Another difficult question. I'm going to have to name the ones that come to mind first and miss all the other great ones I can't think of immediately. I'm a Sci-Fi addict, but... In no particular order... 1. Bladerunner 2. The Shawshank Redemption 3. The Red Violin 4. The Legend of 1900 5. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon I'd love to add to this list with 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, 2b, 3a, etc. and squeeze in works by Akira Kurosawa, Hayao Miyazaki, and others, and films like Alien, Indiana Jones, the Harry Potter films, Robot Carnival (Anime), and many more.

You've got another "very" eclectic listener here. Classical, classic rock, hard rock techno, fusion, new age, middle eastern, Japanese drums, etc. There is a special place in my heart for traditional celtic music. It just really seems to click with me. A small sampling of some artists I like are: Loreena McKennitt, early works of Clannad, Pentangle, Kate Bush, Metalica, Lisa Gerrard, Dead Can Dance, Phillip Glass, Copland, and Carl Orf. If we are talking movie scores... I like Hans Zimmer's work (Gladiator) not to mention many others. Hey, how about the score to A Nightmare Before Christmas. :-)

I don't know if this will help or not... I don't use 3D Studio Max. I'm using Lightwave, Rhino and a little Maya. I've worked with importing quite a few .obj and .3ds files into bryce and have found the following to be true: - The larger the file size the more likely Bryce is to screw up importing it. Therefore, I export individual parts of the model as separate files from the software inwhich it was originally created. The trick is to first create a simple box around your entire model and to include it with every part of the model you export. By including the box your ensure that every part of the model will import into Bryce in the proper place and at the proper size. Then I just delete the boxes in Bryce. - I prefer using .obj files simply because it eliminates the need to mess with smoothing the model in Bryce. However, .obj files are usually larger then .3ds files; so if file size becomes critical I will use .3ds instead of .obj.

Thanks Stephen Ray. I missed that tut. I've seen some of their others. By any chance, have your ever attended any of the DVGarage meetings. I live just near enough to attend, but haven't yet, and was curious about them. In all likely-hood you probably live far from where they are located. Just seems to be the way things work out, but I thought I'd ask. :-)

Hey Claymor... I thought that first image was a little dark. Thanks

Sir? If someone has knighted me then they haven't told me about it. No need to be so formal. lol 8D A little information about my image above... The tree, grass, dirt chunks, and stones are all Bryce objects. All other objects were created in Rhino and imported into Bryce. All the materials applied in the image are Bryce materials I created specifically for this image. So... I'm having some success with the Materials Lab and the DTE. :-) No photo textures used yet.

Looks good! ^_^ Difinitely looks better then the previous one. I know you probably don't want to increase the render time, lol, but if you aren't happy with losing the detail on the thingy shape on the shield you could try one of two things. You could use a small and very faint (dark colored/low intensity with edge softness) spot light near the shield so that it only lights the shield. Or, you could duplicate one of the flame radial lights and place it like it is another brassiere lighting the room from near were the camera is (to the left of the camera?). This might also throw a little highlight on the cauldron. It might also brighten the scene too much depending on how dark you want it. Or you could ignore me altogether because these are very minor changes and the image does look good as is. ;-)

Oh, when I said... "I have yet to see an appropriate photo texture for what I want to do unfortunately. I didn't really think I would, though." I ment that I haven't seen an appropriate photo texture on the web for download. I've looked extensively. :-)

Thanks Shadowdragonlord! I knew there was something simple and obvious I was overlooking. I remember reading about the second technique you mentioned before, but it completely slipped my mind. The first technique is the one I've been messing with.

Thanks for the quick response Aldaron. I will try your advice. I've already been doing almost exactly the same thing you suggest. I just haven't been happy with the results yet. I have been playing with using marble settings with cloud textures. I've also been playing with photo textures I've created in Photoshop. I have yet to see an appropriate photo texture for what I want to do unfortunately. I didn't really think I would, though. I will try and post some of my results thus far as soon as I can. As for my familiarity with the DTE... I'm niether a newbie or an advanced user. I fall somewhere in the middle. :-) Thanks again.

Very interesting! ;-) Thanks

Hmmm... about my earlier post... Don't get me wrong. I really like your lighting. It's really just the direction of the shadows that's a little strange to me. It looks like there is a powerful and low light source off by the table casting them. It kind of looks like its the candle - which would be odd. I was just thinking that it might look more natural if it looked like the flames or an overhead light source were casting the primary shadows. When lighting flames with radial lights I like to keep the lights set at a 25 unit strength or less generally, and I give the light an orangish gray color. I use the darkness of the color as well as the unit strength to control the brightness of the light. If the scene is still too dark after adding the flame lights, then I begin carefully adding other lights to simulate reflected light and other light sources that might be in the evironment but not within the camera's view. I don't see why you couldn't use a very low value for soft shadows on the flame lights, but it isn't always necessary. Sometimes the sharp shadows look better. Again... Great work!!! Feel free to tell me to shut up. I'm never quite sure if I should have kept my big mouth shut. :-)

Looking good. :-) May I humbly suggest, though, that you make the cauldron and the brassiere fires your primary light sources. It seems to me that your darkest shadows should be cast by these two fires, or they should at least be equal to the shadows cast by the candles. Your darkest shadows look like they are cast only by a light source on the table, such as the candle. [That's got to be one powerful candle. ;-) ] Or you could make it look like there is another light source(s) beyond the confines of the image. This image could gain a lot of atmosphere, so to speak, if areas of it darkened (increased in contrast) and shadows deepened the further they were from the fires and candle flames. Oh... and keeping or adding faint light coming through that window beyond the doorway is/would be a nice effect. You have a neat scene here, which gives you the opportunity to do some interesting lighting. Cheers!

I've never seen the northern lights in person myself, but this looks damn good to me. :-) I really like the way the entire sky turned out; from the yellows and oranges at the horizon, to the stars and moon above. ...not to mention the northern lights.

I like this gloomy scene. :-) Kind of reminds me of certain games. It's what you might expect if you crossed two games like Myst and the Cinematics for Diablo.