Hi Rochr, Many thanks for that. When I say I'm "in the business", I meant producing art, as opposed to printing it. I've never in 20 years been asked for anything less than 300dpi for a print job. A screen job has always been at 72dpi. Maybe it's just the clients and printers I have worked with, and that's just one of those things... Anyway, what you say makes perfect sense; render it large, at 72dpi, then when it's reduced for printing, there is no apparent loss of quality. I'm definitely going to do this, and I thank you for sharing your wisdom! My best wishes to you and yours for 2007! Rob.

Hi again, Some progress: today it's reached 2%! At least that's speeded up a bit:-) 2D trees: I see exactly what you're saying, and would normally have done this, but in this instance it's a view from above, so the trees have to look OK from above and also cast a normal shadow on the ground. That's hard to do with 2D trees. No visible lights in the scene: there should be, if I was going for absolute realism, but I already cheated on that one. Rochr, I am VERY interested in your response: and a little voice at the back of my brain is whispering that this may indeed be the solution to my problem. Yes, 300dpi has always been used as the minimum, certainly since I've been in the business, working first in trad media, now digital, over 20 years. Digital printing methods have changed that. It was the client who asked for a 300dpi render, but this isn't set in stone: what he wants at the end is a high quality 20 inch square gameboard, and I guess he doesn't care (or needs to know) what hoops have to be jumped through in order to get it. I suspect, like many people, he uses the term "hi-res" to mean "high quality", when, as you point out, they need not be the same thing. So, may I ask you to expand further on this? If I need to print a 20 inch square good quality image, what size would be best to do the render at, at 72dpi? I eagerly await your reply! many thanks, Rob.

Hi, thanks for your responses so far... to answer a few points raised: 200 days is a guess based solely on the fact that it's taken 2 days to render 1%, nothing more. But if rendering continues at the exactly the same rate, then it would take that long. Whether it really will take that long, I've no way of telling at this point. I've used range fall-off on all the lights; the scene is intended to look as natural as possible. No volumetric lights, or reflective surfaces. Although there's a small lake and a river in the scene, the light going across the water surface is at a very low angle, and there's little (if any) reflection. There's glass, of course, in all the windows in the buildings and cars, but most of these are so small, and viewed from directly above, that they shouldn't really affect things too much. I suppose I COULD go back into my file, ungroup everything, tab thru all the hundreds and hundreds of elements, deleting all the little panes of glass.... but that would probably take as long as the rendering. I'm using normal settings, not superfine rendering. The Bryce file is 293.2MB. Doesn't seem to significantly slow down my hard drive (I can post here fine, and surf OK, and right at this moment I also have Photoshop open too). Rendering in segments is an interesting idea, I hadn't thought of that. Will give this some serious consideration. It absolutely has to be 300dpi. 72dpi works only for screen renders or low-quality small images. It won't work for professional print jobs. 300dpi is the minimum resolution I can use. And finally, yes, I'd love to upgrade my machine; one of those latest shiny new G5 dual core processors would do for a start if anyone feels like buying me a slightly late Christmas present:-) But I was actually hoping to use the fee from this job to pay for one, can't afford it right now! Thanks for your ideas. Please keep 'em coming! Rob

Captain Jack, These are perfect! Many, many thanks indeed! I currently have 2 lowly products on sale in the marketplace: have a look at them, and if you like what you see, IM me your email address, and I'll send you free copies of them. Once again, I really appreciate your help: it's people like you who actually make this a COMMUNITY. all the best, Rob (RCT).

Huolong I did look at TrekkieGrrrl's stuff, and while she makes some really stuff, the kind no-one else seems to, even though it's the stuff you always need, in this instance it wasn't quite what I was looking for. But thanks for the suggestion: I appreciate your help. Acadia I agree. Having gone through it, I found plenty of useful stuff, although not the specific items I needed. There was one cricket bat, but that's all. However, for future reference, it's always good to have another source. Many thanks. Captain You've done an amazing job, and so quickly. What can I say? Your talent and generosity knows no bounds, a true gentleman!! These are absolutely superb, exactly what I needed. I look forward to them. Regards, Rob (RCT)

Cool, that's mighty generous of you, sir! I'm using Poser 6 on a PowerMac G4, with MacOSX 10.4.7. I have MacConverter, so if you're on a PC, it's no problem. Generic textures will be fine, I don't need close-up detail.

