I noticed that some people in the Bryce gallery have great rendered images. I would think that all you have to do is adjust the rendering to super or premium, but the rendering takes to long and it doesn't seem to make a big difference. I also heard that people use a plug-in render. Is that true? Anyways whats the best way to render a image.

The only time you should select Premium render, is if you want some Depth of field or other effects. Dont actually think the eye sees any difference between default and super. Default rendering is enough for most images. Lighting however, can make a world of difference.

When using noisy textures super can make a slight difference, but I almost always use normal AA because I think rendering several days on one project is long enough. But if you like to render my 1.16 Gig scene then go ahead! I'll mail it to you. lol I don't know of a plug-in render for bryce sounds cool: 'Mental-ray for Bryce' or something like that

I guess lighting does make a difference, because when I think back I remember many images had multiple light sources and they looked great. But I tried once to render a reflective object with a dark background and multiple light sources, and it looked like it was lacking no matter how much detail I put.
I was trying to mimic some images that I've seen done before. A few I remember done by Clay. Is there something special that is done for close up images? Maybe if you see the one done in Clay's gallery you'll know what I'm talking about.

Also I heard that people render with a high resolution then reduce the size of the image. Does that work?

Well, im not even going to try copy one of clays awesome pieces, but often just a few lightsources looks better then 30-40 of them. Dont know if this is something similar to what youre trying to do. Simply dark polished pewter with 2 blue and one white lightsource. Its just a quickie, but adding some more lights might give you the wanted result.

Rendering with a higher resolution is a good thing if its for printing purposes. Reducing the size before printing will push the pixels together. However, for posting here its pointless.

Thanks for the help!! You guys cleared up alot for me. Also Rochr, for a quickie that pic is very nice.

I'm not sure what kinds of evil rendering times others are experiencing, but sometimes I sleep and that's when I render stuff. (grins) The effects AA options in Bryce 5 rock, you need only apply them to a complex scene with lots of transperancies and refractions. But has anyone noticed any benefit to the TIR settings? Rochr, did you use TIR on those spheres? I'm curious, I can't seem to notice any differences when using it or not.

Those spheres are just simple default rendering. Just wanted to give an example of what simple lighting can do. I also render stuff when im sleeping. The best way to go. Whats TIR anyway? (I suck with terms...)

Attached Link: http://www.bsmooth.de/BSolutions/#TIR

TIR is total internal refraction. You will only see a difference if light reflects around inside an object such as a diamond of an underwater scene etc. Check the link above to see the difference.

Ok! One learns something new each day. Have never used that one, only DOF. Thanx!