Of course it's not as good as kiki's work , but I can learn... 19h rendering time with vue 2.1, PC933MHZ. Sword and shield are mine (made with spatch), materials are default from vue, but I tried one thing to improve the look of the objects under lighting. I saw that in a recent magazine : I have added a half-sphere around the scene, with an image on it (image from the Lord of the Ring , Rivendall council or something like that). This image is under a spot light with high power, and is reflected in the different objects (although it's blured). It's an important thing to obtain photorealism (even if I am far of this objective). Your remarks are welcomed, Yves

Both of your models are spectacular and the whole picture is really great, I really like the tile floor, it really brings the whole thing together. Sharen

Looks very good Yves, and I agree cmpletely with what Sharen said. Is this an entry for the challenge this month?

This looks wonderful...the colors and textures look great, and you did an excellent job on the models Yves.

Excellent work on both model, YL !!! I used spatch, and it's a really good app, even if I had a lot of system crash with it... :-( If that can help you, have a try to Anim8or, another 3D app, as easy of use than spatch, but with no crash and a lot of more modeling possibilities. For the picture, try a little brightness on you mosaue (I can't remember the right english word, I'm french !) floor and a little bump. That's the only problem to my eyes... Continue this really cool work ! (Errr... maybe put your models on sale, or on freebies could be really cool, no ? :-))

Neat, love the runes[?]on the sword [my eyesight ain't as good as it ought to be].

Many thanks, I will soon put the objects for free on my website (even if I am not so happy with the design of this site). MikeJ : it could, but no, since it was not really my first idea :) Bop : I'm french too. "Concernant les mosaiques je ne suis pas trop content car le motif est ritif". Difficult to say it in english. I agree with more bumps, maybe it's due to low level of light in this scene. Forget to mention that material of the ground has been found on internet Jilly : yes there is runes on the sword. It's a shame that they are not readable , I agree completely (I keep the secret concerning what is written) But so many work is needed to reach, if possible, the art of kiki... Yves

Wow - I like the modells and the colors very much - great light! Bernie

Yves, beautiful work and the work does convey a sense of mystery....

Yves, I think the goal is not to reach anyone's level, it's to be pleased by the act of creation and sharing a unique point of view on things ("arte e causa mentale", like this good old Leonardo used to say...). For the mosaic, the problem is not the repetitiveness, but the flatness... a little reflection, aded to the bump, could really make something good. And, concerning Anim8or, I wanted to give you the link for downloading it (I forgot to say that it is 100 % free) but while I was typing, the idea flew... It is : www.anim8or.com En attendant de mettre mes mains sur ces petits bijoux, bonne continuation pour tes crtions :-) (for others, I said : "While waiting to put my hands on this little jewels, continue this good work...")

I have used lot of other modellers (free :) ) with more or less problems with dxf import : - hamapatch (seems like spatch) - Openfx - Amapi 4.15 - Amorphium 1.0 (I continue to use this one for "organic" models) But recently I found that the less problems I had was with "spatch", I don't know exactly why. I will try anim8or, thanks you Bop for the link and the suggestion. My goal in 3D rendering is photorealism, but I know that it's very difficult to simulate with Vue. Kiki is a master in his style, I don't want to try to do the same work, but I would like to improve my knowledge in Vue, to ameliorate my pictures :) Yves

Attached Link: http://membres.tripod.fr/chess3D/

You should find it on http://membres.tripod.fr/chess3D/ , but please don't report any remark about the bad design of my site :) When you will be on the thumbnail image, please choose "save target as..." with a right click mouse. Bye Yves