Hi, I have never done any modeling or artistic work (and it shows). Carrara is my first foray into this area. So far I have been enjoying this program, although I am light years away from truly exploiting it. I'm not the most original person so I thought I'd begin by trying to make a simple chess set... something that would get me using the spline and vertex modelers as well as a basic primer in shaders/textures..MAN DO I HAVE A LOT TO LEARN. So far it's been a labor of love, with several bumps in the road. My problem is (if you look at the image, assuming I linked it correctly) that the leading edge of the board is not discernable, it does not have a 3D look to it. Is there anyway to made the edge visible without changing the angle of the scene? Any help is greatly appreciated.

How did you make the chest board? It looks as if it is just a simple box primitive witht the marble shader applied. To see an edge, you will need to do two things: create a bevelled edge on the object and adjust your lighting to emphasize it. If it is just a box pimitive, go to the modelling room and go to Edit > change to another modeller and open it in the vertex modeller. Change your view to 4 views and in the TOP view click on the top to select the top surface (alternately, pick a side view and select the top surface using the marquee tool to select all of the vertices that make up the top surface). Then select EXTRUDE and extrude the top surface a very small amount, say 0.1 inches, then select only the extruded surface using the same method as above and then RESIZE in X and Y by about 97% or so. This should give you a small bevel on the top your your box. Marquee select all of the top vertices that make up the lower and upper part of the bevel and SMOOTH ALL of them to give a roundness to the bevel when it is rendered. This simply reorients the normals and doesn't actually change the geometry so you won't see a differnce until you render. from the side your top should look like this: _________ / | | This may be enough to catch the light to indicate the edge, and should make your chessboard look more realistic. You may have to adjust the lighting to pick up the edge better. A high shininess value in the chessboard shader may help. Peter MacDougall

It all depends on how you made the checkers. The easiest way is to just add an edge in a paint program, nothing wrong with that. Is the checkers a box or is it an image mapped to the marble in the shader? I'd have made a box and changed the Mapping Mode to Box/Face (top) and applied the Checkers function in the shader color channel. Then you can change the height of the box to suit your needs. Additionaly, you could "inset" that box into another one that is slightly larger and colored dark gray for extra dimension.

Nice image so far, although I don't consider a chess set 'simple'. Creating the Knight will be a challenge. I agree that extruding is probably your best bet for the board edge, like you did with the building in the tutorial. It also looks like you have a pretty high glow value on the white peices. Looking forward to seeing it when it's complete. Vern

Welcome to the world of 3D.... It looks like you've made a great start. I think the big issue here is lighting.... First off, let me tell you that I don't use Carrara; I'm using RayDream 3D, but most of the features I'll mention apply to Carrara, and lighting is lighting, whether it's in 3d Cyberspace or in reality. First, I'd reduce or eliminate the "ambient lighting." There's no real-world analogue to this effect. Second, I'd place a light behind and above the chess board (from this perspective). This will give the pieces an outline or rim that helps pull them away from the background. The backlight alone should help provide a difference in illumination between the top and front surfaces of the chessboard. Third, I'd soften the light coming from camera left. This is to say, soften the shadow feature. In RD3D it's called Soft DRT Shadows (located in the properties menu for the light, itself), and I know there's something similar in Carrara. Fourth, I'd probably add a "fill light" to the camera right side. The fill light should be no more than 2/3 the brightness of the "key light" (the light you already have on the camera-left side of the scene), and should employ VERY soft shadows. The fill light will give you some nice highlights in the shadow areas. Beveling the edge of the board will help, as described above. OK, I'll stop now. (I wonder if there's a length limitation on these postings....) - Chip