Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.ez?Who=Doublecrash&ViewArticle=3919

Ah, just remembered it. My first message in the Forum, some months ago, was about a strange happening: the estimate rendertime of my images was about the same with normal AA and Premium Settings. It happened again, and keep on happening. This last image, for example, gave me 4 hours estimate with normal AA (to which, you teach me, we have to add at least 50% for the last AA pass, so roughly about 6 hours). I rendered it with SoftShadows at 64rpp and the rendertime was 5 hours and 49 minutes. Frankly, I don't know why and, at this point, I couldn't care less: the shorter, the better... but the mystery remains. Puzzled Stefano

Extremely well done, DC! I think your is better that the magazine.... The Bryster

That's is wonderful. I love both the picture and the article (picked up a lot of hints from it too!).

Hmmm, you've done some pretty handy work there, DoubleCrash. Not bad at all :)

Bravo, Bravo....spectacular....Sharen

Most excellent work Stefano and that was a great idea to explain what you did. Cie

Very well done Stefano, I have to agree with The Bryster.

My my, if this doesn't help in this ongoing discussion..nothing will. Superb work Stephano!

great article Stefano!

Great stuff. How do you manage these large numbers of spotlights?

Not bad, he says. Bloody marvellous, I say (`scuse the French.) Well done, DC

newbie my #$%..;) unless, of course, this isn't his first 3d program..excellent work, n' yep, saw the pic in the Gallery..;)

It is always cool to see how someone tackles an image. An amazing opportunity to learn new ways and ideas. Thanks for posting this! One thing I like about bryce is its speed and I am not referring to render times speed here. I mean the speed with which I can work on an image, develop the idea. When the ideas are comming fast and furious, getting way bogged down in modelling minutia a la the more serious programs would drive me mad. Bryce allows me to focus on the image, not the tool! I'll second pakled, you have an aptitude and it shows.

When will you be starting your interior design work? When you do I'll hire you to work on my place.........8) Excellent work Stefano. Catlin

Always something to learn from your writings. If you are interested 3D World has an article on mid price 3D software (Bryce is not among them) that addresses the difference in applications (high-end vs mid-range) being the ease of "work flow". This article together with your article gives on much to think about. Respectfully Ralph

Fantastic done! We can be proud of our Brycers!

Bravo!

Wow Stefano - that is really great work! I think I like your image better than the original render. You have a ton of patience to manage that many individual spotlights - bravo! Scott

Beautiful work Stefano! and I agree with scotttucker3d. I do like your image better :) I think us Brycers can be proud of what we can accomplish with our "low end" software, and the article was full of tips and tricks I'll have to try sometime :) Jen

Thanx to all, really! I just saw that the gallery version has got lots of comments, whoa :) To Bryster, gregsin, scotttucker & Jen: I really don't think that my version is better, mostly because it lacks the radiosity you can easily spot in the original render. I'm doing another interior, this time of a kitchen and this time with my design, and I'm really trying to find a way to fake radiosity (not GI, but radiosity). I'm a bit disappointed by the TrueAmbience test renders I did, but being the first time I used the feature, I'm sure I did something wrong somewhere. Anyone knows how high should be the average ambience level of the single mats to affect seriously the True Ambience option? Anyone can point me some tutorial about this Premium feature? @Rayraz: As for the large spotlight number, the eureka :) came some days ago, in this here magic Forum, when tuttle talked about making them ranged to save rendertime. I did it, I ranged each of the 92 spots to the strictly necessary falloff and nothing more. Just out of curiosity, when I finished the light setting, I "saved as" a copy, entered the lightlab and disabled the ranged falloff on all the spots: the rendertime (estimate) was 26 hours, 5 times longer than my posted pic. @Incarnadine: I agree with you. In Bryce now I work with real speed. It's really easy to set up a basic scene and then adding layers and layers of details. @Ralph: I'm thinking seriously of buying Cinema4D from a friend of mine who had a graphic agency. I'm making him wait for me 'cuz right now I don't have enough money :) @Pakled: Yes, I consider myself a newbie. I see too many really wonderful works to think the contrary. 90% of the things now I use in Bryce I've learned here, reading the Forum and seeing other people's work in the galleries, and you can easily get proof of what I'm saying by checking out the first pic I posted here in my first day of membership, six months ago (it was the end of November). And it was a pic done in 2000, LOL. @All the others: thank you again for your appreciation. I'm really glad someone found the article useful. Now I'm goin, because I just had a very silly idea for the May challenge... :) Thanks again, and, really, not only for the comments, but mainly for all the rest. And you know what I'm talkin about. ;-) Stefano

Excellent Work Stefano! Thanks

Doublecrash, as someone earlier said, you seem to have quite an aptitude for this. And your explanations are wonderful. They help remove some of the mystery of how to create better than a mediocre image...which I hope to do some day. In the meantime, I think I'll keep practicing. Thank you--Dave