For a while now I've wanted to do an image for this song:  [www.youtube.com/watch](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_ePqMy6zF4)

It sounds very beautiful and I really suggest you listen.

Anyways I've been kicking around ideas on how to do the image and playing around in hex with it as a back burner project.  Today before the Phins-Jets game started (what a 4th quarter) I finally decided to do the image.  The land part was mostly made and the rock I worked on today. 

So I'm messing around in poser and I have settings turned low but since I normally don't do that good of work I'm not expecting much.  I started with the river mats and after a few failed attempts I look up one of BB's examples in Acadia's thread and adapt it to what I'm trying to accomplish (that part didn't work out as well as it could have, but it was better than my original so I let it go).  So I fiddle around with the rock mats next, copy them over to the rest of the land, tweak them, and then bring back some of the tweaks to the rock.  Then I quickly add in the clouds and play around with them. At the last minute I add the trees and that stone obelisk, crank up the settings and viola. 

In the end, I really liked how the land and the rock turned out and how trees meshed nicely with it.  I had to soften the water and post-work it due to poke through, but for me it seemed like I did a better job than usual.  I'm going to be adding a version with the song lyrics to my gallery tomorrow, but I just wanted to share this original version.

If you guys have any images of personal triumph, something that was a pleasant surprise, or something you feel was better than your normal output, feel free to share them and why you felt they were so good.

No such luck here.... I always seem to fall short on what I think I should have accomplished vs what I really made.

:(

*Do you ever have images that turn out better than expected?

*No, but plenty that turn out worse than expected!!

I think I have a 1TB hard drive full of images like thefixer's :crying:

I am a tweak freak even when I have something that friends might say wow. It's like writing fiction and over editing which I am guilty of. I am never satisfied and always experimenting and changing things to the point I can ruin what was a good image!

Sometimes but they're usually very simple scenes where I didn't expect much more than a test render.

I go into a planning phase if I have a particular image in mind.  It will evolve as I set up and change as I get closer to final fruitation.  The ones that surprise me the most are the unplanned renders with no forethought what so ever.  But again there are dozens that are down-right atrocious.

:) I have yet to plan an image...
Everything I do is hap-hazard & spontaneous.
Although I have surprised myself just about everytime I get a render without crashing Poser.

I don't plan my images either (they just sort of "happen"). Most times they do come out better than I expect, but not nearly as well as I'd like ;o).

Laurie

I wish...

Every time I get a vision in my head and try to bring it to life, it never turns out like I'd envisioned.  And often it just gets scrapped, because I can't get it to do what I'd wanted.  If I don't scrap it, I usually just end up adjusting my vision to meet my limitations.

Then other times I'll just be playing around with a new toy or three, and out pops an image that surprises me.  I love it when that happens.  Seems the more I overthink my images, the more I sabotage myself.

every now and again...but i have low standards...;)

Actually, if I could make a good thumbnail that was under 15k (grrr...;) I'd be happy...;)

"I usually just end up adjusting my vision to meet my limitations."

Beautiful! That's my new catch phrase!!!

Quote - I usually just end up adjusting my vision to meet my limitations.

I think that's a large part of what being an artist is being about: learning to get your art into a state where you can live with its deficiencies.  Usually you have realistic limits on what you can do or resources you can devote to a piece so you have to make tradeoffs.

I had this one, kind of funny story. Modeled the whole thing in Max and brought it into Vue for rendering. I was trying to correct the scaling issue in Vue and was scaling the obj up, well as I was scaling the obj file up in Vue it also made it go up into the atmosphere...I didn't know that at the time. So I took a render and as you can see the Crossroads are sitting right up in the clouds, totally by accident...I thought, "That looks awesome!"

Maybe it's just me.

 Actually.. my latest pic in the gallery kinda "just happened" like that.

The story: I was rendering this room, trying to igure out why it made my Poser crash. Finally got it to render, and while I still had it in my scene, someone asked a question here involving Bong. Well I had Bong so I loaded him into the picture to see if I could replicate that other problem. I couldn't but now that he was there.. I thought I'd do a pic of him on this lovely reflective floor - so I used one of the poses he came with, tweaked it a little, and...: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1960062