The particulars; standard glass preset, nothing special, only 2 radials, default sunlight, standard render 800x600(I enlarged it so you could see better, sorry for the size))....

Does anyone know what's causing the lines in the stoppers, and in the one decanter on the right, it shows up in the drape as a reflection with lines also, I'm stumped...

Render time;14:58:37

I wish I could be a bigger help but all I can tell you is I have had this problem occur a few times as well. It usually happens in scenes when I use lots of glass objects with really high quality render settings. I'm pretty sure it is a bug with Bryce...

Polygon edges? Have you tried with smoother meshes? And the thing on the backdrop is quite probably caustics.

Try plop rendering the areas with a higher quality setting (consider blurry transitions). Doesn't solve the why, but may reduce the effect. I notice that the drapes have a bump on them that has a linear element (there are lines on the drape above the right hand decanter sample) and I wonder if the bump mapping is having problems with the refracted light through the decanters. You could prove this thought by switching off bump on the drapes.

The only time I've had something similar with glass was when I had softshadows set on the radial and my fake HDRI sphere wasn't hollowed (remember that old thread?). I've not tried to rerender with a hollow sphere and never did solve the problem, so turned softshadows off in the end.

Caustics, hmmmm, really? I do have the decanters smoothed, not alot but maybe they need more.... Okay, I 'do' have soft shadows set in the sky lab and on the radials to reduce the 'black shadow' effect on the drape...that might be it Some will be offered in my freestuff and others in my store in Bryce obj and obp format, and I wanted the promos to be accurate...another try is in order... Thanks guys!

I doubt they're caustics, although they look like it. The shadow that they occur in is from the ceramic vase.

Nah, it's not from the vase, but a reflection of light from the leftmost decanter. Or better to say, refraction light from the leftmost decanter. The prism effect.

That said, Zhann, have you tried increasing/decreasing the TIR?

Just one thing: Damn typos. Won't even bother deleting and correcting for the second time. Aaargh!

We can each assert our own opinion till the cows come home 8o) the way to find out is to put a solid plane between the decanter and the theoretical refractions.

I'm not suggesting this to disprove you, Erlik. I'm trying to suggest that a way to narrow down where it's coming from is to use a solid plane to either prove or eliminate possible refractions from any decanter, to find out if they're coming from a particular angle or are a render bug or something else. No offense intended.

As soon as I saw the image I said Sun Soft Shadows! I've had this happen many times. Turns out that the setting for the sun SS doesn't get saved with the file. So it has to be turned back on everytime you reload and you can't leave Bryce or the scene until it's through rendering. Nor can you batch process it. You can still pause it though. A quick way to check is to make sure it's off and do a plop render - I bet it'll go away. If not, then I don't have a clue. btw - I've stopped using Sun SS altogether partially because of the above problem and also because the SS effect level is fixed at 100% soft. HTH; D

Now that I've had some time to think about it, I would have to agree with Erlik that the problem might be solved my changing the Total Internal Reflection (TIR) setting. It is difficult to say which way it should go especially since I don't know what you have it at currently, but if you have the time try it with a really high and then a really low setting and see if there is a difference in the problem areas. If there is I'd love to hear about it because a solution to this problem would be certainly be useful to myself and others.

And , yes, SunSS is on.....as to the TIR, well, I don't have a clue, how do I change it? Starting a new render with Sun SS off.....

Hmmmm... Interesting problem. I've been trying to replicate it without any luck. Turning on and off 'Soft Shadows' for the 'Sun' doesn't give me any trouble, nor does turning on and off and changing the settings for 'Total Internal Reflection'. In each instance a bottle with the Standard Glass material renders properly for me. Is there anything else in your scene besides what is seen in the render? Anything at all besides the two radial lights and the camera? Did you double check the glass material or try a different glass material? Seems to me that I had a similar problem to this once and the only way I could get around it was to bring all my separately saved objects into a new file and resent the camera and lights. But I could be remembering that wrong. The ideas that 'Soft Shadows' or 'Total Internal Reflection' settings could be causing the rendering error sounds plausable, but I somehow have trouble believing that either would be the only cause... however, I really don't know. It certainly isn't caustics. I'm look foward to hearing what you find with regard to the cause and solution to this problem. Hope you solve it.

