Working on a knight scene with the new Knight Armour and props set I just bought. I am showing being graced by God. The scene needs more. Please provide any comments or suggestions. The floor was the high frequency wall texture in Bryce 5, but the lighting did weird things to it. I rendered this at premium settings with all settings but "depth of field" set. thanks for help jquest.

Nice! Floor looks cool as well, I love it when those "weird" things happen like that. Maybe try just the hint of a wall behind him to suggest an interior more, something vague and half seen is the only thing I could suggest. Excellent work.

Change the floor! It looks goofy some how. Go with a stone texture of some sort.

What happened to the floor is interesting, but I don't think it matches the atmosphere that you seem to be going for with the subject and that nice lighting. Also, your knight looks as though he's floating a bit above the floor. Perhaps busyness of the floor is obfuscating what shadows there would be? Might be interesting to see the shadow of a cross (but not the cross itself). Or maybe the knight's sword lying on the floor next to him.

I agree about the floor - it looks like bad 1970s wallpaper and distracts from the knight. The light and the figure are very well done. Maybe you could add a couple of very dimly lit figures, or objects (church furniture, for instance). You've represented a remarkable moment in someone's life, a profoundly changing internal experience. You can underline the significance of that moment by lightly sketching in some context. A dimly perceived background suggests the external world falling away as your knight undergoes his spiritual transformation: no background at all suggests nothing.

Here is my second try. I have changed the floor, re-applied the knight texture, add walls and a figure of his lady in the background. Let me know what you think. I am also trying to do a version in Truespace. I will post my results with that in the WIP Gallery. Thak you for all of your wonderful comments and suggestions. peace jquest

If you have a program like photoshop, and you are not a purist (ie everything done in Bryce...) can do a mask render of the knight, then use either a drop shadow or perspective shadow, toned down - not so it is evident that it's used [:)] to make the knight actually appear on the floor... Eye Candy 3 was being giving away free a while back, not sure where, but a search here will lead you to the thread. Just an idea... Like the image, but always some tweaks, never ending. Best to you.

Actually, do believe it was already photoshopped... Did you render in Poser and import both into a paint program and composite - that would account for the lack of shadow cast from the figure. Did a nice job of matching the pov though.

No, it was completely rendered in Bryce. Only use photoshop to darken and contrast a bit. I think what happened to the shadow is that I had soft shadows at 50% on the spotlight. I then used Premiun rendering with all the settings selected (i.e. soft shadows, blurry reflections, blurry transmissions, true ambience) except depth of field. I think that cause his shadow to go bye-bye. Thats ok, I am going with the render i did in Truespace (over in the WIP gallery) instead. Thank you for all of your wonderful comments and suggestions peace jquest