The Alchemists' Nightmare is a WIP (forsooth), which I'm using to learn about transparency maps. They really are quite clever, though, I feel that it should be possible to achieve more than I have so far. For example the glow inside the cloud of noble elements could be more realistic, more ethereal and mist-like. "Cloud of noble elements?", I here you say. OK, for those who are not so familiar with medieval history, I'll give a brief explanation, the rest of you skip on. Alchemist's were scientist/sorcerers of their day, they thought they could turn less valuable materials in to more valuable materials by removing the dross. The Alchemists' Dream was to be able to turn lead into gold, and thereby make a tidy profit. In the Alchemists' Nightmare, he has started with an already valuable block of silver, hoping to get a headstart - but things are not quite going to plan. The lightening bolts from his hands were really easy: take a cylinder or cone, make a UV map, with UV mapper, or Super UV Mapper. Paste on a picture of lightening (3d Cafe), mess about a bit to scale it and position it over the UV mapped area. Make a copy for a texture map. Make another copy as a greyscale pic, use that as a trans map - make sure all the non-lightening parts are true black. Apply both texture and trans maps at 100%, voila! The cloud of noble elements leaving the block of silver was done with basically the same method, as was the candle flame. The cloud is actually two layers; the same object scaled down and positioned inside the first, like a Russian Doll. (Hey, now there's an idea for a nice project: a semi-transparent Russian Doll, going from baby to old Babushka; anyone interested?). A trick I learned for trans-maps, is to always make sure you use a layer of solid black, on to which you can paste your cuttings or do your painting (it can be made transparent whilst you do this, of course). Maybe, that trick is obvious to you old hands, but I'm just learning the ropes. However, if you can suggest a way of getting the glow to be more realistic, I'd be happy to hear from you. If you have a poseable wizards' cloak that you don't mind sharing, I'd be happy to know about that too! Any suggestions for improvements? Happy mapping, IsaacNewton.

Realistic cumulus clouds are the holy grail. The so-called cumulus mode in Bryce skies are merely broken-up stratus.

Ah, so I'm not the only one to hit that problem. Thanks for the tip. IsaacNewton

Might I suggest generating the cloud in Photoshop with the Clouds and Difference Clouds filters, then mapping that onto an object in Bryce/Poser. Also, I'd either tone back the eyelashes or map them to something grey and hairy to match. I initially thought it was Vickie in drag (no dig at the pic, it's cool).

Vickie in drag, is it? Teehee :) You're right of course, I tried to make him look older than 18, by using some age morphs from Morph World (thanks Trav.) but without too much success, obviously! Maybe I should try altering his face texture? Re the clouds, what I actually did was copy some clouds from a cloud picture, but I'll look into your suggestion, thanks. IsaacNewton

You can get some interesting sunken cheek effects with Poserguy by dialing negative values (but I forget which). Zygote's age morphs for Vicky/Michael are cute but only etch grooves and 'puddle' eyebags, which could probably be simulated with bump maps. I'd go this route for your wizard.

Thanks, duanemoody. IsaacNewton