Well the ones in the distance are certainly improved. Also the one in the foreground looks better in my opinion. Don't give up! Just because you can't immediately get the same results that they get on the tut on Brycetech, doesn't mean you won't ever. You just have to keep experimenting and trying. aprilgem, your fire looks great. What texture did you use? I'm guessing either Clay's or Beaumont's Fire (I think that's the name, don't have it myself, just heard of it).

I notice that they don't tell you the pricing on this little gem. I find it funny that it's running a 1.2GHz processor. Guess it just goes to show that processor isn't everything =)

LOL I love that terrain, and DARN it so that's where my power pod got to! What did you use to make the terrain? Doesn't look like Bryce to me.

Yup, that's where I found Ultimate Paint. Why would anybody NOT use google? =) Someday I'll just do a search on "free 3d renderer", wonder what that would get =) maybe "free 3d modeler" lol

Interesting. I think I understand a bit better now. Next time I do a gem, I'll model it in Wings rather than Bryce. Maybe I'll be able to get that "diamonds are forever" sparkle to it. =) Thanks.

Hmm interesting that they are offering KPT3's there... aren't KPT3's provided with Bryce? Never could work out how to use those things... Thanks a lot I'll download that and install Ultimate Paint soon as my render finishes (which, the way it's going now, will be sometime well into tomorrow). Cheers

Took a look for Ultimate FX. Closest thing I found was called Ultimate Paint, on a redirect from Google's findings to a software page. It's freeware, so probably an updated version of what you're talking about. Thanks a lot, this could be extremely helpful to me. As for cliche, well, I'd like to start with that and branch out! =)

I found that you can accomplish similar results by taking Clay's fire, setting it to Random, making it volumetric and fuzzy... also works well in combination with surface visible lights. Not sure why I told you that. =) Great modelling BTW.

Reminds me of the starmaps in "Knights of the Old Republic". The one underwater was particularly cool as I recall. BTW, did that volume texture come with Bryce5.5 or did you get it somewhere else/make it yourself?

Just one thing. I had a short stint a while back where I would leave TIR off, basically create a room of mirrors, put the camera inside, stuff in a sphere, and render a complicated-looking rather abstract image (the best of which is in my gallery under the name "Feelin' Blue"). Just for curiosity's sake, I turned on TIR and rerendered. No matter what different settings I used, there was no change. I'm not sure I get what TIR is then. I thought that it was the number of times a specific ray will bounce off reflective surfaces. In that case I should have seen noticeable changes in the "depth" of my pic. Right?

Blast those long renders! I can't check without pausing the render. Just a sec... Okay, no. Possibly that's the problem. =) Peter Sharpe's method involves creating a pyramid, moving the origin handle to the center of where you want your gem to be, and then multireplicating the pyramid around the origin to create the gemstone. Looks very nice, but then Peter Sharpe was using Bryce4 (no TIR) when he wrote the tutorial. Also takes a really long time to render as you can imagine.

lol well you never know that's why I said it's a stupid suggestion. You've probably thought of this as well then... but then again you never know. =) Why don't you just render the moon separately, then make it full white and render for the mask, put it on a layer, duplicate it and flip it upside down for the reflection? Then you could mess with deformations and opacity and such (which I assume Photoshop has). Don't mean to be demeaning, condescending, or any of that rot (haven't looked at your gallery but you're probably a better artist than I am anyways)... this stuff works for me, most of the time. Anyhow, good luck!

Only if you have Photoshop (I don't). I have no way that I know of to reproduce the effect that Photoshop gives; PSP9 has a lens flare, but it looks very poor. I use PSP6, which has no lens flare at all. Okay now we're on #34, and not talking about the original topic of the thread! =) Kinda funny really... Cheers

Hum, I see. I think. So what you're saying is that the poblem is the fact that PS's gemstones have a large number of objects "inside" the gemstone itself? I could create a gem in Wings, I suppose.