Please don't say you hate it...it's been rendering for over 31 hours...LOL! And it's still not done antialiasing, **sigh** Anyway, I've discovered "I like Mike"! (woof! ;)). I just love the way the poser figures look in Vue. All they need is a little sheen to keep them from looking too flat. :) Laurie

Oops - forgot to mention: contains various DAZ stuff ;), Mike with just a tinge of a Boris morphing, some textures I'm beta testing for someone (Michael's Changing Fantasy Suit), saddlebags by cooler, and Bill's bass is one of the fish. It doesn't do it justice, I know, but I've just got so many ideas in my head at the moment it's impossible to implement them all at once...LOL. The atmosphere is one of Guitta's with a few slight modifications (thanks Guitta :)). The base of the image is actually my chemical landscape. I liked the way the ground looked so much I didn't want to change it. Laurie

Did a helluva job, Laurie, as I would expect. :) But, you know, the guy must be crazy for wanting to save that bass for eating. ever eaten a largemouth bass before? I have...let's just say, "yecchhh!". Unless he's keeping it as a trophy, that is. ;) Simply beautiful texturing on the horse, and the atmosphgere looks very convincing. I think Mike needs a little skin bump though.

Skin bump?! SKIN BUMP!!! Do ya really think? Oh boy, here we go again! LOL. Thank goodness I can stop and start the renders again...whew!! Thanks Mike...I'll see if I can't convert that bum file. Or maybe I'll use one of Catharina's...I think I have one of hers in .jpg format. Hmmmm. I have to say, I've never eaten a bass, small or largemouth. But the poor guy's a nomad - he may be starving to death! In which case I'd eat doggie doo as long as there's ketchup. LOL!!!! Laurie

That's a keeper. I can smell the fish already...

Hey, that looks fantastic... I still don't understand why it takes so long to render, but it looks great...

HA!...the first person I know to use my bass texture!....this I have to say :) Anyway, Laurie...the bass is still alive!...so is the trout/salmon! I saw its tail end flapping outward. How did Mike caught it? Just curious Laurie, what size is the file?...how many objects and lights and polygons? Curious mind wants to know because 31 hours is helluvah lonnnnnnnnnnngg..........! Conslusion : Great image!

Damn, looks like another image I'll need you to do wallpaper size for me ;D Excellent work Laurie, the way the lighting hits the foreground subjects is easy to not notice but is perfectly set up...just how it should be. Keep them ideas comming! Cheers

That image/scene is stunning, Laurie. Wish I could come up with something half as good as that. So please don't kill me for these two suggestions, just try'em out in lo-res, small-sized renders AFTER you finish the present 30-hour one, pleeeeze. #1 (Very small point) : Mike's right foot would be rotated outwards when sitting like that. You might want to try sitting like that, just to get a feel of it. #2 (Big point) : Yes, Poser figures look good in Vue, and they do need a bit of shine. But some fiddling with Vue's too-much-ambient light can make stunning differences. You might want to try settting the light to 0% ambient and create a second, no-shadows sun pointing in the exactly opposite direction to the main sun. By moving these two around the object (keeping them in opposite directions), and keeping the second sun subdued, you can achieve some very nice, form-modeling shadows. By adding a third sun pointing directly out of the camera (VERY subdued, no-shadows), you can subtly vary the color mood and general light/dark feel of the image - if that makes any sense. Have fun - and forgive me if I sound critical, it's meant in a purely constructive sense.

Laurie, you did a really fabulous job, I can't believe how great this picture looks. Let me ask you, the grass, how did you do that, is it a lot of the weeds on the ground? And why did it take so long to render, did you do it in Ultra? Whatever, it really is beautiful. You are really talented. Sharen

Just to illustrate - you can tell from the pix that I still have a lot to learn, but I hope it gives a hint about the power of lighting. Both pics are Posette, no tex map, just a Vue skin mat with a little (too much) shine. Atmosphere is "Daylight", unchanged on the first pic, using the three-light method on the second. Main sun has not been moved, just added the "opposite sun" and "camera sun" in the appropriate places. Render is Preview quality, no post except reducing the pic size.

I'd say you've gotten the hang of things! Glorious picture.

Heheheh...thanks guys :o). Who first? 'Kay: Mike: I think you are right about the skin bump...gonna try it :o). Bill: Glad I was the first to use your Bass!! And they "may" still be alive...he IS by the water ;o). There are only about 16+million polys (low for me usually), 2 lights, 232 objects, volumetric atmosphere with VERY soft shadows, 1.5% blur on the camera, rendering at 1024x768 @ 300dpi with User Settings - 12 Subrays per pixel, quality slider about where the word "Best" starts on the slider. That volumetric atmosphere, camera blur and user settings are what's making the render so long. I don't have a really fast processor. Only 700mhz Celeron and 384 megs of ram ;o). thip: I would NEVER kill anyone for making constructive criticism. I see it like this - no one is so good that they don't need criticism. For instance, I proofread a lot at my job. I'm good at it too. But when someone is staring at words all day, especially stuff they've read 3 or 4 times already, it's really easy to miss things...even obvious things. Those things may pop right out to someone else who hasn't been looking at it as much :o). It's the same way with images. Especially when you are the one that made them...it's really hard to see the obvious mistakes that someone else may see right away. That's why I put the picture here in the first place. So criticise as much as you like! I learn from that :o). And you ARE so nice about it...LOL! Sharen: there is no grass, only reeds and a few dry weeds :o). The reeds are right behind the figures in the water because they are right by a body of water :o). Thanks everyone for the comments....they really help alot! Laurie

Thanks Jilly :o). I'm a really "old" Vuer. In body and in the length of time I've had the program. Started with version 2 when it was the current version. And too, I'm an old lady and getting older every day...LOL. Laurie

Laurie, I just noticed the horses mane, boy you did a wonderful job on it. It really looks real. Sharen

Gotta give the credit for the mane to the person who made the texture...it wasn't me ;o). Wish it was tho! Laurie

Laurie, This image is beautiful! John :)

Thanks Laurie :) I knew there was volumetric invovle by the tone of the colouring behind. I'm having an image now with 1,297 objects, 4 lights and 40,701,289 polygons and wanted to do very much in volumetric but I guess your 31 hours really tells me a no, no...LOL!