Hi Jack, Thanks for your reply. To answer your questions; the bottle needs to be the top half, with the neck. The intention is for it to look as if it is to be used as a weapon, perhaps in a bar fight, gripped by the neck, with the jagged shards as the 'business' end. As for the tyre iron, it's the second angled version I had in mind. If you could make these, that would be fantastic! Is there anything I could do for you in return? Rob

Oh, I forgot to add: I really need a POSEABLE WALLET too, complete with driver's license, credit cards, cash etc. It would be really great if it had a leather texture too, but that's not absolutely necessary. Am I asking too much?:-) Rob

Hi, thanks for all your suggestions: I don't think it's displacement: I've tried lots of different settings and none made a difference. Same with ambient occlusion, with it turned on the lines were still there just not so black. Haven't tried the shadow map thing, but will definitely experiment with this. However, in the last hour I've just had some success by altering my Bump Map settings to Map Strength 30%, Amount 0.001. This has significantly reduced the lines so much that if you didn't know they were there, you wouldn't really notice them. I suspect that with some further tweaking here, I might be able to both get rid of them altogether and get the surface texture I require. Once again, many thanks for all your help. Regards, Rob.

Just because something is legal where you are doesn't mean that by making it available to people where it isn't legal absolves you of any legal comeback. Just by putting it on the internet, you're making it available. For example, in some countries the age of sexual consent is a lot lower than in the US or UK, but even were it's legal, you don't see them putting stuff up on the internet where everyone can get hold of it. You CAN be prosecuted for crimes committed abroad, and it IS your problem if it is illegal somewhere else. You may also like to bear in mind that legal cases that cross national boundaries cost 10 times as much to defend as cases brought at home. Trust me, you really don't wanna go near this, but if you are serious about it, then don't take advice from people on a forum who may not know what they are talking about; talk to a REAL lawyer!

I work in advertising, and have dealt a lot with copyright issues, and regularly discuss such issues with dedicated copyright lawyers. The bottom line is, if you make a face that looks like a celebrity without their permission, you're in trouble; they could sue you, even if the product was free and your intentions were good. The problem lies in the fact there is no control over the usage of the freebie; people could use them to create artwork that was considered detrimental or damaging to the image or career of the celebrity. As the creator, you could be held legally responsible. There is a possible way round it, and that lies in the definition of the term "inspired by". It is better if you make a face that is not exactly like a celebrity. You can be inspired by a celebrity, but if you add a mole, or change the nose slightly etc, you could be OK. And never call your created face by the same name; even if it doesn't look exactly like them, if it has the same name as the celebrity then it is clear that it was your intent to reproduce their image, and they could even sue you for not getting their face right, which lawyers could argue was damaging to their client in itself! However, if it doesn't look exactly like them, and you don't use their name, then there really isn't much point in doing it, is there?
My advice is; don't do it at all. You can easily make thousands of beautiful faces that don't look like celebrities, so why give yourself extra hassle?

Thanks for all these suggestions; I'll try them out in turn and let you know what happens. The bump maps are jpegs though. The ambient occlusion; is it the same as the Ambient dials, as I can't see any controls with the word 'occlusion' on them?

Ambient is set to zero. The bump maps are currently set to 10%; I'll try it lower and see what happens. But I did like the effect of a strong bump map. I don't understand why it's only happening in these areas and not all over though.

Adavyss (and others), Typical! I work from home, self-employed. This 3D thing is something I do in my spare time, hoping it might take off and expand into something bigger. I just spend ages working on my own personal stuff, then work (i.e. my "paying-the-rent" work) goes mental. I haven't had a spare day for almost 2 weeks, been working all hours. So I'm sorry for not getting back to you. I did manage to contact a couple of people, and then discovered that my ISP wouldn't let me upload files bigger than 3MB! So what with work, and trying to sort out filesizes, and an Easter break (2 bank holidays here in UK) bang in the middle of everything, I just haven't had chance to do everything I wanted to do. So, I will be contacting everyone who offered, over the next few days, as life seems to be returning to normal. Patience, please.

Hmmmm... don't want to start a ruckus, but it is exactly the same attitude as 'a black man mugged me once, so therefore all black men must be potential muggers'. And if you said that, then you'd be rightly pilloried. Just because a few merchants do something against the rules, doesn't mean you should tar all merchants with the same brush. Or spoil the activities of the majority for the actions of the minority. If a post is against the rules, why not just move it or delete it, rather than issue blanket bans? Punish the individuals who commit the 'crime' rather than take away the freedom of the majority...