Thought I'd share a picture that I probably won't put in the gallery. (Here comes the shamless promotion...) But there is a slightly larger (and more painful to create) version in the gallery. Here's the thumbnail.

Of course, it could just be me, but i find that the light glinting off the ships makes them almost invisible to me. Even after seeing the version in this thread i had a hard time seeing them in the other version. At first, i didn't see either of them. I thought, how could this be a pursuit without the ships? After actively looking for them, i was able to see them. It took longer to find the one in the back.

Well, they are going really fast, so easy to miss. You mean the lights on the roof?

I mean the big, honking, glaring flares, the rays of which radiate out over the bodies of the ships, cutting down on my ability to make out their forms. I get that they're in high motion and are blurry for that reason... which is more of a reason to make sure they're easily readable otherwise. Know what i mean?

I accept what you're saying. Once I decided to go the Blade Runner route, lens flares became important to me. One version even had beams coming from the lights, which looked more like the movie, but even I thought that was too much. SO I stuck with 66% lens flares. They also hide the lack of modelling detail (as does the blur). So here's a version with the flare layer (and probably other bits of post) missing. I really think it loses something. Maybe there's a compromise somewhere between the two.

bank the camera!!! :)

Tried that. Mandatory trick for this kinda picture I think. Didn't like it.

lol mandatory trick... i never thought of it as a 'trick' anymore than your posted motion blurs...

:-) One of the first things I always try is to bank the camera. (Trying to emulate the heavy weights here) As for the motion blur, anything that hides my laziness is a good thing. ;-)

I agree that it loses something. The ship in the back is pretty much lost. I was thinking along the lines of something in the middle, mysef. Perhaps the lights you talked about but then eliminated. I think that might be helpful (as well as a little more light on the ship in back) to make each one noticeable (via the contrast of the lights against the surrounding darkness) and yet not obscure our view. How does that sound?

Both ships are added in post (actually it's the same render). SO the lighting isn't consistent with the rest of the scene anyway. If I render again using this theme I'll try something different. To be honest, I don't mind losing the ship. I didn't go into it with the view to adding any ships at all. The title was to fit what I ended up with. It was a toss up whether I put them in at all. The city was the original star. Anyway, all in all I'm pretty happy. I think it's one of my better renders.

Ah, post. Ok, i give. I love it anyway, i was just sharing my experience, for whatever it's worth. It's a beautiful image.

It is a great render, and I like the design of your city and the ships. I think the post works well for this pic. FWIW, I spotted both ships right off.

Good. As always, it could just be me. Thanks for chiming in with that, danamo.

Lol, maybe it's because I'm an animation and SFX hobbyist so I automatically make allowances for blurred moving objects, particularly if it's in a still. Unfortunately this ability doesn't always translate into the "real-world".