I'm working on a facial expression set for Stephanie that will be on sale at daz3d.com in about a week or two. I'm adding some eye poses too. I'll post a picture in the product showcase when they are done.

One thing you need for realism that no one has mentioned is Scale. Your scene looks small because you probably used the terrain at almost the same size they were created. One trick I use is to make all my terrain very large. I try to make the camera the same proportionate size as a human head in the scene. This way the atmospheric perspective looks more realistic and you get a better feeling of size and depth. Also if you move your camera further into the scene and widen your focal length you will get a feeling that you are in the scene and not looking at it from a distance. Another tip to remember for depth is "Kai's Law", which says that you should place an object of high detail close to the camera to make the background seem less detailed. Besides that, an old standard is "The Rule of Thirds". Divide your frame into three parts; foreground, middleground and background. This also helps make your composition more interesting, right now you have a middle and background, but no foreground. Keep at it though, you'll eventually get it.

That is SoftImage grasping at straws to stay alive IMHO. A good friend of mine worked for them as a sales rep for many years. Last year they layed him off with no warning. SoftImage has never really taken off in the consumer market because you needed to buy the whole Silicon Graphics work station to use it. Now it seems they are trying to appeal to a wider consumer base by making their software work on standard PC's. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking SoftImage. I've tried it at trade shows and liked it a lot, but it was never a cheap item once you factored in the cost of the machine. Unless you are running a professional animation house it was just not cost effective. Especially with what MAYA was offering for less money.

Attached Link: http://store.daz3d.com/store/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=ZP1&Category_Code=_AA

Yes, what we are doing is art...at least some of us are ;-) (jk) Does it matter if a painter does or doesn't stretch and gesso his own canvas? Does it make him less of an artist if he doesn't mix his own pigments, or make his own brushes? Whether we build the geometries or create the textures has no bearing on what we make with them. Rest assured, it is art either way. As far as crediting goes; it depends on what the creator requires in their licensing agreement. If it is a freebie, it is a good idea to do it to avoid hurt feelings, most artists require that you give them a credit and a link back to their site. If the model or texture is offered as "Royalty free" or "public domain", then no credit is required. Generally if you buy a model or texture, you are buying the license to use that product to create commercial art. In that case no credit is required. However, if I like a product I may mention it so other people know where to get it too.

Without question, the best Lens Flare plug-in/filter I've seen is the one that comes with Kai's Power Tools 6 (KPT6). It allows you to change the size, color, halo, streaks, etc... to create everything from lens flares to subtle and beautiful star effects. That's a nice effect you got in Bryce. It looks as good as the Corel Photopaint one.

Groovy Baby!...Yeah! Oh behave. ;-)

It won't be broadcast quality unless it is recorded on a broadcast quality medium like Betacam (the professional version of Betamax. Tape size is the same but it runs 4X faster over the heads). If you output your render as a Quicktime Animation (uncompressed) and burn it on a CD, you can take it to any Editor and they can use it on a Media100 or Avid the same as broadcast video. The only weak link in your chain is the home video Betamax, everything before that is broadcast quality. If you have a DV recorder or camcorder, you'd be better off recording your animation on it because it is digital so there is no loss in quality. It's a cheaper alternative to a $15,000 professional Beta deck. I'm in the USA, so I render at 720x486 (NTSC), but I use 30fps instead of 24fps. It increases my render time, but I like the clarity of a 30fps transfer to video. The extra 6fps adds a lot of extra information per second and that increases the production value. I render to Quicktime as uncompressed Animation and then burn that .mov file onto a CD and send it to the Editor via FedEx. He imports my QT mov and edits it into whatever the project is. When it is done the whole thing gets recorded onto NTSC BetaSP or D2, and then I make VHS copies from the master to send out or view at home.

It's always good kharma to mention the original artist when you are paying tribute with an "homage". The pose and hand gestures in this are different enough from the original to prove that it not simply a copy or modification, but rather a Poser figure rendered in Bryce. It's a gorgeous image either way, but it's always nice to see where the inspiration came from.

Cool image! I'm a long time Dune fan. This challenge sound pretty cool. I think it will be fun.

Congratulations Vile! Great image. Congratulations also to everyone who accepted "my 'Space Battle' challenge". You all did such great work and I can't wait to see what you do with Vile's challenge.

Pratt Institute in Brooklyn NY (my alma mater) is a top notch Art and Design school. They used to be on the cutting edge of computer animation, I'm not sure were they are with it now though. One advantage of Pratt is that it is in NYC where you can find work right out of school, and/or find a great internship at one of the networks.

It sounds like you might have had the "Auto-Key" for the keyframes turned to "on". This makes tons of unwanted keyframes everytime you move an object. I suggest turning off the Auto-Key and starting over. Set key frames for each object after you have changed it's position and only set a key frame for the attributes you have changed. Animation (even on a computer) can be very frustrating and challenging. Back in the days of painted cells, most of the animators I knew were alcoholics, drug addicts, or just total flakes. Counting frames and key frames will do that to you. ;-) Don't expect to become Walt Disney overnight, it takes years to truly master it.

I sure wish you'd reconsider and port it to Mac. I have a few professional projects I could really use it for right away. I'm sure you'd get more than enough sales to make up for the time and effort. I'd certainly tell all my friends and associates ;-). You'd also have a monopoly on the only Mac Poser/Bryce bridging add-on.

Typical Microsoft monopoly supporting BS. Neither one of these applications have a Mac version. When are they going to understand how many professional artists use Macs and not PCs? I would have bought either one of these apps on the spot if they were hybrid PC/Mac (like Bryce has always been). I'll never switch to PC, so I guess I have to wait for one of these companies to wake up and smell the coffee.