Clint, Looking forward to seeing this one develop! (no fog yet?! :) ) I like the plants and the somber mood. The leaves are very thin on the the taller trees, I like them. To my eyes they almost look like thorns.. If you applied one of the bend-n-twist deformers you could have a forboding briar patch! Mark

Hi again Daf, Here's a couple of tricks for photo-realistic textures: 1. Highlights: While the bump map is important for casting shadows, equally important is how the object reflects light. In the example above the highlight channel enhances the bump channel by 'deciding' what reflects light and what doesn't. Consequently, what sticks out further is now reflecting more light (especially the painted bricks) The gray scale image is required for variability in the light. While you can put the color image in, I used the grayscale image because the colored highlight caused by using a colored texture map didn't seem quite bright enough. 2. Shininess: There are areas that I do want to shine and areas that I don't (the mortar for example, it recedes visually if it's not reflecting light). Putting a color texture map in here just slows down the rendering process. The renderer is only looking for grayscale information. And besides, I want definate edges to the shininess. Additional Texture Maps: Creating some additional t-maps from the source color image is usally a good idea. It gives you excellent control over the variables on the surface. This, of course, is only a starting point. In the same way that I multiplied the two T-maps together in the bump channel, you can mix various T-maps or procedural textures to create completely believable surfaces. An article that I read with the folks that do the textures for Industrial Light and Magic indicated that they prefer to mix T-maps and procedural textures because the procedurals are pattern free and 'disguise' the patterns in the T-maps. Anyhow, hope that this helps. Mark

Hi C9, If you render directly from the file you're working on it goes directly into RAM. For larger images and movies, use the Batch Render as it renders to disk and purges RAM. In the preferences, there is an option to, "Save batch renders every XX minutes" or something like that. Mine is set to every 15 minutes to make sure that I don't fill up RAM on the big files. Mark

Hiya Daf, I'd post an image but I have ablsolutly no extra time today. I'll post a little later. Place the texture into the Shininess channel and invert, into the Highlight channel (you may have to to invert it there too), and in the bump channel create an Operators>Multiply function and place the same texture map into both left and right. (if that's not enough, for each of the left and right channels create an Operator>multiply function and repeat the above step) Finally adjust the master bump control slider. I haven't tried it with this specific texture map but I've used this method on others. Mark

Hi all, Thanks for the kind words :) Clint's right, I do this for a job as an illustrator. Sorry, no magic manual. Just some serious time in the program prefaced with a lot of, "I wonder if I did this what would happen?" type of questions. Started with RD 3 about 4 years ago. I've learned a lot by putting together shaders in response to questions in this forum and have learned a ton by just luking in here. It's a wonderful resource! As far as modeling goes; practice makes perfect. (Doncha' hate that?) I spend quite a little time looking and real world objects and trying to figure out how I'd model them. It's really a sad thing actually :) I could probably actually contribute something to society otherwise. LOL Just have fun and push the envelope! :) Mark

Hi Stacey, When creating a parametric map, unless you specify otherwise, it will adopt the characteristics of the host (main) shader. (it's a very cool feature actually) For a label though, you'll need to go in the specific parametric map and change the highlight, reflectivity etc. so that it becomes different. Hope that this helps. Mark

The upload works. I think that it's just the remote file storage that Dave was talking about. No different than on any of the other forums though. I haven't posted anything else cuz I feel kinda stupid having my name plastered all over the section with virtually no other contributors. :0 Mark

Nice job. You have a very sculpted look to the logo. However, the gradient blend in the words really works against that because it's so flat. Move the acutal gradient to a different layer and create a displacment map from the words. Then apply to the gradient. It will 'wrap' the gradient to the shape. Personal bias: I've always disliked the ochre color of the photoshop horizon. Maybe a color tweak? :) If you haven't been there, check out http://xenia.mit.edu/axc/index.cfm for some great metal effect actions in a searchable database. Good work, keep it up! Mark

Aeryk, Glad it helped, learning more about this stuff is cool. (At least that's why I keep showing up) Now this one was fun to build! HG, The bump maps didn't go deep enough. But I found away to create the illusion by mapping to the highlight & color channels. I'd post the image of the shader tray but it's really deep and wouldn't fit on the screen. I can post the shader later if you're interested in it. It wouldn't be until this evening or tomorrow morning though. The job is getting in the way of whats important again! :) Mark

Hi Vern, 'Feed your Dreams' is the title (provided by Clint) of on image that you create. When we get them done we'll post in the forum just to see how everyone handled the image thought. Just for fun kinda thing. Hi HG, Any 'shader only' didn't seem to work to well with the brain thing. Consequently here is a speedy workaround. However, I don't know if it's what you're looking for. Something to play with anyway. Mark

The spline modeler is your friend. This funnel took about a minute and a half. Agreed, spending time with the modeler initially can be frustrating. But it pays off in major time savings once you become little more proficient at it. Keep it up, it just gets easier and easier! :) Mark

Cool by me.

Really nice. Mark

It's on the sketch pad but I've been hammered at work. Maybe by next weekend? Mark

Cool! I like the fact that it's not symmetrical. Mark