Clay, did you do those animations or parts of them using Bryce or did you use other programs as well? It looks as if you might have used Mojo or LW. Was just wondering. Thanks.

i do have to agree that the constructive criticism is what is lacking. I used to belong to a local artist group here in my community and each month at our meetings we would each bring something we had been working on. we would hold it up and people would comment. We were required however to use something which somebody coined the "Oreo approach." You start out by pointing out something you do like about the work (not always an easy thing to do), then you would give your negative view and what you thought could be done to improve the piece, then you would close by either pointing out another positive aspect or repeating the one you had stated earlier. Although in practice this approach was used mainly on and for newcomers in an effort to soften the blow when the actual criticism came. Then again, you couldn't just offer a negative opinion without backing it up or saying why you felt that way, and you did have to tell what you thought could be done to make it more appealing. Although the entire process is subjective to the viewer and it was generally assumed that the people in the group had some level of intelligence to be able to discuss things in the first place. when I do get to go through the galleries here and have made comments I usually try to keep with this approach. Although there will always be those that no matter how much you cusion the criticism, they take it as a personal attack against their ego. So in the end, maybe your little "Give it to me straight" box would be a good idea. Personally, a I don't feel that a comment on my artwork is an attack on my person or my ego as I don't know these people anyway, so how could it be. To me it is only a comment on the pieces I have posted and nothing more. Lastly, I like that phrase...feed the trolls...all I can do is picture some people standing near the edge of a bridge throwing slabs of raw meat down into the mounths of the waiting trolls LOL. Sorry, just my weird sense of humour.

For the most part I thought that option was pretty much already available. When you go to upload your picture to the galleries, if you don't want feedback on it you can always choose that option. On the other had, I have not been so kind with my words when I thought somethings was off kilter, I let the artist know what I think. However, this doesn't mean that it needs to be done in nasty or mean manner. Things can be said constructivelyand with tact. But I would have to agree that this is the sort of feedback that appears to be lacking when it comes to the galleries (one reason I post my work in the forums where it usually leads to some sort of meaningful discussion instead). However, the forum is (mostly) only good for discussing technique with the particular program in question. What it is not good for is improvement of artistic value and that is what I would like to see more of. I want to know what people think about it as art, not my technique (that comes along with practice). I don't think an additional comment box in the galleries will help. Most people don't even use the box that is there now, do you honestly think they are going to use a second one? Lastly, it usually seems that unless the picture contains some sort of T&A, it usually doesn't receive too many comments (if any). I'm not complaining about the amount of work in the Poser end of things, just making an ibservation that if it isn't a naked woman who is amply endowed, nobody says anything. Just my two cents worth.

Isn't that why there is an area to leave comments for individual pieces of artwork? personally, I like when I receive positive feedback, but realistically, it is the negative feedback that helps us along. Most of the time these days, I only post to the appropriate forums and not so much to the gallery anymore. To be honest, I'm here for the feedback so I can improve my skills, and feedback just seems to be something really lacking when it comes to the galleries. If you're artwork doesn't contain T&A, then most of the time one is lucky to even have it viewed, let alone commented on. Now, posting 3 squiggles (for example) in and of itself might not show any particular skill or artistry, but...what if the person was disabled and works their keyboard with their nose? Then it becomes something more and it is kind of judgemental to assume otherwise (although I would have to agree with you as most of the time this isn't going to be the case). Or what if the 3 squiggles are animated in some way using an animation program...then again it becomes something else entirely. But I do wish people would use some discretion when posting. It isn't so much the amount that gets me, but the quality...and in that we should each be policing our own works. Then we don't have to worry about things like censorship. Just a thought.

I think the current rule of 3 posts per day should be sufficient. But then I also think that should also include all uploads so if you want to use your uploads in a combination (ie. marketplace, gallery, and free-stuff), then that would be your three uploads for the day. Just my opinon as I don't believe in limiting people too much, if you think there are too many pics in the galleries on a daily basis, nobody says that you have to look at all of them. Or, you could use the viewing filter and just choose to look at the artwork submitted according to the program you are interested in. just a thought.

