Attached Link: The Hideaway - FOR EVALUATION PURPOSES PLEASE

I have left the URL to an upload yesterday which is a complete flop so far as comments are concerned (like over 80 viewings and only 5 comments from people being very kind..) You know what it's like if you're commissioned to do something.. It becomes your worst attempt! I was asked to let someone know when I had made a picture using their particular product, so The Hideaway was my attempt, but not easy to do because I had horrendous problems with the Firefly rendering machine which basically would only allow me to render each person separately, or it simply didn't render at all! I tried the scene using P4 render and the results were terrible! (OK I will have to try some other settings in both!) As I am unable to see the wood for the trees right now, I would really appreciate it if people could give me an honest critique of that picture - what am I doing wrong; what is not good about the picture; what is glaringly bad? - you know the things that people don't want to see in the comment lines!!!!! I NEED TO LEARN! Please could you help? BTW that wasn't my first Poser picture - the last one I did got into the Hot 20! Also.. I can't afford to buy the clothes, so I am having to paint them myself - is THIS part of the problem? If so, what can I do to put it right? Thanks for any help you can offer, Nicky.

Hi Nicky, Although I hardly ever comment for improvement (you never know who's ego is bound to get bruised) I had a quick look at your gallery and decided I'd write some things that came to mind. I noticed that for the most part you post in the Fractal gallery. I know I don't have the time to look in all the galleries and I'm sure this is true for many so one reason for the fewer comments could be that people just don't know you that well yet in the Poser gallery. When I only get a few minutes to browse I usually go by what thumbnail grabs my attention or a familiar name. As for the image itself, one thing I noticed is the way the two characters are posed, they seem disconnected from each other, maybe if there was a more interactive scene with the both of them or if they were both focused at the same thing it would help to define the scene more. Also, a good way to create an atmosphere in Poser is to play a lot with the lights, you could give a more dramatic sense to an image, but you must make sure to use the same lighting if you're rendering the characters separately and to blend it well with the background lighting. Good lighting really helps bring out a character too. As for the cloth-painting, well, I'll leave that to someone else, I can't consider myself as having enough hands-on experience to advise you on that :) After having said all that, I really have to tell you that your fractals are very impressive and I like the way you combine them with Poser elements. I wouldn't fret about the comments as I see you're getting plenty of them on a regular basis, hey I've been posting renders here since '99 and I don't average more than 10 comments an image nor have I made the Hot 20 :) In the end, you're making your art primarily for yourself!

Okay, you want honesty, here it is... It's pretty darned good, truth be told. But I know what you mean, you want to improve it, so here are my suggestions, and I am by no means an expert... The woman on the left, with the black hair, could use some more light on her face. The shadows on her face are a bit too dark compared to the lighting of the rest of the scene, but understandable considering you composited the images. Also, her nightie is dropping through her body by her right leg. The shadow on her left arm is like the shadow on her face. I think you just need a light on the left side of her, and she will be fine with the shadows. The right side shadows seem to fit. Her right foot is dropping into her left leg though, you could move that out a bit. Actually, looking at it now, you should put a light on her in the same place as that globe in the picture. In the upper left corner, the translucent one with the butterflies in it. That looks like it will give the right lighting. The woman on the left has only one thing I would change. Her left foot drops below the scene. Her toes look like they are cut off. Otherwise, she is very well done. Overall, this is a great image. I saw the comments on it too. Given that you specifically said it's not your first image, it is strange that comments left say "great first image" lol. I really hope no one thinks I am trolling. I am just trying to help, and I hope no feelings have been hurt in the process. I know I have received some constructive criticism, and it has helped me greatly. Just trying to return the favor. Best of luck with this one. Please let me know when it's done. I would love to see how it turns out!

By the way. If you can afford it, grab Wardrobe Wizard from PhilC and Kamilche. This new, and wonderful, product allows you to convert clothing from one Poser character to another. It opens worlds up to interchange clothing. I have had it since Beta, and it is an incredible product. Check out PhilC.net for a copy. They even offer a demo copy so you can try before you buy! This may help you with your lack of clothing problem. In just the freebie section alone you can multiply your cothing. Even the latest e-Frontier newsletter featured the product! (It's only been out for a few weeks!) [I am in no way affiliated with the product. Just a rabid user!]

looks pretty good to me. I'd be estatic over 80 viewings..but then I'm not this good. Hang in there..;)

Attached Link: The Hideaway - TAKE 2

Thank you all so much for your input and private IM's too.. I have read and inwardly digested, and agree mostly with the suggestions made. As a result, I have done some more work on the picture and uploaded Take 2. (Maybe this time I should have called it Papillon!) As my Firefly Renderer just won't co-operate with me at the moment, I think this is about the best I can make of this picture, as really what it needed was to be rendered as a whole image. Bummer! Something to do with lack of free memory from what I can gather from other questions on that subject, although there doesn't seem to be a conclusive answer does there? Once again, many thanks. Nicky.

