I decided I wanted to test out DAZ Studio and see if getting some of the DAZ figures would be a good idea for me. Of course, right now, I can't export anything I pose in D/S but I can pose, light and render them and then bring them into Bryce as picture plains. So ... and this is where the comments and such come in ... I got this WIP that's based on a previous scene. The bird is supposed to be the focus, the leaves on the right are in the foreground (as if the bird was flying up to the tree to land). Does the bird seem lit ok and does it seem the right size? Because of the DOF, this is about a 24 hour render, and I'd like it to be as good as possible ... from a structural perspective. Thoughts anyone?

Oh, and PS ... if the bottom half seems a little pixelated, I think that may be because it's still rendering. I grabbed this in mid-render.

The bird looks great, but the blurry areas look grainy.

I agree that it looks a little too grainy... The other thing is that it seems that the scale of the house is off... I realize that it's supposed to be a little ways out, but it looks too small for some reason. The bird does look great though. Were those trees from TreeLab?? Those are actually nice, compared to what I've gotten from it.

Hmm, I (personally) think the bird looks too big or the depth cue's are out or something - not too sure though... maybe thats a function of the DOF blurring you're doing. Maybe try (cos I'm not sure if this'll work) blurring the house area a bit more and less blur on the branch in the top right of the pic - the extra blurring might make the house look a bit further away and bring more of the foreground into focus... something to try anyway. The bird itself looks spectacular.

Yeah, I know, I don't understand where the graininess is coming from. I'm just using the DOF in the program with it set on the bird. I think the bird may be a bit too big. I'll change the camera angle some ... and futz with the bird size ... that should take care of the house issue. Maybe I'll do a gaussian blur rather than trying to do the DOF thingie. The trees are from the tree lab. Although on most of the trees, I don't use the default leaves. OK ... back to the drawing board. Thanks everyone.

This image is great! The lighting is right on, very nice! I think the bird works really well, (though of course, if you wanted to make it so people KNEW how big it was, you could put it in front of the trees in the background, so people knew it wasn't as big as the house. Yes, I think the house is too small, or the trees too big. (just look at leaf size to window size. And maybe change the scale of the water? (just so the waves weren't as huge, or maybe you want it like that) Great image

I would recommend, especially since the bird is already a 2d plane, that you take the time to learn dof by postwork. The render time saved is extraordinary! <-- radio voice Scene looks grand. Not so sure about the pond edge though. A birdhouse instead of the branch might look neat too. Good luck!

Well, the idea is to have the pov be from someone (perhaps another bird) up in (or up near) a tall tree some distance from the house. I know how to do DOF using postwork ... but I rather thought it might be nice to see what Bryce did with it. I've done the distance render and gaussian blur thing to death and wanted to compare it to the Bryce version. I didn't want to make the house too big. It's all done to scale, but I did make the bird much smaller and moved him to where he should be (very near the forground tree). POV is about 30-40 feet up in the air, so a bird house would have to be on a really long pole. Pond edge is ivy and other greenery ... what are you "not so sure" about, MuddyGrub?? More info please.

Hiya. Well it doesn't look natural to me, perhaps because of the blur.

Lets talk composition with your DOF lol... Bird is the focus, so everything else should take a backseat. Yet you've placed several subjects in full view which, to me, tends to make it more of a distraction. As an example, here's a cropped version of your scene. To me this has just as much impact as your original, and also tends to help with your scaling problem. On the other hand, if your intention is to have both the bird and landscape the focus, then perhaps DOF is inappropriate.

Let me know if you disagree. I like to learn too!

No ... I don't disagree. I see what you are saying. I think I'll do it both ways. One just a plain render (no dof), and the other with dof and cropped more or less as you have it ... although with the dof corrected, the leaves on the right will be more in focus.

This is the first time I think I've seen a Bryce render look like a miniture model, it looks like a scene from a railroad model garden, it's truely unbelieveable how you did that. I mean this in a good way, it really looks real, although the bird doesn't, does that make sense?

LOL!! I would think the bird would look more real than my house and garden, but, hey. The house is a boolean model ... the garden is set of terrains that I textured to look like a little flower bed. The flower garden was really easy, and I'll have to do another tutorial about doing that someday. I'm not surprized that it turned out looking like a railroad model. I've been building HO scale models (mostly of Victorian Houses) for years. Here's the original render from my gallery.

I don't know if this is your problem, Ricky, but to render DOF without it being grainy you have to set the rays per pixel on at least 64. Any lower, and it will look grainy. The same is true for soft shadows.

Rays per pixel at 64 or more. Will do. I'll try that on the next render. Thanks, tjohn.

re. the boid - I have a problem with where it's situated in the image - it's directly in line over the house. wonder how the pic would work if the pov was moved so the house was slightly out of the frame at the left, so the picture didn't look quite so complete and enclosed? The composition seems a bit stiff, might be interesting to make it a bit more 'tunnel-ish' Re the pond-edge, I was searching back through the messages yesterday, and bookmarked this thread http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=107&Form.ShowMessage=1625181 because it looked so useful :)

Ya know...it's really strange. As I looked at your original image, I got this funny feeling. I don't know how to explain it but I love it! It made me very happy, calm, and at ease. Thanks, Ricky!

is it just me or is the bird like HUGE?

I love this........where did you get the bird?....I've been looking for a desent one for ages.

The house is really nice. I think once you adjust the the size of the house versus the bird it will be a great picture. You matched the lighting from the DAZ bird to the Bryce render perfect.

Bird is up near camera ... house is far away. However, bird has been made a little smaller. Bird is from DAZ and is part of the D/S alpha version free download. Will work on composition, cropping and all sorts of stuff when I get back (have to go to Irvine for the day again). Thanks again all!!

btw..if you got Daz|Studio, and don't have any Daz characters, look for Sara, who's free, but not all that realistic..but free..;) You can check back issues of 3d World, Digit, Computer Art for Lo-Res Mike and Vickie..;) should get you started.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=592933&Start=1&Sectionid=2&filter_genre_id=0&WhatsNe

Eh ... ended up doing the postwork DOF using masks. The render time with a 64+ ray depth was just too killing.