Included is a prototype render. The rocks in front of the lantern shall be removed, i think. The floor is too clean. Recommendations?

Most control - use an image texture, and layer on top of that a "dirt map", basically a texture that has been desaturated and contrasted up to be just basic values of gray.

Trickier - if you go with a Bryce procedural DTE .mat...I normally will take a bead over from my Diffusion (in the Value row) into an open channel, and try to choose a texture that will dirty it up. But, like I said, trickier.

*Recommendations?

*Way too dark here...........:unsure:

Agent Smith, Thanks!!  I've been experimenting with the two techniques you've mentioned and have learned some interesting stuff in the process. Now I have ideas for other projects. Thanks!

Bryster, yes, I am thinking that too. It is fairly dark. I am testing other options, mostly with the materials for the floor and the walls, attempting to fix them up so they will look better if there's more light. I'm also trying to soften the hard shadows coming from the sphere-light in the lantern. I'm leaning towards using more cone lights to lighten it all up too. There's a lot of work in that lantern (nearly 100% Bryce made (just the glass part is not)) and the Bryce 6 textures look great with it. I want people to see it ;-)

Btw, if no one has messed around with the primordial fire materials in the freebie section, I really recommend them.

Looks like a potentially great scene in a barn...  but I agree with Bryster it is a little too dark..  This is supposed to be a dark scene...

Most control - use an image texture, and layer on top of that a "dirt map", basically a texture that has been desaturated and contrasted up to be just basic values of gray.

As AS said.. this is how I would do it myself. Works well. Try Deviant Art for some cool images to use..

Nice looking scene you have going here. I as well agree with the image texture idea suggested for the floor. As for the lighting, like you suggested softening the showdows coming from the sphere light would  help alot. Have you thought about maybe using a caustic image on the sphere light or on one of the cone lights you may add, I  think this may help out your lighting a lot. BTW nice job on the lantern.

Could someone give a down and dirty little tut/explaination of this technique or point a link to one somewhere? I'd love to see one.
thanks :)

I'd approach it pretty much like this:

• Take photo's of wooden floors, particularly try 'n get shots of one or more planks. The result will be best if the photo's are taken from as much a perfect top-view as possible.
• Then cut out the planks in photoshop or a similar app.
• Next use the transform tool to transform the cutouts to rectangles each of the same size.
• Arrange the planks in a tilable pattern, the more planks u have the more visual variation your texture will have.
• If you want tho emphasize curvature of planks or such (like on old floors) you can do this by overlaying some gradients to darken the planks towards the edges a little etc.
• Make darker lines between the planks, but make sure not to overdo it. This will divide the planks a bit more visually if neccesary. If your program supports it try and make these darker lines in a seperate layer so you can re-use it easily in specular and/or bumpmaps.
• You can tweak the colortone of the planks with some filters and such as u see fit.

The result will be your basic color texture map!

For a bump map I'd make:

• a 50% grey layer
• add some noise
• add some motion blur along the length of the planks
• add some more subtle noise (for some extra subtle grain on the highlights)
• blend a greyscale version of your plank color map
• add the black line pattern
• tweak the overall contrast and/or brightness as you see fit.