Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=801768&Start=1&Sectionid=2&filter_genre_id=0&WhatsNe

Hi guys..I've gotten to a plateau, at least in terms of Bryce. I'm ok, but I haven't gotten any better for awhile. I look at Rochr's stuff, rj100's, Dracs, etc. As near as I can figure out, one of the main things seems to be detail; sharp edges, crisp details, etc. I know it can be done with Wings models; I've been trying smoothing and hard edges..atmosphere off, Caribbean Clear sky (no clouds), simple mats, etc.

So what makes a Bryce pic get that extra realism?..if you could do this pic over (and better), what's the secret?..bonus points to anyone who could do this while standing on one foot..;) appreciated..

Message edited on: 11/02/2004 20:21

Lighting and... Lighting... Err... Something like that. Adding a really high freqency bump with a low strength setting sometimes helps too. Also don't worry about making everything just one mesh. Seems that a lot of the pros just quit worrying about whether one thing passes through another and just go with what will look cool in a render. Sure, sometimes it seems a bit lazy - but it works. (Spaceships and buildings with a lot of doodads sticking from them seem to be built this way.)

The sword, as much as I can see, looks like a fine model. The background tile is heavily pixelated however and detracts from the scene IMO. If it was my sword, and I had spent so much time lovingly adding details, I would spin the sword at least slightly so that it does not look quite as foreshortened. It looks like there is some cool detail on the pommel and grip, so I would cheat it more toward the viewer so it could be appreciated.

First, we all know, there is no sharp edges and straight lines in the geometry of this world, doh :P We all sometimes forget about this, it is a fact, lol!!! I had to change that way of seeing things, and I think, that's what made me to make a next step ! :) Second, there is no absolute smooth surfaces, everything has a bump of some kind...I use SANDY preset on almost all of my bumps when it comes to metal surfaces, wood surfaces and leather needs to be photographic or photo+procedural combo, procedural textures in this case are simply not the best answer, period, or my knowledge of DTE really sucks, dunno, lol ! Third, lightning needs to be more then default Bryce scene to make that more real look ! Since lightning is so important I will dedicate whole paragraph to it, hehe! This is what I do: in the case I want soft shadows I almost never use Bruce sun, I turn it off and create point light(radial) so I can control amount of shadows and ambience more accurately, light dome of some kind is a plus (if you dont mind waiting for days, even weeks) Since I do network render, I usually use some kind of lightdome (no more then 32 with soft shadows on) with object somewhere inside it, or even outside the dome too, depends which one I like better... Next to that is a image based lightning (HDRI), I almost always use it, with light or a dome outside of it or inside, again, depending what I'm gonna like more, that gives it an exra realism too...I have in my B5 library 6-7 different lightdomes and couple of HDRI spheres I like the most and use in lot of my renderings :) And, finaly, fourth is the postwork, I always do some color postprocessing on my images (KPT6 is my favorite) and add some Glow effect as a final touch, then crop, frame it and name it and ready to go! That's it, hope this will help someone ! :) P.S. I never use DOF as a render effect, I rather render Distance Mask and play with DOF in 2D application ! :)

stick that sword inside of a cube then add 3 or 4 radials ( 3 radials in a triangle in front. 4 radials up and above evenly) real low setting 3 to 5 and the fall off set at none. See what that looks like. can also change the ambiance and refration of the cube for diff affects. give it a shot. the pic in the link everything looks to uniformly lit. my 2 cents for what it's worth

One of the things I just discovered is really simple. If you look at just about any photograph one thing that is in every one is noise. Sometimes it is hard to see and sometimes it is obvious if you know what to look for. CG images don't have noise. A Terragen image was recently posted in the realism category and one of the postwork items was noise. Before I read that I wondered what the artist did that was special. Postwork a little bit of noise into an image and see if it looks more realistic, more like a photograph.

The background material distracts, like Danamo said. Would you try a material with a very fine weave that's barely visible? It also looks very flat. Is it meant to be chainmail? The lighting is very harsh, maybe darker/more subtle, with bright flashes added in postwork, or a bright light reflecting from just one bit of the edge? Maybe do two renders, one with reflected lights, one without, then layer in PS and erase all reflections except here and there? Lovely sword.......might work if you set up a scene where it looked like it was casually dropped on a pile of chainmail, rather than hanging in mid-air?

Hey thanks..hmm..well, to be honest, the sword was 15 minutes' work..;)The pommel and crossguard are just extrusions; the outer edges made hard, the inner edges smoothed. I chose the 'plane' mat mainly for contrast..it could have been anything. I just wanted to have the 'details' of the sword made clear.
One thing I'm seeing a lot of here is Postwork..I don't have Photoshop..but do have an old copy of Photopaint I got with Corel..it's a thought..I'm sure I can sharpen (I've done it years ago..just have to find out which of 299 dang presets it is..;), noise, that's a possibility. The 'greeble' thing in a previous post might be worth a shot.
As far as modeling is concerned, I've never been the one to slavishly make everything out of a cube(well, this time,anyway..;)
Some great ideas folks, I'll have to try them out. It looks like the point looks fairly sharp, but the blade towards the guard and pommel looks too smooth to me..
Lighting..good idea..I do use that on occasion, especially blowing up primitives and placing the action 'inside'..thanks again to everyone..see, even the old-timers ask questions sometimes..;)

Pakled...I finally hit something that looked realistic in the lamp pic I did, a number of folks thought it was a photo. The only thing I did differently in it was to use a light dome. I am starting to think lighting is THE key to more realistic looking renders.

Lighting is crucial IMHO! Texturing next. These can turn a good model into a stellar image! Attention to detail and sufficient detail.

Late as always i see... As most people already have pointed out, lighting and textures make the big difference. In this case, i would go for some highres image textures. As for detail work... What i usually do when creating my environments and want to have more detail, is to try copying some of the existing objects, flipping them in all axis, pulling/streching them and see if they get a new cool shape that looks good with the rest of the stuff. Dont worry if they get embedded in an other model. As long as the render looks good, it works. Postwork and color corrections can also make a huge difference, but when it comes to detail, youll get a long way by randomly adding smaller existing models, sticking out here and there. Not sure if these last things were asked for though... :)

I was thinking more along the lines of 'look around, notice all the little things there are in reality, it's not just a table, it's the mail, the keys, the books and all the other stuff on the table that we don't always notice' sort of detail that makes a scene. Visual complexity yes (this covers what Rochr was sayig too), but composed in such a way as to be natural and still allow the eye to see the focus of the image.