Its very dark ;) I don't think its all my monitor settings either....how about some bigger sand dune features and half buried buildings etc....

It is very dark, but that could work if there were some small light sources close to the ground around some of the machinery. Plus some textures with ambient details like windows on the structures would be good. This would help give you more of a sense of scale, which is what this is missing. Adding something detailed in the foreground, like a mountain top, a thopter, or a piece of one of those buildings close up will definately create more depth and scale. Physically increasing the size of the terrain and the models also helps. Think of the camera as the size of a man's head, increase the scale of everything until it is in proper proportion to the camera and things start to look more real. You've got a good start here, all you need to do is tweak and fine tune it to make it a great image. I'm a long time Dune fan too, I've read every book. So if I like it, you know you're doing something right. ;-) Long live the fighters!

It's a very nice pic. I like the terrain. It has an other-wordly feel about it. I agree with Alleycat about the sense of scale. I think what it really needs is a focal point to attract the viewer's eye. Those two buildings to the left are the obvious choice, but they're too dark to be seen. Some windows would make them stand out. And if the light coming from them was blue-ish, it might be a nice contrast to all the red. Rubycon

Did you have gamma correction left on when you rendered? I found that when I rendered pics with gamma on, they would tend to be way too dark when posted online. Once I learned to shut off the gamma correction, my pics were much more viewable by others. It's a good pic, but it's so dark it's really a strain to make out the details.

I actually turned it off for this image. I turned it back on and re-rendered, and got a lighter pic... not sure whats goin on here, but maybe my laptop shows it brighter then my desktop. Gonna post a re-done image tommorow. : )

I like it, but I think a major component is missing: shadows. Without them, the structures and some rocks look weird...

When I had gamma on, the pics looked lighter on my own machine, but were much darker if I posted them and then looked at them with a different computer, like from at work. I'm not sure exactly how that all works, but since I now keep gamma turned off, I've had no more complaints about my pics being too dark from people who view them. I need to learn more about this myself.