OK... I havent done ANYTHING with this render, except taking it down in file size. It's Eve, Sclabbers pose, Alice hair... the rest is mine. So, - all the initial flaws on my models are quite apparent!! I've modelled a lake prop, - with a rocky area surrounding it, - and the little waterlilly prop too. QUESTIONS Water.. I've used one of my tricks from the old Micrografx Simply 3D.. making the water... layers, - of course. But... the reflective layer underneath the semi transparent doesn't work in Poser???? How do you guys do water in Poser?? How do I best do "water postwork" in Photoshop?? I realize Poser isn't Bryce... but how do I make the rocks look at least "a little" realistic?? Britt PS... would anybody be interested in a lake prop and waterlilly prop??

I've read somewhere that reflection maps and transparency maps don't work together... so.... how??? I've layered the water, - and I've tried to apply a reflection map to the layer underneath the transparent one. Do I need two different props?? and then place the reflection map in the middle of the other layer?? Pretty please with (king) syrup on! Britt

The free stuff has a few water props, as for doing it yourself, one of the experts here might be able to help.

:) Thanks beryld! I used to be able to make pretty decent water in Simply 3D. But Poser is fighting me!!! (uh... read... I need to learn more!:) So I'm hoping that one of the experts might be able to help. This render is done with the "fall light" in Poser...

lighting from Poser.. Looks a bit better... so I guess I have to just keep experiminting with the lights??

Lighting is a factor, as are your material settings. I'd recommend increasing the brightness of your Highlight and Reflection colors. Also, a bump map could be used to add ripples to the lake surface.

Reflections and transparency can work together on the same material. In fact, most people have problems because they work together (trying to make part of a mesh invisible, but the reflection remains).

Interesting to say the least... This is the same light set as the previous, - but reflection and highlight set to max. Hmmm... I had no idea it would make such a difference. Will work with the bump tomorrow, and play more with the light. Thanks a lot! :) Britt

this will make a great picture, keep at it! got no suggestions, you're finding the answers quite well! :) it's nice to see you try to do as much in poser as possible so you can reuse the scene without having to do massive postwork in ps for each render.

To make your rocks more realistic, find a good photo of rock surfaces and reproduce at a high resolution, then apply to your model. I find a picture size of 512 x 512 too small to work, but 1024 x 1024 works well. And if you have memory to spare, and time to render, 2048 x 2048 is awsome!

Try this "roughsandstone", and the following "limestone" textures. If used in combination, I'm sure they'd help. Both textures were found by browsing the web.

Here's the limestone...

And try this for the water texture to add a little more realism...

Picture should be great when finished, its looking good. Nice waterlily.

about the first image, I loved the lighting! how did you do it (I want it! I want it!) :-)

Beautiful composition Britt. If you can apply a spherical map to the rocks it should help. You will need to revolve it until the distorted bits are hidden. A box map applies different areas of the texture to adjacent polygons if they are facing in different directions. This causes the "angular" result in the render.

Empty lilypads. No frog. No prince either. I hope that she is patient. Or likes frog legs. Otherwise, nice image and concept, and I hope that you get the water problem solved.