Firstly, I would like to apologize if Drac thinks I jumped the gun by starting this thread a day early. As I understood him, the render I posted here on his behalf was his final and I was therefore not expecting him to suddenly produce an updated version. Drac knew that the last day of this was 30 September. I agree that perhaps I should have given him a heads-up, but then he could have mentioned that he had an up-dated version he wanted to use. However, I hope nobody thinks I was trying to gain an un-fair advantage, I wasn't. Reference Material: Yes, I had quite a lot of reference material on the the subject, but ALL of it was free and readily available on the net. In fact, there are only a very few sites out there to choose from. I was also helped by the fact that one or two of you guys posted ref pics to help this project along. If Drac did not see these then what can I say? I didn't get anything from other/non-internet sources. The Virginian material Drac mentions is sadly inaccurate. Some of this stems from the fact that the Crystal Palace was moved from its original site in Hyde Park, London, to Sydenham, Kent - as it was back then - in 1852/3, where it was greatly re-designed. The reference pic we agreed upon shows - I believe- the North Trancept and clearly shows that the arch window had 14 outer segments - count them! - and was supported by 9 window sections. Drac's pic shows 12 outer segments which is true of the other arches, but not the one we were using. The roof was made up of glass strips seperated by leading - something Drac missed altogether. The Victorians were also well aware of corrosion and painted their structures, which is why a lot of my structure was given a white texture. That said, this was a challenge between Wings3D and Bryce. Could Wings create on demand something as complex as the Crystal Palace. Obviously it can! And at speed, although I honestly feel that it has a problem with curvature as Drac's CP Roof shows. But Bryce is more than a match despite being hampered by slow render times and becoming unwieldy when faced with huge file sizes. Of course I used Booleans! But not as many as you might imagine. Multi-rep played a large part in my work too. As has been pointed out, many projects need to be completed in a hurry. But I'm with the Hare and the Tortoise analogy here. I'm a slow-coach who doesn't do this for a living. I spent a lot of time trying to get accuracy rather than asthetic quality. I beleive this paid off in the long run. I note that Drac has conceeded defeat (See post 40) I think he has been very gracious in this. I hope you all agree with me here. Thank you, Min! In accepting 'victory' I have to say that I hope everyone gets something out of this. It's been fun pushing Bryce to the limit and showing what can be done by a simple 'landscaper'. Drac's insistance that Wings3d is a great modeller is more than borne out by both his version of the Palace and the amazing work he has done both before and after this challenge. This to the point where I have d/loaded SILO, a prog not unlike Wings and have started to experiment! I will be uploading a special page on my website soon that will include Drac's, Brycetech's, Frogdot's and other versions of the Palace as well as other views of my version. I hope that's ok with those concerned. I would like once again to offer my thanks to everyone here for their support, their encouragement and their votes for both Draculaz and I. It's been a fun ride. Thanks also to Brycetech and Frogdot for getting on board too. And Drac, my young Padawan! One day you too will be a Jedi Master! Specs: 303mb file size. 17,345 objects. 12,869,099 polys. 13:40:07 rendertime. I've also posted a larger (wider) verison in the Bryce gallery. Regards The Bryster

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All the Woes of a World by Jonathan Icknield aka The Bryster

And in my final hours - I would cling rather to the tattooed hand of kindness - than the unblemished hand of hate...