Lighting is a big big factor, so ensure you have (enough) lighting and experiment with the angles. Make sure you also have something else in the scene that can be reflected in the sphere. You shouldn't need to do much else in DAZ Studio, although you could tweak the glossy, reflection and lighting model setting (in surfaces tab) (best set to plastic - I know that sounds wrong but believe me you get good reflective materials with that, rather than mettalic without them looking plastic).

 Sorry Renderosity, I can't say I like the look of image pages. New features are good, but why mess with the visual design?

There's way too much going on in the top part ; 3 menu bars plus a banner above the image. Then there's the enormous statics and details box. Why not have these side by side instead of underneath each other?

And I'm seeing black text on grey backgrounds - not good design from a useability point of view. I though the page layout before was fine - why change it? I don't see this as an improvement. It all looks more cluttered and less professional.

Hi Richard, I've tried using small resolution (600x600) and larger (2000x2000). It didn't seem to make a difference:(

Hi, spam post in the following thread:

User: shophat

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=4072557&ebot_calc_page

Hi, thanks for the responses and suggestions.

I've found that ramping up the contrast on what appears to be a clean b&w image actually shows up additional speckles and marks on patterns I've bought or created myself (even when I was careful to produce clean straight lines) . So it's possible to a certain degree to fill these bits with white to get rid of them. But even so the lines still don't show as 'clean' when used for a bump map in DS. I've tried creating a shape using the pen tool and also using a basic brush. Whatever I try I still get some of the same effect.

I'm thinking now maybe it's more of a question for the photoshop forum...

Hi, thanks very much for the suggestion. I tried some free vector patterns but still getting the same effect. I wish I could find a way round this.

Very frustrating.

Hi Darwinsmap, thanks for the response. I've tried that also but am not seeing any improvement.

I've attached animage of what the surface looks like close up - you can see the smooth part of the texture where there is no bump (bottom left), but around the bump pattern it looks 'messy' rather than seeing a clean pattern imprint. This is at a low bump setting too, and I've tried varying all the bump settings.

By contrast if I just paint some straight black lines on white and use that for a bump pattern there is no problem.

I'm stumped! 

I went back into DS and now I asm seeing the same results - not sure why it wasn't showing like that before. Thanks for your help Richard.

Hi Richard, thanks very much for posting that. Interesting effect, I will have to play around a bit more with settings.

Hi Richard, thanks for the reply. I had done all of that prior to trying the setting, but couldn't see any difference.

I've been noticing a drop in online user numbers - there was time when it seemed to be steadily increasing. Not so nowadays. I'm curious to know why.

Hi, is there any chance the link colour on Renderosity can be changed, or a different shade of blue used? It really does not show up well agains the current grey background. Does whoever designed the colour scheme know anything about colour and useability?  This is basics in good web design. The white for general text works great because of the contrast to the background colour.

Perhaps they should read this article:

http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200709/10_colour_contrast_checking_tools_to_improve_the_accessibility_of_your_design/

Yes his works are truly stunning! And it's a good recommendation for Bryce:)