I have seen my self blind for improvements because it has been a nightmare to finish. It was a problem to combine the roman soldier and the city together. But I had to have him in the image because of the time spent on him.

There has mainly been a memory problem, though with 2GB, which I built a new PC with recently. I was thinking I would manage to deal with any thing I would put in to the scene. My wish was that I could render in GI, but it chrashed all the time. So, I had to stick with the best Raytracer settings and flipping forth and back from my PC to my Mac.

The image has been compressed down to 100K.

you could probab get the size down furth if you stuck with 800x600 dimensions... it looks good, but i think your lighting needs work..its washing everything out a bit too much..your figure is hard to see..maybe change your perspective and get in closer to him..maybe more of an over the shoulder perspective from him looking out over the city... very nice image overall...

This is great! I really like the atmosphere and the city and roman soldier are excellent. I've never been that impressed with Carrara's clouds and sky setting but you've managed to come up with a convincing image.

I like the composition and perspective....but cropped, just a little below the horse's hooves. Take it down to that portion that fits on 1024 x 768 and it works. The lighting is washed out. Perhaps roll down the ambience -- or is that all from a light shell?

Thanks, your comments that means a lot. Lighting is something I have thought about, but learning about something that is better before I do the render would be great. But please lead me to something better. I managed to do a GI render of the city alone. That looked better. I'm not sure the excact meaning of washed out. Do you mean it should have been more light? Is it blurred? There is no ambience just a three point. Sun light at 143% with some color, view angle light/key light at 29% with less color and right fill light at 4% with almost no color. I have thought about a "over the shoulder cut" too. I just have to get it out of my system for a while before I try. The PC almost went out the window.

Sorry, I meant: Your comments means a lot.

Good 'ol 3-point lighting, eh? If I was designing these lights I'd make the sun the keylight and make that the strongest light there...put in just enough base and fill to give visibility. Perhaps a special on the soldier so you can see him better. I think you get more awe and mystery when the buildings are backlit and the details shrouded in shadow. And -- I'm not sure how to do that best within Carrara -- it gives you option to glare those highlights a little, give the light that special quality of sunset through the dust-filled air. So far very impressive. Already looks nicer then my stuff!

Nice Picture :-) Would i suggest to increase shadow quality maybe to soften them more ? :-) I have probably the same memory problem that you, when 'too much' memory is in use by Carrara (even if moe physical memory is available than what is used by Carrara). This should be corrected in the upcoming patch of Carrara, and i'm dying for it :-(

very nice image,the roman soldier looks perfect in this image.:) i have some memory probs too,i have 1 gig of ddr ram and 2,4mhz but depending on the settings it is horrible to work.

Message edited on: 07/23/2004 15:25

Both good and bad to know about the memory issue. Good that it was not my pair of rams, bad that it actually is a software problem. Looking forward to that new patch, though. Making this in GI, I believe could make the lighting easier.

I'm thinking about the problem if you had to make a real photo shot, the soldier would then only be a silouette and the city would be under exposed. To have measured the light for seeing details over the city would in that case have over exposed the sunset. ... I think. I find this lighting difficult.

But thanks again everyone!

Message edited on: 07/23/2004 15:45

The Light and Shadows on the buildings make no sense with a single Sun. The placement of the Sun would make much of the City in a very dark, maybe black shadow. This could be offset a bit, by the use of point source lights (Oil Lamps, candles, torches). This is a valid Critique, no matter what application you use. Otherwise, it is a very nice render.

Yes, I know. Thats why I had hope to be able to use the GI render with only the sun light.

If it keeps crashing on GI it is probably the interpolation factor, turn that off and it will finish the render. May take a long time with the complexity of the picture.