ooooo, I love the mist you have added. Sharen

I did the mist following one of Peter Sharpe's tutorials. It takes ages to render, but I think it adds a lot to the atmosphere.

The trails behind the ship and the smoke add a lot to the sense of motion. Terrific job. Lin

Cool image. I like the clouds. Is it a preset sky/texture? The mist is cool to and the ships have a good design. The smoke trail is a bit to blurred for my taste. I would make it a but more sharp/turbulent/noisy.

The clouds are a preset, placed on an infinite plane, but I slightly altered it and rotated it on the Y plane. I only applied a gaussian blur of 1.5 pixels on the trail, nothing else.

You know? This is a fabulous image. I can't find a thing wrong with it. My only gripe - and this is just my philosophy - is that it is a shame this had to be about war. The flying machines could so easily have been lifeforms........ The Bryster (Chris)

I agree with Chris, it is a wonderful image, but then maybe he is just having engine trouble?? Bit of gas maybe..LOL

Looks great. I wonder if the smoke and flames could have been done using volumetrics instead of postwork? I have found working with volumetrics to be a pain.

Great image. It looks like the two planets in the back ground are identical and have identical weather paterns... Great work, TT.

It's not really about war, those Spiders are pirates trying to stop the Manta. I agree, it's a pity, but The same image without the smoke lacks something. Maybe I'll try something else, maybe a race? (anyone knows how to apply stickers on a ship?) As for the smoke added using postwork, it's the easy way, and I always tend to choose the easy way for the same result :-) And the planets aren't identical, one is bigger, but I admit that the weather patterns are the same, I just rotated the two planets. Thanks for everything. Josselin

A race sounds cool, but maybe you need a bit more motionblur for that. or a more stylish motionblurr.

perhaps the planets should be harder to see, perhaps motion blur on the ships? I like the smoke and low mist. very well done. - TJ

Its funny but the original picture with the burning ship could also be called "The Race". You don't see any energy beams hitting the lead ship. The lead ship could have developed engine trouble. Does not seem violent to me. Liked the lights at the front of the ships in the background.

Jausse: Is'nt it strange that my first impression was one of war. I think first impressions are very important. Now that you have called your wonderful work 'The Race' I 've re-examined both and yup! There it is - A group of flying machines racing. And no, there are no energy beams hitting the lead ship. So why did I think 'WAR' when I first saw your work? The explanation is simple. I am expecting war, I see it everyday in the news and in the world all around us. What I should have seen in your work was peace and (perhaps)friendly competition. We all see different things in different ways, and perhaps my first impression was unfair...However, it is still a fine piece of work and I look forward to more of the same. The Bryster (Chris)

Attached Link: http://jausse.free.fr

Well, provided that the ships are imported mesh objects... You could put stickers on them using a program called UVmapper. I'm sure someone here could explain the process. I've seen some cool results if it's done right. I wonder what kind of futuristic companies would sponsor the fliers... Interplanetary Mining? ChemaCorp? Reston Genetics? Well, you'll come up with something.