Martin, your textures are awesome!!! The whole thing makes me wonder what gem you are going to come up with as your images are always so good :). Laurie

One suggestion, Martin. You might want to increase the ambient light setting on the material you've assigned to the wall, so we can see a little more detail. Hmm...also you might want to increase your camera's focal length. It seems just a bit fisheyed to me, however, you may want it that way. Otherwise, really very nice. I agree with you about lack of inspiration. Vue 4's got me all screwed up. 8D -SMT

Thanks Laurie. I'm really glad you noticed the textures as I did spend a lot of today on the wall and floor...and a lot of head banging trying to get it to look OK LOL! Don't ask me what I'm going to put beyond the wall, what I originally planned looked awfull :o( To prove to Varian how mad and sad I really am; I even placed the two seperate cannon balls in the cracks so they would not roll off the cobble stones ;o) Thanks again Laurie :D Cheers

Cheers smallspace. I agree with you about the wall, but I only have the one light in the scene at the moment, so it may show up a bit more once I have added the fill lights. You also make a good point about the focal length, and I have been trying to get a composition that looks right and that I am happy with. The objects are framed a lot better at 50mm and with some camera position adjustment but the lack of sky showing unbalances the picture in some way. I may end up moving the objects around a bit more, and see if I can come up with anything :D Thanks again smallspace :) Cheers

Woah...this is great. Excellent texturing indeed! "..what I'm going to put beyond the wall"...what about pirate ship in a distance sailing by? Now..how do you load and fire this thing? :) Since its a WIP, I presume there are other accessories for this thingy.

You bet there are going to be extras tesign :D. It's funny you should mention the odd pirate ship...or two ;) Now if I had Vue4 I could have some real glowing material for the fuse or explosion as it fires...see I can't stop thinking about Vue4! Thanks tesign. Cheers

LOL! Martin, you have Vue 4 on the brain! ;) But then, why should you be different than any one of us at this point...LOL! As for putting the cannon balls in the cracks...I think that it is a fantastic attention to detail that I myself always strive for (but don't always achieve ;)). Seems normal to me, not sad or at all nutty :). Laurie

Pheewwww! It's nice to know I'm not the only one Laurie...on both counts of suspected madness:D Martin

It's funny because the first thing I noticed about this was the cannon's wheels. For some reason they just looked a little too smooth at first glance. Then my eye drifted towards the cannon balls, and I did notice that they were securely in the cracks. Then I thought: "Think how much easier that would be to do with a shaded window, like the way you can in Poser...". So, obviously I'm thinking Vue 4 too! But I've decided that I think the wheels look fine and that brick texture is awesome! One of these days I'll hopefully start getting into these kind of texturing attempts, but for now i'm just mostly using Vue procedurals. And I agree, this pic is really coming along well. I'd like to see a ship out there getting blasted away! Cheers, Mike

Cheers Mike ;) I've got a couple of hours free to work on it now, so hopefully I can get some more done on it. Without looking at the file, I can't for the life of me remember if I have applied a bump map to the wheels yet...if not thanks for reminding me Mike :D As for the shaded window..."Vue4 minds" think alike Mike ;)) If you look really carefully you may find something else in between the cobble stones apart from the cannon balls:) Sorry no prizes for the first one to spot it:o( Cheers Mike...and thanks for the reminder. Cheers

There's something in between the cobblestones?! Is this a quiz? Oh nuts! I always fail those :(. Laurie

Cheers, would that be the weed growing there? Rich

No, it's a Spanish doubloon! OK, no prizes, but do I get to keep it?

