Hmmm, I haven't had that kinda fun on mine. I think type two errors or bad file format issues. If you've got Photoshop 5.x try batch saving the texture files into a different folder as TIFF's or JPEG's and try it again. And as always, try running Carrara with as much memory as you can allocate leaving about 30M to 40M for the system. Mark

Of course the most obvious way is to use one of the excellent wood texture maps on the Carrara CD and tile it if you need to. However, texture maps have there own set of issues like obvoious seams or patterns. The above is a Procedural Texture Map that uses both of the free extensions from DCG and Lost Horizons (Thanks you two!!) The secret to believable wood is a good bump map. Hope that this helps. Mark

Hoborg, I'm not following. In my source TIFF grayscale file, the black surrounding bounding box is at 100% black. Are you able to make that surrounding box go away from the mesh on your terrains? Dethblud, the meshes are at 1024. Both Bryce and Carrara have those as maximum mesh densities. Mark

Oh, this one wasn't to show render capabilites; both programs are great with that. (although Carrara is faster than Bryce) This is to show just how they handle imported grayscale meshes. :) Mark

Oh yea! ;) Mark

Depending on how complex the mesh is, sometimes it works, sometimes it leaves interesting 'artifacts'. Mark

On terrains, IMHO there is little difference between the programs. (Not counting shader/material issues). However, when creating non-organic shapes, at least for me, Bryce is easier to work with for mesh generation from grayscale images. My pet peeve in Carrara is that you can't easily eliminate the square portion of the imported grayscale. In Bryce, you just pull up the slider control and presto, it's gone. Also, lattice generation is easier in Bryce. I wouldn't want to try to generate these wheel objects with booleans. It can be done with spline modeling but is labor intensive. Grayscale mesh generation is by far the easiest way to handle objects like these. I guess this should go on my Carrara Wishing Well list! :) Mark

Fun! Mark

Virtually all of my modeling is spline so I can't address the Mesh Modeler as well. (However, I haven't had any issues with it). The spline modeler has excellent control. It's kind of a different way of thinking when you get started but starts making sense. File sizes are extremely small when compared to mesh models. In the Mesh Modeler I really like the multires subdivide and sphere of attraction tools. Seems to be fairly intuitive to use. (at least for my damaged brain) I will have to say that even though Carrara boasts a 1024 terrain mesh resolution, mesh models created in Bryce at that resolution and imported to C are superior to ones made within C using the same grayscale map as a base art at the 1024 res. Don't know why that is but it's really obvious. I'll post an example later if I've got time. Bryce also has superior procedural shader tools for seamless organic and water textures. However, the shader tools in Carrara are outstanding in their own way, especially if you use any of the available plug-ins to augment them. My own biased opinions! :) Mark

I use the bryce terrain modeler to create seamless, complex compound curve meshes for machine parts. With the grayscale mapping control it's faster and more precise the the landscape modeler in Carrara. However, most of the modeling that I do is spline based which I do in Carrara; something that the current version of Bryce can't do. If the landscape isn't the focus of the image I use Carrara's tools; If landscape is THE focus (or at least atmosphere type of stuff) I'll use Bryce. The volumetric clouds in Carrara are outstanding though. Mark

What's your platform and memory configurations?

Too true! I usually create a glass caustic gel on a spot and place it in the shadow area to fake it. Same for radiosity type of stuff. DCG glow extension is a great radiosity work-around though. Mark

Nice look! Squalor is good. If the bones 'age' a little more and gross stuff appears on the wall (the kind that you don't want to touch) the better it will be. On the bricks, try adding a multi layer channel with a moss type of look and blend to the bricks with either the Snow feature or Digital Carvers Guild Altitude feature. That way you can have gunk growing and getting thicker as the shape changes. Just my thoughts though!:) Mark

We're all learning. Otherwise, it wouldn't be any use visiting. I've picked up some really cool tips at this forum. It's a good group. Mark

I dunno.....I think it's more about how you use the tools. :) Mark