Actually, gmax is pretty much the same thing as 3ds max, but you might find some things are in slightly different places (also depending on the version of 3ds max you compare it to). The only major differences between gmax and 3ds max are that gmax doesn't render, doesn't have character studio, doesn't have many plugins for it, and doesn't save in the same file formats. I picked up a copy of gmax myself and there were tutorials available from the discreet website, so you might want to make sure you go through those to familiarize yourself a bit more with the gmax interface. Afterwards, you should be able to use any 3ds max tutorial and be able to apply it to gmax.

Well, I'm not familiar with metal frame transparencies, but I've made digital images of transparencies with a regular scanner by simply placing a white sheet behind it. If scanning isn't an option (no scanner, metal frames interfere), you probably should try calling some photolabs or companies that deal with digital imaging. Someone might have equipment that will allow it to be done relatively cheap. If you think you might want to buy a scanner, you can probably expect to spend about $100 for a decent one. Look into Umax scanners, last time I shopped around (it's been a while) they made a good scanners at a decent price. You may also be able to produce your digital images with a digital camera. It's a bit awkward, but it's what I used to get images of my brother's paintings. However, it took a decent amount of post work to get them to look right. I had to take each image into photoshop, draw a marquee around each image and use distort to get rid of the skew. Anyway, good luck on that.

I've always preferred when a site gives you a gallery of thumbnails that link to the larger image, much the way renderosity does. Sites that have slideshows or galleries of large images can really test the patience of anyone with a 56k such as myself, and I'll almost never want to go through every single image on a person's site. And make sure you know how to properly compress an image into an effecient jpg file! And last but not least, and I only say this because I don't know what your experience level is, do not upload any images that are larger than they will be on the web page, meaning that you should not use any html that will rescale your image for you rather than do it in photoshop or whatever program you might use. I've seen pages where people would take images that were like 800x600 and had them displayed at about 200x150. Some people do this for their thumbnail pages. The problem with this is the rescaled image takes just as long to load as the full size one, and images rescaled using html look god awful. If you've posted anything in renderosity galleries, however, you should already be familiar with the proper way of making thumbnails.

I can email it to you if you give me your email address via IM, but I don't think it'll run online. I used the freeware jigsaw promo program at www.tibosoftware.com, it was pretty basic, not a lot of options, so if you prefer you can just get that and make one yourself.

Haunt me? ok... well, I went and found a freeware program for making jigsaw puzzles and made yours into a 379k executable file. Where can I upload this?

That 3rd picture would make a kick ass jigsaw puzzle!

Hey Brub, I gotta tell you that you did find an interesting subject matter there, but I find that your original image looks better than any of the cropped ones (no offense to anyone, just my opinion!), basically because it has a richness of color and detail. I think the tilt of the camera did take away from the image a bit and made it somewhat confusing, as it seemed to turn the chain into something of a miniature roller coaster track. I attached an image that's just your original image tilted and cropped to remove the blank corners that resulted from tilting it. I'm not sure if there's much you can do to change the original image in a meaningful way. At that angle it's rather difficult to tell what it is you're looking at, and eliminating more of the background just doesn't clarify it. Personally, I would have had the camera more to the right of the chain. This would have captured some of the side to give it more depth, hid that blank dark area in the corner, and brought more of that yellow sand into the image to add to the color detail. The shallow DOF suggested by punkclown might not be a bad idea, but the subject matter looks a bit flat from that position. If you can see more of the side and overall contour of the chain, or get the camera so close that the chain gradually blurs into the background, I think it would be a much more effective technique than just blurring the background out. Oh, and if you do get more pictures, definitely try turning your camera to take some portrait shots (as also suggested by punkclown). It's a great way of capturing a 3 dimensional feel for that kind of subject matter.

These images are quite degraded since I shrunk them down and compressed them a lot. As much as I like a clean looking image, I have a 56k and know how annoying a slow load can be. If you're curious, I did end up getting down by the beach, but not in time to see the sunset. I took some pictures of the still glowing sky, but my digital camera didn't do the scene justice. I'd likely have to spend a while in photoshop compositing one good shot of the sky and lake over another shot of the beach. But quite frankly, I think we've all seen more than our fair share of pretty sunsets.

Afterwards, I got on my bike and headed towards the lake, hoping to catch a glimpse of a dramatic sunset. I was, however, distracted by this scenery on the way. The pink clouds and dusty landscape made for an unusually surreal image in my neighborhood.

I found this one particularly dramatic. Those 2 lines of clouds just about point to the position of the sun setting over Lake Erie.

I'm a bit curious to know what causes formations like this...

That's a photograph? Wait, that's one of those styrofoam wig heads, isn't it? For a second there it looked like it was made of metal scales. Neat. Superimpose some real eyeballs in there and make it cry. :)

Make a mold of your hand giving the finger. Spray it with that stuff, set it on top of a grave stone and send me the pictures please. I'll change the engraving in photoshop to various humorous phrases and post them here. Thank you.

The second one is better. I agree with everything cynlee said, especially about focal point. What am I looking at in the first picture? It looks like a good scene for opening credits. It could also use a bit more contrast. On the second picture I see that you desaturated it considerably. Gives it a nice dreary look. Could be better if there were more clouds in that blank spot of sky, but I can hardly blame you for that! I would try cropping some of the top and bottom off (like a widescreen movie) and see what that looks like. I think the picture might look a bit richer that way. Either way, good atmosphere.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=487260&Start=1&Sectionid=8&filter_genre_id=0&WhatsNe

Here's my second favorite from the series I took of that thing. It was a pretty easy model to make cool pictures from. I think I might go back and look for it.