Ok, I'm cracking my knuckles coming up with the scene for the new challenge... Anyway, I'm barely into the starting the scene and I'm getting this line... I'm using vue2... Anybody know why I'm getting this line... Any info appreciated... thanks...

Actually, what I mean to ask is: how do I get rid of it... :)

good grief! is that a horizon line guys? I didn't start out with vue 2 so don't know if that is one of it's quirks or not.. but I wanted to comment on that wonderful looking seafloor (or lake floor or whatever). That is really a great start!

additional question: how do I get more detail in waves in the water?? Actually for that matter in the whole scene... Seems to me like it's blurry... I tried rendering at final and it did nothing to improve sharpness?? Any ideas??

Hmmm... not so sure I know what's causing the line across the center, because I've never seen that before. It's definitely not a horizon line, that I can say for sure. Does it happen at all camera angles? Detail in the waves in the water can be gotten by altering the function which is applied to the water material you're using, which incidentally might also be causing the blurriness. For the blurriness, check to see if "blurred transparencies" is turned on. But back to the waves: the various functions are tha key to all Vue materials; you can adjust the scale of the material on all three axes, or each one individually. You can adjust the entire production of the functions....there is literally no material which cannot be created by careful editing of the functions... On this particular water, try applying the function that the sand material is using. Under "bumps", right-click on the picture and select "load function" (or "edit function" if you want to get fancy and add multiple functions). Then apply the "undulating furrows", found in the category of "layers", and for the amplitude, set it at about 8.000. This'll give you a decent starting point from which to begin fine-tuning, if it's higher, "wavier" waves you're looking for. At least that's the way it works in Vue 3... I can't say for sure how Vue 2 approaches it all, but I'm figuring it's similar, if not exact. If you try what I suggest, and it doesn't work, or the names for things are different, please let me know. I hope this has helped at least a little. Cheers, Mike

Not sure about Vue 2...may be you want to check your fog and haze setting to nil.

Attached Link: http://www.ethervizion.com

did you render to screen or disk? there was a problem with a black border in Vue 2, and it got even worse in the Vue 3 beta, but then it got fixed. things to try: 1. render to opposite of what you did (disk/screen). 2. here's the interesting one: if you render to screen, *after* a full render pass has been made, open a window that covers the entire render (like windows explorer or something), then close the window. the render might take a bit of time to repaint on the screen, but, there's a good chance the line should be gone. let us know what happens

Well, Mike I'll try to fool around with all those parameters later tonite and see if I can get a sharper view to both the water and the ground... Karl, I tried rendering both to screen and to file and I get the line... I'll try that open window/close window business and see if the line goes away...

Thanks for the feedback on the seafloor Diana...

Diana's right; it's looking very good! I get a line like that (typically in white) when I've got haze on, even a little bit. Try setting the haze to absolute zero. Check your fog and make sure that's zero too. Sometimes with fog, you also need to adjust the height setting so that it's nonexistent. There is also another setting in the Cloud panel, something about amount of haze in the sky; make that zero, too. Catch all three of these, and the line should vanish. :)

Ah, but here's the rub Varian... :) My understanding of success in an underwater scene is exactly utilizing those two parameters... The way I understand it, and you can correct me if I'm wrong or if you know of an alternative way in Vue d'Esprit, the key get a convincing underwater scene is getting the sky right.. Part of it is using colors like green and deep blue in the haze and fog parameters and that you should have the haze and the fog high to get the murkiness of underwater... This way, as you look in the distance, things should dissapear, just like underwater, after about 25 feet or so, you really don't see beyond that... So, I have the haze and the fog settings very high, and as you can see, it does create that murkiness... So, in light of this new information, is there an alternative method to doing this in Vue d'Esprit... I come from a Bryce background, where this works very well, but it may not work well in Vue... Any info appreciated... Thanks...

All is not lost, Paul! Keep the haze, (doublecheck that you're using a suitable color on it). Then check your sky map -- most likely you'll have some white at the horizon (far left on the color map). Remove the white and alter any additional colors of the map to suit. And...hm...that should do it? :: crossing fingers! ::