Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=631303&Start=1&Artist=Blog&ByArtist=Yes

Well this is my current effort at photorealism in Bryce. A slight improvement over my previous WIP post. I added a lot of detail to the blade of the knife, and used a more detailed texture for the body. I'm going for true photorealism here, I'd really like some focused critiques on ways I could improve this aspect.

Hate to mention it because of all the obvious effort you've put into it so far, a great render, but you did ask. The handles appear to be intersecting a little bit. There, I said it. :^)

You might be right Tjohn.... but to me it looks like that is just an illusion caused by the shadow.

No, I'm fairly sure they are intersecting. :^) I hope you don't mind my demonstrating my point on your pic, Blog.

Looks like it.....Excellent render tho too...

The appearance of intersection may be a result of the extreme camera position/POV/FOV arrangement. I'm noticing the condition of the blades - as for me, I've only gotten them to look like that by prying open stuck paint jar lids or using them as throwing knives... so having said that I guess they look 'experienced'.

As for the intersection you are likely right, they likely are intersecting a bit, I figured it looked reasonable though. But now that you point it out with your demonstartion tjohn (thx for the diagram btw) I supppose they likely are intersecting quite a bit more than I might like. As for the condoition of the blades I created them by making hieght maps from an actual scan of the blade from my reference knife. Maybe the bump is a bit too deep though?

I'd say yes on lowering the bump. It just looks too grainy to me.

Yep... I see what you were seeing through your diagram Tjohn...8) Thanks for the example. None-the-less..... I really like this image Blog. 8)

Aye, it's a cool render! The only thing that bugs me is using RPP madness as a "technique"... Patience would yield a more realistic result.

Well the truth is shadowdragonlord; I wasn't trying to use "RPP madness" as a "technique", my computer is only 800mhz and Bryce's processor based render engine easily brings my system to its knees. I pretty much have to use a low RPP out of necessity, if this were a final piece I would likely spend the time to render it with high quality settings.

Aye, blog, I didnt' mean to imply anything awry about ya, I understand there are definite processor limits we ar all dealing with... Which is why Bryce 5 is so scalabe in the first place! Imagine if it FORCED 256 RPP on every effect, all the time! Still, it's a cool subject you tackled, aside from it being for the challenge all I can say is that doing the Depth of Field in post-work might yield better results, without taxing your PC so much? Much of my work I do while I'm AT work (heh heh), on a Pentium 2/266 with 128MB of PC-66 RAM. Amazing, truly! I can't even install Bryce 5, so I run Bryce 4 and do all of my work from a conceptual standpoint, then load the scenes onto my SmartMedia card (64MB) for my camera, and take them home to Bryce 5... Patience, as always, is the key...