This is my second picture, and I was just wondering if I was making any progress. My first pict. is in the Vue gallery. SO please help me and tell whats wrong with this scene.It is just an abandoned castle at the end of a road being over grown with ivy.

An excellent picture!! I think it looks fantastic!!! Bravo. :) Irene

I'll tell you what's wrong with this picture, it's not big enough... (just kidding)... Actually, this is a nice picture.. You have a nice perspective thing going on, and the road texture where it meets the grass is also very good.. The pile of leaves on the road is very nice touch... all in all, this is a very realistic scene, not unlike something you can photograph in real life... I would have likd to have seen more water in the brook/moat.... But that means you'd have to change your camera angle and screw up the scene... So, it's fine as is...

Maybe you could spread around some weeds or grass blades? I'm not really sure which version of Vue you're using and what plants you have :). I always like to add lots of scrub to my landscapes. You may want to add some little stones or pebbles to your road too so that it doesn't look so flat in color. Also, I would use some soft shadows and maybe turn the ambience on the sunlight more toward "sunlight" on the slider to deepen the shadows a bit :). Laurie

This is a very nice image. Maybe you could try to soften the shadows a little (2%), but beware render time. It's longer. Otherwise I like this image, it remembrs me a place where I have een once. :-)Guitta

Wow, I think it looks great.....maybe something behind the castle.....hmmmmmm....no never mind it looks great. Sharen

I like it, too. On the other side of the castle seems to be a high cliff above an ocean....amazing how much "detail" there is in the portions not seen by the camera! :)

Thanks everyone for your comments. I still have alot to learn about lighting and shadows. As LaurieA suggested I have I hope improved the testure of the road and added more weeds and bushes. I'm still not sure about how to get the softer and deeper shadows, as LaurieA and gebe suggested. LaurieA, I am using version 4.01 with no extras yet. Gebe, what place does this remind you of? Varian, you are soooooo right about the cliff behind the castle, and actually my best work is still off camera. Maybe I should try a pict. from the back side. Still, let me know what you think and if anyone can come up with a name for this scene let me know cause i'm still undecided.

Great new texture on the road...

Looked nice before, looks nicer now :-)

where did you get the grass material ? Is it in Vue's library ? thankx Nir

Nir, I guess you're asking about the texture on the road. I found it somewhere on the net at a free texture site. It looks like a real photo of dried ground with some grass growing. I'd like to tell you the site name, but in rushing around to find a texture and try it out, I didn't bookmark the sight. If you want the texture, I can e-mail you the jpg file. All other grass textures are from Vue4.