Here it is, ladys and gentlemen... I first done a first version of this picture, and tried to render it in Ultra Mode. The estimated time of rendering was 120 hours, plus antialiasing time... I saw picture during rendering, and the more I looked at it, the less I was satisfied... I ask to my wife. She had a wrinkling of nose (is that real english ?) and she told me it wasn't really good... OK, I started again, I worked really hard on it and...

Here it is !!! :-)
OK, now, before I put this scene on my gallery, I want to have your true opinion.
Do you see something to tweak, change, modify, add, replace, etc... ?
I really want to know what you think about it... :-)

Not one thing could I see needs to change, like you little lights. Sharen

Very nice Bop... I can see you also have your wife as judge :) I looked and looked and there is not much I can see about this image. The 'dust' looks very convincing. I like the lighting around the skin where the dust is falling. Maybe you could add some reflection of the dust particles above the water. Also... since your sky and moon have a tendency towards green, I would try to add a point light, above her left knee, at shoulder height. Give it a soft intensity and a slightly green color. This could add some contrast to the warm lighting of the dust and some echo of the moonlight. Finally... I am not sure what the snake has to do with the scene. My guess is that she is Eve... am I right ?

I don't have any thing to say other than this is one terrific image!! BRAVO!!! :) Irene

Hey Bop, this is a great scene.. A scene doesn't have to mean anything, just what it means to the viewer, so I think the snake adds a sense of mystery... I would just suggest in photoshop, use the rubber stamp tool to get rid of that bad bent joint at her knee... Poser doesn't like extreme limb bends... But other than that, hey you got a great scene here...

Fantastic lighting, especially around the trees on the right. Nice pose, too. Why so long on the render though? Are those tiny little lights set to cast shadows? Great first picture, and thanks for remembering to set the "nudity" flag on the image. :)

heyas; this is beautiful, bop. the trees came out gorgeous with the backlighting, and the flesh tones of your figure are so soft and warm! she's so smooth and even her knees and elbows aren't crinkled -- did you do post work on that? the snake is very subtle, but subtle is good. the ONLY thing i would say, is get that bug off her knee! it looks awful itchy! :)

O.K. "bop" here is a true opinion :

I think the whole scene lacks a bit of depth and atmosphere.
There is no real connection between the main scene and the
background, they look like separate layers.
This is mainly due to the fact that the moonlight has no
effect on the woman - as well as as on the water.

To create a more enigmatic atmosphere, you could reduce
a little bit the ambiance lightning. This would also
emphazize the nice light effect produced by the shiny
particles.
Besides, the shiny particles could be used to disclose "selective" :)
parts of the body while the others would remain
in the shadow...

Hope it will be helpful :)

Eric

120 hours?? Then what I'd suggest is a bit of touchup in a paint program to break up the "same-ness" of the sparkles that form vertical lines in too distinct fashion. And any other changes -- use a paint program! I can't imagine anyone wanting to do a 120 hour stint two or three times, yikes!! Oh and lest I forget, this is a nice image, Claude! Her pose looks excellent. I think I'd prefer more blue in the sky rather than green, but that's only a personal preference. You've done a very good job here. :)

OK, OK, OK... Well, I know that was what I asked to you, but there's always something hard in accpting criticism... But, I want you to know that it's a great gift from you to say me that my picture was not as good as I supposed... (I hope you understand what I mean : I asked your opinion and I'm pleased, even if I thought that my picture was good, that you gave your true thinking about it, to me !!!). Thanks for all your comments. Now, in detail : Agiel, Tradivoro and Bloodsong, about the snake : in fact, there was an intention behind the snake, but this intention was not clearly assumed. There was, effectively somthing about Eve, Agiel, but it was something beyong that. It was something mysterious and deeply symbolic, like the 'Remember that you are mortal' thing (I can't remember the term for that in art !). Yes Bloodsong, this snake seems to be subtle. It was supposed to be more subtile. i had a problem : my screen was settled darker than it should be. But when I looked at this picture at my work office (and not at my house) I was unsatisfied about that... it was supposed to be more subtle. For my next release of this picture, there will be more elements of this symbolic mystery but they will be more subtle... :-) Agiel again, and Audity : yes, there is a problem with lights. The thing you pointed is the light from moon. Yes, it was a perspective problem : the left trees were supposed to be closer to the character than it looks, masking moonlight. It's not convincing, I agree and it will be changed... Audity again : I agree with you, there is a problem of 'layers' between character and background... I got some ideas for fixing that, but it needs a lot of experiments... One more thing : there is absolutely no ambiance lighting !!! And yes, your comments (and oghers) are REALLY helpfull !!! Agiel : I'm confronted to a Vue problem. Reflective materials doesn't reflects lens flare, and all particles in my scene are lens flare... I must find something to fix that... :-/ Tradivoro : Yes, I will fix the knee problem with a little photoshop touch... :-) Varian : A little operation in Vue will fix the 'sameness' problem in the sparkles Another thing about your comment : I prefer that green-blue color for the sky... I hope you will not hold rigour (is that real english ?) about that ;-) Bloodsong, MikeJ and Varian : 120 hours was for Ultra render of the first version of this scene (that I won't make you the insult to make you see... :-)). Yes, all the 365 lkghts required for this scene are set with 'cast shadows'. But with Final mode (the image posted), it takes only twenty hours to render... Bloodsong : no postwork, guy ! ;-) MikeJ : you knocked my fingers about the 'nudity' flag for the very first version of that scene while I was playing with the Vue De. Even if I think that the Vue Forum Users are sufficently matures to support that kind of nudity, I respect the rules of the forum... :-) For all the guys named above, plus Sharen and Irish; I'm glad that you liked this first picture (or I supposed you do...) and I really hope you'll like the next release... :-) Wow ! Long message, but I have in heart (once again : is that real english ???) your opinions and that picture represent a lot for me... thansk to you all and I wish you the best for year 2002

Still though, you could probably do an Ultra render in less than 20 hours even, if you took the shadows of all those tiny point lights. You could get the necessary shadow effects from only 1 or 2 invisible point lights. That's what causedd the enormous render time, because Vue has to calculate shadows for each and every light in the scene, and in Ultra, it does far more calculations than in Final. I bet if you took the shadows off those tiny flare lights, you could do an Ultra render in less than 7 hours. Unles the render is really big, I don't see any reason for it to take that long in Final, if the shadow-casting were removed from them. Just a tip for future projects.... The reason I bring it up is because those lights are so tiny, their shadows won't be having much of an effect on the scene, and all their doing is eating up render time. The lens flare will still look the same, too, with or without shadow-casting. This is really a very charming picture. :)

I like what I like, and I like what I see!

bop... glad you don't take the comments too personally. That's what I like about this place. BTW... the art term you are looking for is the latin translation : memento mori.