Wait a moment... If you are using the 'Standard Glass' material then why does your glass have a slightly rippled or cloudy look to it? This kind of looks like you have applied a texture in the bump channel for the standard glass material. However, the bump texture is mapped to the decanters in such a way that it appears as striations (sp?) on certain sides or surfaces of the decanters. If this is so then it is just possible that those striations could be causing the striations in the shadows as light does or doesn't pass through them uniformly. Just a thought. It could be totally and completely off base, but I thought I would through it out there. :) If the glass material doesn't have a texture mapped incorrectly then something else is certainly wrong with with the way the entire glass material/decanters is/are being rendered and it is carrying over to the shadows.

Zhann, I still have a feeling that the bump on the drape terrain may be having an effect, are the linear marks on the drape part of the terrain or a bump in the texture?

No bump in the drape texture, smooth as a baby's....well you know, the terrain that the drape is composed of is relatively smooth there are no horizontal lines that I could find on inspection, and it doesn't show in any other render of the drape, I do believe it is light going thru the decanter, but I'm not positive, and when I use the spray can to see that area, it doesn't show up either, it is so weird .... hmmmmm, okay give this a thought, the version of Bryce on the machine this was rendered on does -not- have the patch(so I can work in the DTE without crashes), by some wayyyyyy off the wall chance could that be it?

Zhann, have you rendered these above without AA? Cause that ridged decanter looks like it has problem with mesh, especially around the lip of the neck. The others, too. Ditto the one with the glass material. Also, the curtain does have some pixel blocks. Approximately in the places where the refraction is visible in the topmost pic. Also, the shadow of the twig looks like it has thin horizontal lines. What about the material of the drape itself? Did you turn off Interpolation?

I tried again to see if I could recreate the problem your having by setting up a scene as close to the one your using as I possibly could. Still no luck though. I'm at a loss to find a reason for the splotchy, striated, and overly pixelated render. (I'm using Bryce 5 with the patch.) After continued close study I'm convinced that the rendering problem is affecting your 'entire' scene and not just the decanters, shadows and curtain. I can see traces of the problem in 'every' object within your scene. I still suggest saving out the individual objects in your scene and bringing them one by one into a new file. Try a quick plop render after bringing each object into the new file and before bringing in the next one. I bet this scene file renders exactly the same with or without the decanters in it. Not having the patch installed could possibly be the cause, but I would try things like changing your radial lights to spot lights before installing the patch. Also try change the position of the lights and the sun a little. (The patch causes Bryce to crash on you when you work in the DTE? I've never experienced crashes of that nature in either Windows NT or XP.) About the decanter polygon meshes... The render of the decanters with what looks like the default gray material applied to them has me worried becuase the decanter on the far left is rendering with black areas typical of a mesh with missing, reversed, or otherwise tangled polygons. Even though the decanter has a complex shape it should still render in the same smooth grays as the other decanters, which look ok, and should not exhibit the black, splotchy areas. It is possible that this is the rendering problem showing up again and not a problem with the polygon mesh, though. Try removing this decanter from the scene and fixing the rendering problem before examing its polygon mesh for problems. Also, as Erlik noticed, the last two renderings you have posted here look as if they were rendered without anti-aliasing... and yet, your screen capture of your Rendering Options shows that you have Regular Rendering Quality Mode with Anti-Aliasing selected. Is this a sign of yet more rendering trouble I wonder, or did you actually use the Default rendering mode without anti-aliasing? Damn, I really wish I could be of some help with this problem.

Well, I'm doing two more renders of the scene, exactly the way it is except for the left radial light has been decreased, and I switched the vase with the one decanter(the twisted one, it wasn't smoothed before the screen cap), and I'm doing it on two different computers with the same settings...so we'll see The render options shown are for my custom Bryce default scene, I replaced the original one that came with Bryce with my own, so they are that way no matter what I start with.... I'll post the results when the renders are done....one other thing and I don't know whether this would affect the render or not, I minimized Bryce and did other things while it was rendering, it never has affected a render before but maybe something did...