By nylon spiral do you mean that each "tooth" of the zipper has a small piece of nylon holding it in place?

@ddruckenmiller - I'm sure that the material on the subject isn't actually leather, I just called it that because it looks similar, I'm not really familiar with the names of different sorts of fabrics and materials. @foleypro - Glad you like it. @AgentSmith - Thanks, glad you like it, I was having trouble getting the diffuse color just right, the way it is now only the specular parts are very visible so that is likely what makes that aspect look good but unfortunately this method dosen't convey the detail in the rest of the mesh. @bikermouse - I would have to agree with you that the material is a little over specular, even my reference subject isn't that specular; I will likely tone it down a bit in the next WIP when the metal zipper is included which will need to be much more specular than the leather part. @miden1138 - After I get the diffuse color for the leather part down right the rest of the detail should be visible, I just wanted to get this posted right away to get your comments for improvement so I took the first render I posted the first render I finished. I agree the leather could be scuffed up a bit, my reference subject is in mint condition though as it is brand new so I will have to search around for reference images of worn leather because at the moment I am not sure how to achieve this effect. @miden1138 & Dennisld - The stitching on the cloth part dosen't line up correctly purposely, I figured in the final render I would extend this aspect by drawing some loose threads around this area in post work. I'm not entirely happy with the way the threadwork looks now, but I am not sure how to fix it yet, I do agree the way it is now dosen't quite work right. Thanks a lot for your input everyone on this and on my previous WIPs I find it EXTREMELY helpful and your support helps keep me motivated. Hopefully I will beable to finish this object off by tommorow night...

Don't have time to read the other posts so sorry if this is no longer an issue but KEEP THE DARKER TREE! It really helps the overall composition and depth. I think it would hurt the image to remove it if it is not atleast replaced with something similar.

I still think this image's biggest flaw is the positioning of the fish. They don't achieve anything the way they are now other than looking tacky.

I hate Poser...

Alright, I agree with placing the whole scene inside a cube of water, but in addition to that you should place a water plane directly infront of the camera. Also the spotlight on the submarine is totally unnatural, it needs to fall off on all the edges as well as project onto the ground. Also the sub could use a bit more detail mostly in respect to more interesting textures, because at the moment it sticks out really badly as a bright yellow blob. Add some rust or scum or something mainly. As for the windows on the sub they are just as bad, texture them if u can otherwise atleast make the material reflective or transparent so there is some sort of other detail on it. Also are you sure you AA'd the whole scene? The plants look highly aliased but that may just be caused by the fact that they are so different from the terrain? Again with the plant texture it needs more detail, I know you are going for the plastic look but even plastic has dirt/blemishes. The fish models are pretty good and the textures arent bad either, MAYBE make the mat a bit more specular (emphasis on the maybe, I dont know if this would actually help the scene) ? The main problem with the fish though is that they look like clipart pasted onto the scene, spread them out, they dont have to be too far back but put them at different depths where the lighting will intereact with them differently, this will give the entire scene more depth which it lacks at the moment. Another suggestion for lighting would be to use the softest shadows possible for this undersea scene, turn up the fog and have it fall off at a slower rate but have it start right in the very foreground of the image. You might also want to consider putting some colored spotlights in some of the darker areas and have the shine up on to the fish, be very careful with this effect though as it would be easy to overdo, just be very suble, it would be like the light coming from the surface reflecting off the rocks below, stick to greens and blues for this. Also I don't know what you use for postwork, but Paint Shop Pro has an amazing filter for lighting that comes with the program, I don't know if Photoshop has an equivelant filter but if you wish to know how to use it for your scenes I'd gladly show you, I use it for nearly everything I do, almost always helps dramatically. Also if you don't have it already, grab the freeware copy of Universe or download the plugin, it's filters would be very helpful for this image as you can sort of show the light shining down through the water and pillowing off the objects it hits most intensely; again if you need help with this technique I'd gladly teach you what I know, if you don't have Universe, Eye Candy 4000 has a good corona filter which may do as well. Anyway I think this image has a lot of potential and I really look forward to seeing revisions, keep us updated!

I would have initially agreed with you that the pump part shouldn't be at an angle, but my reference bottle actually has the pump built like this. I guess it comes down to the decision, what's more important: staying true to reference or making it look right? As for your suggestion about the whole piece above the cap needing to be larger, I'd say you are correct, it wouldn't hurt to be a little bigger, especially the nozzle. Maybe if I enlarged everything except the trigger?

Now that I've had some time to think about it, I would have to agree with Erlik that the problem might be solved my changing the Total Internal Reflection (TIR) setting. It is difficult to say which way it should go especially since I don't know what you have it at currently, but if you have the time try it with a really high and then a really low setting and see if there is a difference in the problem areas. If there is I'd love to hear about it because a solution to this problem would be certainly be useful to myself and others.

I am in the process of remodeling everything about the screwtop; including a mechanism for the trigger; I just wanted to post the rough mesh before I left to school. I will likely have the mesh completed by this evening. As for the narrowness I want it to look used and partially empty.

UV Mapper would be great but I am using TrueSpace 6 which won't allow me to save files as .obj; any other suggestions?

I wish I could be a bigger help but all I can tell you is I have had this problem occur a few times as well. It usually happens in scenes when I use lots of glass objects with really high quality render settings. I'm pretty sure it is a bug with Bryce...

Well the truth is shadowdragonlord; I wasn't trying to use "RPP madness" as a "technique", my computer is only 800mhz and Bryce's processor based render engine easily brings my system to its knees. I pretty much have to use a low RPP out of necessity, if this were a final piece I would likely spend the time to render it with high quality settings.

A few little problems with this image, for one I think the sword is stuck far too deeply into the deck of the boat. I know it is necisarry for it to be in that far to show the hilt but maybe you would consider changing it to a dagger so the size would be more appropriate? I really like the map model and texture; there are some minor texture mapping problems with it though, for instance if you look to the extreme right of the flat part of the map just where it would begin to curl up the texture is badly skewed there. Also it looks like it is streched a bit too far around the outside roll as well. Also the texture on the pieces holding up the railing in the background is not mapped correctly and it is repeated identically on each one, maybe remap it then rotate it seperately for each piece? As I said before the texture on the map is really nice but some of the textures for the other items are not up to the same quality, like the sword for instance, maybe paint on some dirt/rust etc? I really like how the map is curled up right until it touches the blade of the sword and how the string on the medallion flows over the opposite side of the map. It really adds to an image when people take the time to have objects appropriately interact with each other like you have here. Another suggestion, you might want to consider mapping the texture you have for the deck onto a terrain, this works like a displacement map and can really improve the believeability of your image as the textures contours are displayed in 3D and shadows are cast more realistically across them.

As for the intersection you are likely right, they likely are intersecting a bit, I figured it looked reasonable though. But now that you point it out with your demonstartion tjohn (thx for the diagram btw) I supppose they likely are intersecting quite a bit more than I might like. As for the condoition of the blades I created them by making hieght maps from an actual scan of the blade from my reference knife. Maybe the bump is a bit too deep though?

You need a renderfarm. Find as many computers as you can get with the fastest processors and most RAM possible, buy a copy of Bryce for each one and use netwrok rendering.