That is a great image!!!! Honest!!!! Of the 2, I preferred the first one. The second has too many black shadows that obliterate the fractal, and that fractal is too nice to block out with pitch black shadows. I have to agree with the others, the girls look to 'proper' and "put together". Also, they seem out of place there, like it's not their element. For some reason in my mind I see a mermaid sitting in that alcove, or perhaps 2 lovers cuddled up. I'm not great with lighting myself and it's probably the hardest thing for me to get right, even if I use pre-made lighting. It's just so hard to find the right direction, tones, shades and shadows. I would decide where the light was coming from.... front or back, and go from there. Excellent job, and an extremely gorgeous composition overall.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12365&Form.ShowMessage=2259908&Reply=2272077#36

Nicky, go to that link and scroll down to post #36. Maybe a change in your render options will help. Also, go for a smaller bucket size if you are having trouble. Sometimes I can render with a bucket size of 64, but mostly I have to pick 16 or 32..and even occasionally 8 in order to render something. A smaller bucket size takes up less memory when rendering.

I've been gone all day, but coming back and seeing the new image, I must say...WELL DONE! This version was much better. I think you captured the light much better here, and all body parts are in realistic space ;-) I like the highlights in the brunette's hair. Nice touch. And though I am not normally a big blond fan, that blond is beautiful. I think the key with her is the great job with the makeup. What problem are you having in Firefly? What settings are you using? Maybe if you post the options you are choosing, we can help you figure out how to manage it. As long as you have sufficient had drive space, and dont mind an annoying message about virtual memory, you should be able to get through memory issues with P6 and the patch.

Thanks so much Acadia. OK, Firefly has given up on me, but I have received some other ideas re rendering inside the P4 renderer, and they work wonderfully well - No pixels, No outline just perfect tube material!!! I'll let you know them if you want me to, but rather than complicate things here now, I'll leave out that aspect in this string. You sound to be happy with what you're doing for now, which is excellent news. Re lighting, hmmm... That's a really difficult area for me too! lol! I'm so grateful for all the help. Thanks. Nicky.

Hi Destro, the problems I have with Firefly are simply that for some reason, if I try to render something even slightly larger than my work-space area, it just either produces the top of an object and nothing else, or it produces something like 100 tiny images of a small part of an object! Or it just doesn't even do anything! I've not had any blue screens up yet, but I have felt all along that it's to do with memory just being sapped off. I haven't a clue how to change the virtual memory allocations inside XP, or the swap files etc. I have 1 GIG of RAM and a Pentium 4 with 40 GIG hddve of which just under half is still available. I particularly wanted to use Firefly renders for producing decent tubes without jagged edges, and then use them in postworking scenes etc. Settings have been.. Tick Raytracing and Smooth polygons; Min. shading 0.25 or 0.5; pixel samples 12; bucket size 32; raytrace bounces 4; post filter size 2, post filter type gaussian. Render to new window, usually about half as big again as original work area. Resolution 72 dpi. HOWEVER, I've now been given a simple formula inside the P4 renderer which really does work for me - I get a huge image, but the outline is perfect, and once I've done any postwork I want to do, I can then downsize her. This has really excited me! lol! So far I've only tried it with one figure, but the principle is to use 2000 pixels at 72 dpi, and I had antialias and production on, with first 4 boxes ticked. Meanwhile, it may well be useful to know how to alter the memory allocation inside XP... Thanks for your help. Nicky.

Hmmm, strange, but have you looked into using a gather node on the object? If you read in the Poser Manual about the gather node, you may see something that could help you. I have found the Mat Room to be my best friend now. You can solve so many issues by playing with the materials on an object and attaching nodes. I don't know how correct I am with this, but the Firefly engine uses these nodes a lot during rendering, whereas, I don't know if the P4 engine uses them at all. Your system setup should be fine. I am running a 1Ghz CPU with 1GB of RAM. I only have a gig available on my hard drive, so your setup should be just fine. My suggestion, do not play with the memory allocation in Windows. Windows does a great job with memory allocation, and it never does any good to play with it manually. Again, my best advice is to look at the Material Room to solve your problem. I got a great suggestion just yesterday with it. I had an issue where I thought the Raytracing was messing me up, but it turned out to be the translucence in the Mat Room.