that the landscape, the lake and the sky sphere all appear from the camera view point. Call the Display Buttons with the F10-KEY. Activate Shadows and OSA. Press the F12-KEY and enjoy a quick and well rendered landscape !
Tips : when rendering landscapes, don't hesitate to use the PANO format, which is more pleasant (you then also need to activate the Panorama Button). However, as this tutorial has been written, you'll get a lake with strange and unrealistic frontiers if you do now ! You'll then have to divide (W-KEY) your water plane, and then delete or move the vertices that don't match your wishes.

Also, don't hesitate to add Flares, either in the material properties of your Ico-sun (right-click on the sun so select it, F5-KEY, activate the Flare Button and tweak the parameters), either in the GIMP once the picture is finished.

And here is the result of this tutorial ! Charming, isn't it ? The are many minor tweaking left to do, but all the basics are here.

When you'll have done this tutorial four to five times, you'll be able to render a landscape in about an hour (which is pretty quick ! it now takes half an hour to me to render such a picture). The spared time can then be spend in modelling trees, plants, animals and of course characters to fit in this landscape, can't it ?

Now it's your turn to play ! Don't hesitate to show me your works (but don't send them by e-mail ! I rather prefer that you give me an URL on the Internet where I can see them).
 

Key parameters. :Random Seed : 80 - Detail Level : 10.0