tebop, The number you see next to the frame rate is NOT the length of the animation. It is just the length controlled by the scrub bar (that long line at the top of your image here). Animation length is controlled (as you surmised) by the yellow bar in the timeline. The easiest way to change this (without having to drag it) is to go to the render room and look under the Output tab. The file format header has the length to be rendered. Simply put the length in the supplied boxes (in minutes:seconds:frames format) and it will adjust the marker in the timeline. If you are rendering at 24fps and your animation is 29 and 1/2 seconds you would enter 00:29:12 as 12 is a half second at that frame rate. Simple? Maybe not, but that should explain it. Let me know if it's the same on a Mac as I use a PC. Ken

Scott, If you've got a free few, try to post a wireframe of the image. Should only take a few secs to render. This will give us a good idea of how the scene renders out... Ken

Scott, looks like you have some bleeding from the internal lights. I'm going to make an assumption that they are spheres with a glow scaled to 600%. If the sconce/fixture has any open facets along the way, that would cause the bleeding. If not, I would recommend making the globes in the fixture smaller. Size is not an issue in indirect glow lighting and if any of the glow facets are intruding on the fixture that would also cause the bleeding we are seeing here. Ken

Ed, very perceptive and very true. I'm not at all sure how I would go about simulating exposure settings in C3, but I'm sure it can be done. Right now I only use one image to set up the shot, so I guess, yes, it would be LDR. For what it's worth, though, it seems to work just fine for what I am looking for. But for specifics, I am VERY sure that by using GI images to create the HDR file (whether HDRI or LDRI) it is a better approximation of natural lighting than just adding in a straight ray trace without GI. Maybe I'm rambling.... ?? Ken

OK, here'a a test render. There is obviously light coming from the HDRI as I've jacked up the skylight intensity in the render settings. The attached image has a number of objects, some reflective, some not. The numbers show the skylight intensity settings in the render panel. As you can see, there is a marked difference. The HDR image just doesn't have the range of the other captured HDR image I used, but it does light the scene. I intentionally used a low light setting as this is a darkened room with a "pseudo" studio light prop. Pseudo meaning it has a few objects that glow in an approximation of a lighting rig in a studio. I think it is working, but I will have to test to be sure. Ken 

tkane, there are no lights in this image at all, just the HDR image driving all lighting. The only non-reflecting object is the plane which they are sitting on. Three objects total: The plane, the sphere, and the cone. Ken

Here's a test using a "home-grown" HDRI map built in C3! Same basic object as above, but using my map (inset) instead of the one produced by Paul Debevec. Ken 

OK, here's the sitch... I tried different renders using all of the mentioned solutions... Final Verdict: Full raytracing: This has absolutley no effect on the artifacting in the render. What this does do is sharpen the reflection on the sphere/cone structure. Good thing, but not a viable workaround. Adds to render time only slightly. Interpolation: This did not visibly affect the image, except to add to render time. No go... Photon Counts: This changed the size of the artifacting and made it smaller, but did not remove the problem. Also added to the render times.... All settings to best/lowest value: This solved the problem, but it went from a 2 minute render to a 40 minute render... gotta be a better way. Final conclusion to render artifacts (after much testing): Change the lighting quality out of fast mode to best mode. This allowed the lighting to fully reflect off the white base object and be accurately portrayed. Artifacting was removed and the final render time was only 5 minutes more (at 7 minutes total) than the original. Thanks for the excellent advice, guys, as it gave me a starting point for figuring this out. I'm going to keep working on HDRI as a means for natural lighting. Just FYI, setting a spherical camera in a scene that is 2:1 ratio will yield a HDRI lat/long map. Use GI and you can just translate the image using HDRshop to an HDR image that carrara can use! Ken 

Titans, as I recall... They suppose to be HUUUGE. Epic scale, probably around 100-200 meters tall. These are the kind of things that squash small buildings and houses. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. I haven't played in a long time. Ken

Blue, The shader for "that pupp" is all two texture maps compiled in PSP8 for two different UV maps. As you surmised it is about 7 different layers EACH of grime with masks and deleted selection. Doesn't take long to do, just need to keep adding to the "morgue" to get more dirt and grime masks (Digital cameras are godsends for this) and environment shots. That's the only trick to it. Mateo, The GI was rendered with a white background, grey backdrop, and two spots. The trick is not to overdo the lighting. GI will take the white BG and use it as the general illumination for the scene. The two spots (10% and 25% brightness) are just for clarification of the object in the frame. The soft shadows check box is used on the lights' effects tab, and that takes care of that. Angular fall-off is what gives the light the sharpness. Turn up the angle and the light becomes softer at the edges. Best bet on GI renders? Turn off ambient brightness in the scene tab. Until you are sure how the final layout of a scene will be lit, leave off using ambient light. It tends to skew the natural feel of the lighting and takes a little more render time. Play with it only when you have time to do multiple test renders for a final image. Still working on the door. I'll let y'all know when it enters eval for Free Stuff. Ken

Here's a larger render on the front view... for those who may want a better look. Still have to add logos and a few other wear pieces, in addition to a front door. BTW... would people prefer this to be a C3 model only? or would you rather have the OBJs and work it from there? Ken 

OOPS forgot the image... Sorry! Ken 

Oh, yeah, here's an image that will show you. The line on the left is with anti-aliasing, the right, without. JPG images are more likely to keep the antialising intact. Now in extreme closeup renders (lower images) you may see the stairstepping of the aliased (left) one, but increasing the resolution will help to prevent that. Ken

Not a problem, The problem with your blue image is with the anti-aliasing on the transparency mask. You need to eliminate anti-aliasing in the mask. the easiest way to do this is to create the mask with as clean lines as you can make. Also you may want to avoid using a JPG file format. The compression algorithm usually causes artifacts like what you are seeing. Try a BMP, TIF, or GIF with only 2 colors. The last is probably your best bet as the GIF compression makes for smaller file sizes and the two color motif allows you to be VERY selective on your transparency. Let me know if you need any more help! Ken

aolba, If this is the shader tree you are using, ditch the opacity layer. This is only used if you are creating a decal-like layer on an object. It will not make the rest of the plate transparent. Keep shader one ("Whole Object" at the top of the tree) the same, but check the box at the bottom that says "No Light Interactions When Fully Transparent". This is very important as it will make your plane transparent. Take your opacity map and put it in the transparency channel with your color texture map. Invert the color of your transparency image as the transparent parts need to be white. Check the box at the bottom that says "No Light Interactions When Fully Transparent". Once again this will make it truly transparent in those areas you want it to be. Check it out and see what happens. Ken  ps My version of the shader tree is above.