The easter egg where you can scroll through the figure in the background of Poser is documented in the manual. Also the manual has information on how to remove the background image and such. And, amazingly, the manual comes with the program for free when you buy it!

My memory may be failing me, but I seem to remember seeing a tutorial on how the Carrara gargoyle's face was done, and all the screen shots and stuff were done in Carrara. Was it actually done in RDS?

I have had a chance to play with 6 some not, and I must say I like the new text features, vector support, layer styles, and toolbar at the top.

oh my! I just looked at the file size on it and it's over 23 Megs!!! The original file I imported was 9 Megs, but it's not had a problem with imported meshes under 10 megs before.

Ok, I have worked on the image a bunch more, and I think I have reached the point where it looks good enough that I don't feel bad that I am tired of working on it now. I tried everybodies suggestions, and used some, while others didn't work with what I was trying to do. They were all great suggestions though! I am going to post the final one to the gallery, and then give you guys the link to where it's posted. Thanks everyone!!!

That's going to help me a whole lot! Thanks Mark! Now I am really itching to get home and work on this. Stupid work machine not fast enough for Carrara and no personal software at work policy.

Mark, you're awesome. I am not sure if I am going to use this but I am certainly going to try it. I want the background to be very dark so that the lighter foreground draws the viewer's eye to it, but at the same time, I would like to keep a little detail in the background. (not much) Maybe by playing with this idea I can get a balance of dark and detail that I like. Also, what settings did you use to get the flames on your candles? My flames are too chunky, and too yellow, and don't look like they fit in the picture.

Without Carrara here at work I have to do this from memory, so if one of my instructions is wrong, please forgive me. I used bulb lights for the candles, and on the properties tray on the right select the light in question from the dropdown list. Next go to the 4th tab (I forgot what it's called) with the sorta star looking icon. That tab has all of the options for the lighting effects, including light sphere. There will be an edit button, and I think an activate checkbox.

One of the difficulties with dark images is that no two monitors have the same brightness settings, and even if they do, it will look different if you have the lights on or off in the room. I made this at home where I have a reasonably nice monitor and a kinda dark room, and here at work with a less than reasonably nice monitor and lots of overhead lighting it looks much darker than it did at home. I guess this is just one of those ones where you have to view it with the lights out and the curtains closed to get the full effect.

That's exactly what I did for the lighting from the candles. I used small bulbs, not too strong with a limited distance, and a falloff. Carrara has an option for light spheres which are essentially circles drawn around light sources to make them look like they have some glare to them. I am using them on the candles in this image, but I don't have them set right so you can't see them.

The candle light color is not white, it's a warm yellow, and there's almost no ambient light in the picture. The reason for the lack of ambient light is that I am trying to make it seem like a very dark room (notice, no windows) where the only light is from the candles, and even they don't do much. Still a WIP though so all details are subject to change (especially the candle flames, I hate them).

Which bump map are you referring to Marlon? Do you mean the stone (which is using the same texture for the bump map) or the table (which is not using the same texture for the bump map)?

Nifty tutorial! Very useful!

The floor already has a bump map. Just not a very good one. That's on my list of things to do to it tonight.

Looks like a lighter to me. I am kinda curious what's holding the wheel on though.