Here's my vote: Alvinylaya - 3 Muddygrub - 2 Pauljs75 - 1

My partner has worked in graphics for quite some time. So he has gotten me in the habit of rendering things at 300 dpi and as a TIF in case I ever want to have them printed off. I don't even pretend to understand how everything works when it comes to these new digital presses, however, I usually render at a resolution of 3300x2200. This would make the initial print out no bigger than 8-1/2 x 11. However, the size for the print out is easily adjusted using photoshop, and he recommends that you have the file sent to the print controller in RGB mode as the color conversion to CMYK is more appropriately handled by the print controller than by the computer you are rendering or utilizing photoshop on (the colors tend to appear closer to the RGB values once printed so they don't appear so washed out by the end of the process). If you think that adjusting the image size after rendering the picture, it doesn't. We have had a number of the pieces I have worked on enlarged for the offices of friends. They cover complete walls and there was no degradation in the appearance after printing. It certainly takes longer to render this way than as a JPG, but in the long run it might save some time and disk space. Doug

All I want to know is...how does one accomplish something that looks like this with Bryce? I think it's amazing and have become a big fan of abstacts since being on here.

Susan Kitchens' book is a great reference. The online tutorials are great. This forum is quite a bit of help. And definitely do the monthly challenges, they actually help in learning things which I sometimes wouldn't know otherwise. And render, render, render...

A favorite? Do we have to pick a favorite...sometime Queen or Moody Blues, sometime Celtic, sometime Vivaldi, Motzart, Bach or Chopin...and there are many, many more. I just don't like to limit myself with what I listen to, I guess that it is kind of like artwork...there isn't a genre I tend to dislike there either.

I made the oarlocks like the ones I had on rowboats I owned as a kid. I don't know if it is a regional thing(y) or not. However, when I joined the Navy and went from the coast of New England to the Pacific coast I saw the horseshoe shaped oarlocks that you mentioned. Personally, I always hated using them only because the oars had the habit of coming out of them if not held in a particular manner. I'm also not sure what is going on with my copy of Bryce at the moment. I had to redo the picture from scratch as it conveniently saved my first piece with a different file extension. This time around it changed the sizes of some objects, in particular the oars. I think I am just going to have to do a reload and hopefully that should fix my problem. Thank you very much for the positive feedback BTW. I sometimes feel that I need the encouragement when I do these contests. Especially considering the quality of renders I consistently put myself up against. Doug

That would make more sense to me and might be worthwhile to look into in the future. For now though, I thik I'm satisfied with the QTVR that I already have, although, I'm not exactly sure what Peter's intended purpose for VR is to begin with (I could have just missed that). I do like the platform that Unreal provides but like Peter, I work off of something that has less than the recommended tech. specs. for programming. I work off of an iBook G3 800MHz 640M Ram and until I can upgrade to a better system I don't think Unreal is a viable option. Don't get me wrong however, I am definitely interested in it as I am always in awe by the games which utilize it. Doug

Although I have played some of the games such as Deus Ex, the Unreal Engine seems to heave some unreal drawbacks. First off, one has to know Visual C ++,. Second, the prgramming is basically for a PC and the engine isn't available for MAC users, so if programming for something like real estate then I would stick with QTVR. Lastly, was cost, I can't seem to find a price tag on the engine itself, but on the technical page for new programmers (which can be found here: http://udn.epicgame.com), they recommend nothing less than a Dell Pentium 4, flat screen, a gig or so of RAM, etc. In other words...the most high end PS one can think of. For somebody just getting int VR, I would think this would be an unusually high cost and would definitely not recommend commiting one's resources for that kind of expenditure just to try out a piece of software. Besides, if I were to get a new system, it would have to be a G$ Dual Processor, Dell still can't compare in that department. Cheers. DDoug

Okay, I got it now...learn something new everyday...even if I don't come up with something as superb as the elephants I think doing the contest is worthwhile just so I can get some decent practice in. All I need to do now is figure out how to utilize this shape... And there is definitely something to be said for crayons...they odn't have to be plugged in to work :)

And I can'y even figure out how to make the pic for the challenge into a solid object . Maybe I'll just sit this one out. Great elephants BTW.