The one on the left is Vue's 300 dpi and the one on the right I made from the 72 dpi Vue render.

I would not let that stop me trying I think Laurie has the quality slider set too high. I bet if you turned it down just slightly you would not see any difference and it would render much faster. Of course for her it's too late to adjust it now. I just did a test render. Amazing what ya learn by just doing a test to check the numbers. 72 and 300 dpi. Render times the exact same 9 mins 24 seconds. That should not be the same. So drag it into photoshop to check why. 72 dpi is a 5 X 7 inches 300 dpi 1.8 X 1.3 inches. That really never changed anything. If I just set it to print the 72 dpi at 300 dpi I would have got the same effect a smaller printed picture. The dpi in Vue is really not doing anything just changing the header. So I took the 72 dpi and changed it to 300 dpi and tooky a picture magnified 300 times of one if the lens flares. and took the same picture of the same lens flare that Vue says is 300 dpi and magnified it 1200 X. I think I'll forget Vue's dpi settings there useless. The picture I made would print 10X better than the one Vue made. Oh and it would still be 5 X 7 inches in size.

Here I made a new picture No magnification. There both 1 to 1. The one on the left is vue's 300 dpi and the one on the right is the one I made from the 72 dpi render. This is hard to show because of course Photoshop tries to make everything look it's best. This is a good as I can get to show a comparison.

Hey thip, why don't you put up the wireframe of how you positioned the lights... I think that would make it clearer for people who would want to experiment with that.. Thanks.. :)

Sorry Laurie I goofed your post. I should have put it in a new thread. I still like the fish. Ok final render. First one is Vues what they call 300 dpi. Which it is actually but at the cost of picture print size. The second one is a made up 300 dpi so you don't loose in print size. And the last one is a actual render so it will print the exact same size at 300 dpi. It's rendered at 1700 X 2271. render time 1 hour 18 mins 45 sec. Proving once again you can't get something for nothing. I was going to do it with a actuall picture but it's I think pointless. You can see what is happening with these ones as they are. By the way this is just the lens flare of a small dot.It's not the sun or anything.

Here I did it anyway just out of curiosity. I guess it all depends on how long you want to wait for it to render. Just a default scene same idea. Vue's 300 dpi, a made 300 dpi from a 72 dpi render and a actual 300 dpi render.

Laurie, it's excellent !

30 hour of rendering for a 1024 x 764 pixels image... Why ?
I'm definitely not an expert in VUE, but I've been dealing with little pixels for
quite a while now. So here a few advices :

using a 300 DPI setting instead of 72 DPI is useless. It won't produce
a better image. It's just an indication for printing. In fact, there will be
exactly the same amount of pixels. VUE will render exactly the same
image. 72 DPI or 300 DPI are only "printing" settings.

If you really want outstanding results use higher resolutions (i.e. 4000x4000).
Using more subrays per pixels and "best" quality anti-aliasing doesn't make very
noticeable differences. With a higher resolution, you get more details and
anti-aliasing becomes not even necessary. Anti-aliasing doesn't produce better
images, it only "hides" mystakes on low resolution images by averaging pixels.
You always lose details in this process.

The same image would have been of a higher "quality" with a "final" rendering
at 2048 x 1528 pixels. And for an optimum quality use 4096x3056 pixels with
anti-aliasing off.
Then, reduce the resolution to 1024x764 in Photoshop (or another editing software).
Modifying the resolution of an image always results in an amount of "blur". To correct
this, copy the image on another layer, apply a "sharpen" filter on it with the lowest setting
(if you use Ulead PhotoImpact try "focus" - level 1), and set the opacity (or transparency)
of this new layer to 50 %. Finally, merge (or "flatten") the layers.
It will gently rectify the bluring.

Even on a 700 MHz processor, the VUE rendering time should last only a few hours.

Eric

Wonderful work, Laurie! Sure glad you got your Vue 4! :D

Wow! I just got my copy of Vue a few days ago. Been sick with an asthma attack, so I have just read the guide - helped me fall asleep! I've been using Poser and Bryce for about six months. Just could never get the Poser figures into Bryce to look good, and couldn't get the background on Poser to look like I wanted, so therefore, I have migrated to Vue. Looks like I made a good choice! This picture is just fantastic. Can you tell us more about the textures you are beta testing for the changing fantasy suit? That and the Adventures are my two favorite outfits for Mike. Thanks! Peggy

You know I tried sharpen just to give it a try and it makes it worse. The data is missing so sharpen can recreate it of course. It was just interesting to me to try all the sizes to see what comes with them, 2400 X 3000 is not a impossible size to render so I guess If I ever need a good print I'll just render it. That will be 8 X 10 at 300 dpi so that's almost max size for my printer. 4 X 5 at 600 dpi. I thought the Vue dpi did something else. I don't need that option I can set the printer to do that already. I can tell it exactly how and what dpi to print at. From 72 dpi all the way up to 2400 dpi. It was interesting from the pont of view as to what is actually going on. Ya I know you can gain a lot by down sizing a image. 31 hours something is wrong man.
Well maybe not I think one I did took 5 days to render 1280 X 1024. I had the setting too high. It turned out of course but I could have rendered the same image at lower quality bigger and just resized it and I bet you would not be able to see the difference.