Hi all... well well well! Derjimi and I have finaly decided. This month challenge is " Atlantide Golden-Age " meshes import is allowed ( if necessary) but no post-work except for JPG and copyright or name. Try to show off the atlantide city not only a detail or character... Hope you all like this theme based on imagination. Good work every body Best regards Pidjy

Grrrrrrrreat! Let's go to work! :) Thank you Pidjy for letting me suggest some details. I think with this challenge theme and rules, a wide variety of artist can and will join and create wonderful images. Looking really forward to the first submissions... Have fun, everybody! Take care, Jimi

I'm not deciding it - but I would say that importing of textures and grayscales ist no POSTwork... Postwork is applying effects or filters after rendering the scene in a program like PSP or Photoshop as I understand it. Regards, Jimi

When I Say post-work... I mean work after render.. such as light effects or image import in photoshop... working or importing texture is of course allowed! to be clear... 2D pre-render work is allowed.. but not 2D post-render work LOL.. hope it's ok for everyone! let's GOOOOOOOOOOO!

yes jimi that's it

Uh... he deleted his post? What for?

Sorry! I wrote my question in the wrong way... :) I know what postwork is...really :) What i meant was if 2D-pics and /or texture imports were allowed. But youve already answered...

If I'm understanding this correctly, this month's challenge is a depiction of the city of Atlantis in it's highest acheivement (golden age). Right?

yes i think 'Atlantide golden age' needs some explanation

yes Aldaron you said it exactly.. a vision of what could be the city of atlantis in it's highest acheivement... exactly! ( sorry for my poor explanation due to the limit of my language... damned frenchy! LOL ) Thank you aldaron

Good theme people! And, Thanks for coming up with so freaking fast! Since there will be no post work...do me a favor, wasn't there a tutorial somewhere on creating quasi-flare effects within Bryce? If anyone knows where that is could they post a link in here to help members out? That, and anything else that might help out. Thanks again, and good luck. AgentSmith

That is great, thanks! But what I actually meant was a flare MADE in Bryce, using Bryce only (no photoshop). Maybe that tutorial is just a figment of my derranged brain...(maybe I imagined it)

YEAH! great idea I like it a lot! A complex city building isnecessary after focusing on a small desktop. Is there any restriction about the tecnique, e.g. photorealism, or whatever? bye bye

I'm sure that there may be a technique to simulate a flare in Bryce.. but I haven't tryed it yet.. I'm gonna check thi out .. If I found something interresting, I will let U know. Cheers from paris

Somewhere in REnderosity is a freebie effects zip. I'll drop it on the forum when I get back to my homepc. It includes lensflares and explosions n' stuff.

Are we allowed to use Photoshop to remove artifacting...like smoothing out places where the triangles show in the mesh when the smoothness doesn't work exactly? Hope I've made it clear what I mean.

cshaftoe, Are you looking for Foleypro's effects? Great challenge and thanks for the clarifications! LynnDee

Hmmm.... what exactly is 'Atlantide Golden-Age' though.

E-artistree: Don't know the name....sorry.

'Atlantide Golden-Age' - definition of; in posts # 10 & #12

Quote: "Are we allowed to use Photoshop to remove artifacting...like smoothing out places where the triangles show in the mesh when the smoothness doesn't work exactly?" Good question... I'm not sure about it. It definatly is postwork, well? Pidjy, what do you think? Personally, it would be no problem for me to define "no postwork" as "no postwork but the smooth-filter is allowed". But Pidjy has to decide. Take care, Jimi

E-artistree: Yup! Foleypro. The file is called 'Effects Freebie'

Pidjy, here's still a question wich has to be answered.... Take care, Jimi

Attached Link: http://www.atlantis-lostcity.com/chapterone.html

Electroglyph: The problem is......Was Plato describing a fictitious city of was he quoting fact? And in the end...what caused the flood/tidal wave that destroyed Atlantis? Current theory states that had Atlantis survived we would be exploring the stars by now.....

Plato was first and formost a storyteller. The city he was describing was the "current" Athenian ideal of the perfect city. A place unlike the athenian city states that was unassailable and had an infinite supply of food minerals and material wealth. For the purpose of the challenge this is the source of the original golden age myth. Did Atlantis exist? No doubt there was a city at one time just like Troy or Camelot. But every one puts their own spin on the legend. Mallory and White's version of Camelot differ greatly from Lerner and Lowe's. Ther grail in old english was a stone of the original Celtic seven and not the cup of Christ. The Atlantean saga had several thousand more years to be corrupted by local politics, religon, etc. Everyone has a flood story from Greece to Africa and into India, Most of the religons relate a cataclysim. One theory is that "the pillars of Hercules" Gibraltar was a solid mountain range that collapsed and allowed the atlantic to enter. Atlantis just happened to be in the way. As to exploring the stars, some people theorize that if an asteroid had not hit the earth the dinosaurs might be exploring the stars and we could all be little sloths instead of men today. Like the budists say "you can't step on the same piece of water twice". The stream keeps flowing. We can't prove or disprove it. The fantasy we have today becomes the reality of tomorrow. Before there was a pyramid or an empire state building someone had to think, "this could be"! The seed of these ideas were planted in all of us by the stories of the past. So what is your Ideal City? Is it long marble collonades like the maxfield parish paintings? Is it never ending towers like Star Wars? Draw your Atlantis, Plant your seed, and maybe some one in the future will say, "I got the idea from a picture I saw as a kid".