Yes, we're all nuts. I haven't been able to do hardly anything, waiting for that next announcement. Yeah, I know it's still a couple weeks away, but I'm practicing being ready. :) Okay... * Pirate ships to shoot at sounds good. Of course, if you want to be really mean, you could put Ducky Wucky out there as a target. =:o * I agree that the "fisheye" is too apparent. You can still capture the same framing with a 50mm or 70mm, I'd bet. Switch the focal length first, then reposition the comera to suit. * Nice wall. Nice texturing. Something bothers me about the cannon wheels. Or maybe the entire cannon support. It looks very lightweight somehow, and I don't have a clue how that could be altered. Maybe a darker color for the wood? * I like the camera angle. Since the sun is so low, you might want to slightly tint the light towards orange or red for sunset. * A few more plants between the floor and wall, perhaps? So, lacking inspiration, you decide to cannonball something? Hm...I need to try out this therapy technique! ;)

I know what it is about the cannon wheels, I think. Didn't they used to have a layer of lead or some other metal to aact as "tires"? As for the "fisheye" effect, I really don't see it... ...maybe a "camera VC" would be in order soon?

A good composition, my only comments would be add more dirt, things are tooo clean, remember this is around a cannon, which fires with smoke and dust, etc..it might also be interesting to have maybe a hole in the barrel(wood not cannon) and some powder in a pile on the ground maybe....just some suggestions..look forward to seeing its progress! AND FOR VUE 4!!!

Cheers everyone for the comments. Rich gets the grand prize of nothing for spotting the weed, and mike can keep the doubloon ;) More dirt definately. The fisheye effect could be down to the map I used for the floor, as the photo was taken at a slight angle to the ground, instead of looking directly down on it. I will try to see if I can square it up a bit in PSP. Right, I'm back off to work on it again. Thanks again everyone, I like to be kept on my toes :) Hopefully I can have another update for you during the weekend. Cheers

Hmmm...I had nothing to start with, I won nothing, so now I have...two of nothing? I do like the pic, but I think the weels used to be made out of cast iron (went to alot of old forts as a kid). Rich

Btw Martin, since yor gonna be at it again....just a small comment that may not be valid...its the canon body and barrel texture. The more I look at it, the more it look like artificial semi gloss plastic trying to imitate wood just like some toys and household tools handle. Not sure if you have that there. Basically, it need a more matted yet semi gloss metallic feel and that should be no problem for you. I was thinking of Anton's birdie perching at the tip of the barrel, head title down looking in....LOL!...and more on the walls and one or two on the groung pulling out weeds. Have some more small flowering plants among the creacks and call this image..."Peace In Spring"...just kidding :)

2.30 AM in the morning and I'm off to bed, start on it again tomorrow. Axe, I have just added some more detail to the wheels, in the form of a metal surround, which has improved them a great deal. I have sorted out the fish eye effect, and also added a new wood material to the body :) I'm not sure about the barrel texture also, but I keep reminding myself that they are usually made out of bronze, and then it does not seem so bad :) I think that the texture may need darkening down a fraction, which may improve it. Thanks again everyone for all your imput, it's been of great help :) Cheers

actually they weren't made of metal were they, I thought it was a wood with a metal coating on the bottom of the wheels, i don't know, wood wouldn't support the cannon that well...so well anyway, keep up the good work cheers....

Hee x2!...reinvent the wheels...give them Knobbies tire so they can run on off road too...LOL!

I'm sure that when all is said and done, this is going to look like a great historical picture... Another opinion I'll offer about programs like Vue and Bryce is that, it's not real life, it's a computer program, and I like that surreal quality that these programs impart.. Things don't have to be dirty, or "real looking"... They can look like art, which is always an approximation of real life, but more importantly, an exercise in self expression... Ok, I'll shut up now... :)

Just in case that wasn't clear, I don't want anyone to be upset and calling the SPCA or anything. I was just kidding about Ducky Wucky, honest! 0:-)

Too late Varian, he's already in my sites and....whoops, sorry twitchy fingers..left a bit of a mess I'm afraid ;) Oh, it's alright, he has had ducklings with some bird over the spring period, and they have just swam into Vue4 from around the headland :D Cheers

==:o

I totally missed the ducky wucky post... Hmmmm... :)