Attached Link: Original Image

Are you using a HDRI cause this looks like a photo! Real Nice!

Yes--it's an HDRI sphere; rendered with premium settings, DOF.

'm gonna make a guess on the ground, terrain based on the photo texture? Maybe just the texture with high bump? Also, i love this, it just SCREAMS "Hey, splutterfish, I'M BETTER THAN BRAZIL. Also, technically, isn't this a Morning Star? I believe a mace would be just a blunt object, a morning star is spiked, and a flail is a morning star with a chain instead of a shaft. I play too many MMORPG's...or used to...damned monthly fee.

Sweeeeet!!!!! This looks terriffic Mloats. 8) Nice work. ~ Swade ~

This is most correctly called a morning star, but that is nothing more than a specialized type of mace. A flail is anything on the end of a chain, or a shorter segment of rod attached to a longer handle. Whether there are spikes or not on a flail doesn't matter. The nomenclature is subject to a lot of opinion depending on your source, but these are the most widely quoted. And it looks awesome. Nice work. luke27

Don't we all love chrome? :) Looks like excellent use of HDRI simulation.

Ouch! this has gotta hurt.....

Yep, amazing ligthing. I too am curious about the floor: very high bump on a pic texture or terrain from a pic texture?

Terrain from pic texture for the floor. For the lighting, it is one spotlight directly over the morningstar (not mace, apparently :)) pointing up toward the HDRI dome. True ambiance is on in settings. Thanks for the feedback everyone. Out of curiousity, which do you prefer this "clean" version, or the gallery "bluured reflections" version?

I prefer the shiny one, I like being able to see a reflection in it.

/dumb question on OK, I'm gonna drop a stupid one here...forgive please. HDRI dome? Is that the same as the stuff that AgentSmith was demonstrating with the spherically mapped picture as the only light source, to mimic real-world lighting? Or is HDRI something different? How is it implemented in Bryce? /dumb question off + thanks luke27

Not a dumb question at all. It is indeed a picture mapped on a sphere (or cube) to mimic real-world lighting.

Real HDRI uses more then 256 brightnessvalues, that's why it's called High Dynamic Range Imagery. In Bryce we can only use normal maps, with 256 brightness values, so we should call it fake HDRI, but we usually just call it HDRI because it's shorter.

Luke27 (chapter or verse oh never mind) Do a search for HDRI if you need to. These guys here have done some really cool stuff with it. Although faked still more of a reflection map. mloates! My hat is off to you that looks so dang KooL! I am curious as to how you did the shadow (one light source with soft shadows?) Well done, Do more with the grip though IMHO.

Really impressive renders either way, though I prefer the latter. I agree that the grip could be tweeked a little.

I only mean that it looks like it might be a bit slick to handle this "morgenstern" in the heat of battle without a material with more friction on the grip.

Excellent!.........great textures and lighting and your morningstar looks fantastic. 8) Catlin

Aye, I like htis one much more! I understand you were just flexing your Bryce muscles, and both are pretty cool, hope I didn't seem too critical...! (sorry it took me so long, but 'Rosity threads crash 4/5 times on this pathetic work slug... (P-2/266) I don't know why, but it's hit and miss for me to open any thread, maybe it's a scripting thing?) (shrugs)