Hi all ! sorry to answering lately. Well, concerning "no postwork" for the july bryce challenge.. I think that we may allowed to use a correction filter to remove artifacting.... if necessary.

AgentSmith: Suprised EricofSD hasn't chimed in on the "quasi-flare effects" as he wrote a tut on the subject using Bryce primatives. http://www.annsartgallery.com/suntut.html was that the one? seems like there was another one out there. Maybe something to do with "Vile's Telescope". electroglyph: The three rings is the way I've heard it described. A few years ago the popular notion was that the Minoean(sp?) Culture was derived from that of Atlantis. Atlantis was assumed at that time to be one of the islands off the coast of Greece. Recent discoveries perport to have found submerged roadways near Cuba that may have been associated with Atlantis.

I still vote for greece. Several years ago I saw a pucca shell necklace that came from Chota (the Cherokee capital before TVA flodded it). The beads had to come from the coast overland or up the Mississippi. These paticular shells were from below Panama. If Atlantis were close to Cuba there would be amphora all up and down the east coast. The best trade pieces would have found their way to the indian chiefs just like the Spanish, English, French, and Viking stuff did.

Actually it's theorized that Atlantis may have been a city in South America (I can't spell it...it starts with Chitka????). It was a city at the edge of a lake that is one of the deepest in South America. The remains of the city may be at it's murky bottom where they have recovered some artifacts.

Alderon: A lot of mysterious stuff in South America, all right. From what I've read it's all too recent to have started the legend of Atlantis, however. As far as Cuba is concerned, I think that's probably someone's wishful thinking. I still like to think that if Atlantis existed, it was somewhere near Greece. I'd like to get hold of a copy of Plato's "Republic" - one of the things I miss about the Bay Area is the library system.

Ah I found it, it was Lake Titicaca. Here are some sites if anyone's interested or do a google search with terms [Lake Titicaca and Atlantis] http://www.geocities.com/platosacredmountain/ http://www.bolivia.co.uk/xnews.htm

Fasinating. I'll have to read further about this. It is always possable that some culture imitated the Atlantian model or came up with the idea on their own. There is evidence to support polynesian contact with the west coast of South America, and if they could get there in outriggers, the nearest land being Easter Island some 1000 or so miles to the west, It is possable that others traveled from the East. It is also possable that we will find a South American or Antillean(Antilles Island Chain, of which Cuba is a part,) link to Atlantis, or that one has already been found and is not generally recognised. Someone a few years back even proposed that there was an advanced civilization somewhere in the Pacific Ocean contermporaranious to the Atlantean civilization which he called Mu. Largely though It was based on conjecture rather than physical evidence. Sadly, I did not go into Archiology as was my boyhood dream.

Actually there is some evidence that Greecean or at least European explorers visited South America 1000's of years before we thought transAtlantic travel occurred. There are head carvings of men that are defintiely not of South Americans but more African or European shape. Thus it could have been these travellers that crossed the Atlantic and found this culture that gave rise to the Atlantian myth since stories usually get all blown out of proportion what actually is. The temple near Lake Titicaca was almost completely covered in gold and is actually a calender.

So, back to the topic of the Challenge itself . . I have a question for the Mods: why the "no post-work" rule? What about those of us who use Bryce primarily as a starting point for more painterly work? There are many artists out there who do not live and die by their renders alone. Look at the Renderosity Bryce Hot 20. Five out of the 20 current spots are held by images done by the wonderfully talented Andy Simmons. His work is amazing, personal and incredibly unique. There is no mistaking an Andy Simmons image for anyone else's. Why? He uses Bryce plus his painting skills to create works of art that stand head and shoulders above the rest. This kind of artist is automatically left out of the Challenge because they do not simply rely on their Bryce renders alone. I'm not in any way putting down those who stick to that method, though. I've done so many times myself. But this restriction hinders the sense of community that exists around Bryce and its users. I would have gladly participated in this challenge, had this one rule not been in effect. It would be nice if, in the future, such restrictions would be lifted in favor of a more liberal view on Bryce art. I realize this is probably not going to happen, and the response will be something like: "That's why it's called a Challenge". But I had to voice my opinion. Thanks for listening. -Otis

"This kind of artist is automatically left out of the Challenge because they do not simply rely on their Bryce renders alone." I'm not sure that's an altogether fair statement. Post-work is allowed in the general challenge rules, and a LOT of contest entries have relied a great deal on it; I know mine do, unless the challenger specifically states "all Bryce," which he/she rarely does. I know post-work isn't the same thing you're talking about, but I hardly see it as relying on Bryce renders alone. It's also not entirely fair to assume nothing will change. There IS a solution. Push your talents in a new direction and win a challenge. Then you can challenge us to do more painterly work.

Otis4: There is of course nothing is to stop one from making an Atlantean render seperate from the contest . . . it is such an interesting theme for a picture.

Question about prework? My image is about two miles deep now. I have a bryce layer with poser characters. And a mesh layer part free (3dcafe, free the models, etc.) and part done by myself in rhino. I have some temple / villa objects. I create a row of columns or a tile roof. I import these into bryce and create a height map. I create a simple solid with four walls and a roof and create a bump map out of the columns and tiles using uvmapper and paintshop. Instead of several thousand polys I have twenty an a small bmp. I can do the same for distance characters using a flat panel and transmap. The renders are done in bryce and reimported into bryce like backdrops in a play. The final render is in bryce. Is this considered postwork? Or does everything have to be done in one render?

I would imagine that would be fine, especially for those big renders that you may not be able to do all at once.