The Chile Line, Taos Canyon

[Speedster]

Hi all;

Felt like having some fun after a long week. "The Chile Line" was a narrow gauge Denver and Rio Grande train that ran into Santa Fe, New Mexico, and up to Taos along the stunning Rio Grande River, through Taos Canyon.  It was actually built years after the color scheme I used here, but hey- "artistic license".

Shot a lot of backplates on a drive back from Taos last week, and you can still see the old roadbed. Just upstream is some of the best white-water rafting in North America, and it was great to see this mighty river at full flow after so many years of drought.  Modeled in SolidWorks, and it's been the subject of many of my prints and book covers.  It's my largest model, at 171,149,503 polys.

Oh ya- rendered in KeyShot 6 Beta. None of the amazing (actually mind-blowing!) new features were used here, but it was a fun and enjoyable afternoon of KeyShooting!

Bill G

[edwardo]

Lovely! If anything, I recon you should try running this image through Nik filter or similar to 'bind' the whole thing together, and add some grain

[Speedster]

Nik filter or similar

I'm not familiar with that- can you elaborate?  It sounds very interesting, as smoothing or binding things together has been a mystery to me.
Thanks!
Bill G

[edwardo]

They're just Photoshop filters, they're maybe not the best in the business, I'm not sure, but they're really quick and easy.
https://www.google.com/nikcollection/

Adding a bit of grain and desaturating sometimes helps 'bind' my cg bits with the backplates