If you blur the base layer, then flatten the image and apply a slight gaussian (sp?) blur to the whole thing, you can get some decent results. But you're right, it probably won't look as good as a rendered depth of field.

Well, the easiest thing to do would be to render the background separately, bring it into Photoshop as the base layer, and then blur it.

Hmmm . . . I think it's a toss-up between Alla, Seven_Wolves, and Marvilla. Arghhhh!! This is a tough one . . . I guess I'll vote for Alla. I really like the mood and atmosphere of his/her pic. Oh, I never asked . . . whose eligible to vote in this???

I'm using Vue with WinXP, and I get that same error sometimes when I close the program. It doesn't seem to hurt anything, but it sure is annoying. I'm not sure what causes it, and I don't have a solution . . . I thought I'd just let you know that you're not the only one.

Thanks Eric!

Yeah, I tried that one, but it didn't do much of anything.

Ok, I took that texture map and wrapped in onto a sphere, but it turned out backwards, just like your pic up top (everything is reversed). Do you know of anyway to fix this in Vue, or do you just have to go into Photoshop and mirror it? -Christoph

Ok, I see what you mean. Nice tutorial, btw. MikeJ, I had a plugin that was supposed to do that, but it didn't work worth crap. There are a few programs that will let you generate tiling images from procedural algorithms, but I haven't seen anything that does it from existing images.

Yeah, OpenGL sucks with NVidia drivers. Is there anyway to disable it in Vue, or to select Direct3D?

It sure is nice to see some characters actually doing something instead of just standing around. Oh . . . and great pic too. Try adding some more haze to the pic. It'll give it a better sense of depth.

I've done this before, take a picture of some grass or the side of a tree, with my digital camera . . . but how do you make the image tileable??? -Christoph

Yeah, I'm using it on XP Pro.

Mike, I don't think it was a Windows problem, because my Windows is very stable and rarely has any problems. It was probably just one of those random computer blow-ups that just seem to happen every once and a while. If it happens again, I might have to take your advice and go to 4.05. Until then, I'll just be sure to save often. Christoph out . . .

You could render some black and white difference clouds in Photoshop, and then draw a 75% opaque gradient over top. This would give you a gradually sloping terrain with some hilly variations.

I see what you guys mean about it being dark. It looks fine on my computer, but I looked at it at work and could barely see anything. I must have the brightness turned way up on my monitor . . . Anyway, it's a work in progress. I just threw a bunch of mangled posers into a heap and rendered them top down. I guess no one noticed that foot sticking up from somewhere . . . LOL.