I've worked so much with this thingy that I'm about to loose any perspective! I took most of y'alls good advices to heart, and have fixed some stuff of my own (added doors... *lol*), added a new corpse and a helper. And some pesky rats. Should I call this done; or what else can I do? Is it "getting there"? Or am I on the wrong track? Thanks!

You're on the right track, few suggestions, -water flowing down the middle of the street, not alot, but the street was the basic sewer system and would always be somewhat wet, (from emptied bed pans), -more and larger rubbish, the streets are way too clean, the rats are a nice touch, but slighter larger and black (the color of the common european rat), -big large bluish black patches on the dead, -the helper would be in dark clothing or at least a robe like the other figure, this was a dirty job so they wouldn't be that clean, if it's a woman definitely dark clothing, big skirts, shawl, the hem of their clothing would be soiled from walking the dirty streets.. -and the buildings would be grimy and stoot covered with much smaller windows...

yeah, i was gonna say that about hte windows too. back in the days windows were EXTREMELY expensive. not everyone afforded them. Drac

this is very impressive work!! i like the rats (in the picture) a lot. I'm with Zhann on his suggestions about the rubbish in the streets, looks a bit too clean still. : ) JD

Zhann is female. :-) Anyways, britt, you need to lower the ambience on the walls down to 5 or so. The cobbles, too. Actually, on everything except the sheet. While you're at it, you might use a colour for the ambience, a dark dark dark purple. Windows were either small barred square openings, or possible they had a diagonally oriented bar-net. If you see what I mean. :-) The scale is also off. It looks like the figures are giants. The houses were not that small. BTW, the upper stories were usually deeper that the ground floor, so you're effectively getting a tunnel. The cart is a bit small. They could expect to put several bodies on one.

Erlik's right about the second story overhanging the street more, I have reference drawings here of that time, I'll see if I can dig up a street scene.....

Ahh.. Zahnn that's what Erlik meant; I thought he meant that the ground floor was LARGER than the rest of the floors. Which was not the case. :) The property prices in London those days were steep, so the ground floors were normally smaller. I'm sure the house models are a bit off; they are models (tudor houses) that I've found online, and that I've tried to group in UV mapper as they were in one big piece; hence the somewhat off materials (The groups aren't quite right). I think I've solved it for now, by dragging the focus a lot closer to the house walls. I'm rendering to disk now, so I'll see the end result when all is done. As for the "helpers" of the city; the ones who came at night to pick up the corpses. From what I have read; these were not very attractive jobs, so it was normally poor people who carried out that job. In that sense, the cape dressed person is off; it was normally doctors who could affort that kind of protection (I've seen drawings of doctors with a long "beak" where they put herbs that they thought were protective). That is why they boy not only is unprotectively dressed; he is also barefoot (that will show on my next render, I hope) The doors were important.. which was why I have modelled them in. If there was a person who got the plague in the household; there was painted a large red cross over/on the door to that house; and all who lived there were quaranteened for 40 days. Which was also one reason why several medical doctors earned a lot; they mis-diagnosed people who actually HAD the plague so that the household wouldn't have to be quaranteened. Hmm... I guess that's all I can think of at the moment. Oh; the rats... Being from Norway; and seeing that the plague rats are called "rats Norwegicus" (yicks... so NOT an honour! l), at least the rats I've seen in Norway AND here in the us are dark brown; and they are too light in my render.. will see if I can fix that.

Rattus Norvegicus is the brown rat that displaced the earlier-prevalent and smaller European black rat. Although it's called Norvegicus, it originated in China, and I have no idea why it is called Norvegicus. Hmm, let me see... It came to Europe in mid-1500's. To the States in 1775. http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/rattus/r._norvegicus$narrative.html Apropos doors: the only film that scared me greatly when I was a kid was a film in which the plague begins and they board up the doors of a house where there were still living people, still healthy. Eeeew. My mother had to turn the TV off, I didn't want to watch anymore.

I got interested in rats... It appears that Rattus norvegicus was named by Linnaeus, Carl von Linne, who first created the taxonomy system, in 1758. I can only guess why he called it "Norway rat". But it's probably politics. :-) Anyway, Rattus norvegicus was not the rat responsible for the Black Death in 1348-1349. It was the above mentioned black rat, Rattus rattus. So, britt, your rats should be black. A bit more at http://www.martley.org.uk/villager/archive/feb02/naturalistdiary.htm

Aha! I knew it! A Swede was responsible for the naming! rofl We still have that "brotherly" little "wars" going between the Swedes and the Norwegians. The Scandinavian history could fill a whole book of renders, you know. Hmm... So the little stinker was black. Difficult to render; the image is turning out pretty (very) dark. I mean there weren't any street lights, so the only illumination was by torches and from the sparse lights in the windows. Oh, I've read several horror stories that were about doors too (luckily haven't seen them on movie!). But yes; in some cases the doors were bolted.. and without food and water supply nobody could last 40 days... even without the plague. About reading material; my favorite mystery writer is John Dicson Carr, or Carter Dickson as he also used as an alias. He has written a "horribly" good novel called The Plague Court Murders. Definately recommended reading! :) Agatha Christie wrote about it; There are very few mystery novels that surprise me any more. This does! Thanks a lot for the info; Erlik! :)

Erlik is right...ratus ratus....the black rat...and the fleas it carried...........