I couldn't help myself. Was just looking at your model, very early in the morning. Your pictures looked so warm, and this was in such contrast to our circumstances, that I swung around in my seat, picked up the camera and shot this pic through the window. Was cold! But , so that you don't worrym as the sun shone on the bird feeder, the sugar solution warmed up, and we had humming birds feeding about 30 minutes after this shot. This day-night cycle with the humming bird feeders goes on all the time up here. And, thanks again very much for the model. I'm making some pictures for my Mother, just as you suggested. Pam

Thanks for the model, Sharen! I'm going to use it!

I couldn't help but add my pic too. A little colder where we are - in the high elevation Colorado Rockies forest. Its mid-May, and they're predicting more snow for next week. We have about 10 feeders out, as there are hummingbirds here despite the snowy weather.

Thank you.

Re the comment about dual cpus not saving much time. Not sure this is quite correct. My duals cut my rendering time down to about one-third of what it is on my husband's machine. His has a slightly faster motherboard bus speed and a slightly faster single cpu, plus a much faster graphics card. Otherwise all our equipment is by the same manufacturers. Only his clock speeds are faster. So the sole difference in our machines is the dual processors (well, I have some ultra fast and wide scsi's and he's stuck with the latest ATA IDE drives.) But I don't try to render on his machine any more. But I agree -renders, especially with reflecting water, which I do a lot of, are time-consuming.

Attached Link: http://www.expandingwave.com/waterdemos/

Miko0, it is somewhat difficult in Vue. It takes a very fine hand, but it can be done. You must use the Terrain Editor. Reset it, so that the terrain you will build is perfectly flat. Then, taking a small brush size, raise a small ripple of the shape that you're interested in. Import this terrain into Vue, and place it just underneath the surface of the water. Give it the same water texture as the water plane, and then carefully position it. One of the problems with the Vue Terrain Editor for this purpose is that it doesn't like to make smoothly curved mesh heights. But if you're very careful, you can get some good results. Alternatively, go here and try a free sample of a water ripple mesh that I've made. http://www.expandingwave.com/waterdemos On this page, open "Door #1" and download the zip file you'll find there. This sample is from a package of ten different water ripples meshes that I'm uploading for sale on renderosity for a very small price. This package includes short tutorial image, and a picture of a result that may be what you're looking for. If I knew exactly the shape of the ripple you're looking for (spreading ring, trailing U, small rings and motion around the legs, etc.) I could make you one to fit your specifications.

This is worth taking a look at. http://www.caligari.com/products/trueSpace/ts5/Courses/Architecture.asp?Cate=Courses Caligari will give you a copy of Truespace 3.2 for free (try their main page) and sell you other versions for relatively little money. However, you want to ask yourself how much effort you want to put into building a 3D house, and for what purpose. Truespace makes architecture simple and fast, but it has a learning curve. Its only simple and fast if you invested in learning the program. This is true for all the general purpose 3D modelers. Truespace is a mid-level complexity 3D modeler. If you just want to make a model of your dream house and be done with it, you might want to try one of the $79.00 programs in the PC stores. Some of them are pretty good. Punch! Super Home Suite is probably the best of them. These let you ramp up a house pretty quickly (30 minutes with no prior experience), but the tradeoff is that you've got to work with pieces the program "pre-defines." Sometimes, you can't model things you want because they're not in the standard package. Super Home Suite is supposed to export a model that you can import into the general purpose packages, but I never had any luck with that.

Beautiful picture Guitta. Amazing water. Pam (forester)

DigReal, I can do this easily, true. Didn't know anyone would want such a thing. Why don't you send me an e-mail (sprucefir@earthlink.net) and give me some more information about what you want. (Hardwood forests, western conifers, western rainforest, or something like that.) I have tons of stuff I've shot for my own purposes, and stuff I've collected all over the US. Also, I have access to a lot of things. Most of my career was in the western us, rockies, british columbia and alaska, but I've got a trip to Wisconsin coming up next weekend, too. I could shoot some hardwoods.

Hey thanks gebe! Am always looking at different things like this. For $10, I'll give it a try. I really am a professional forester (forest ecologist) - that's why I like the looks of XFrog. Technically, those are as good as you can get. But expensive, true.

Thanks a lot!

Could whoever answered Jcleaver post the answer. I'm just about to purchase XFrog, and I want to know the answer also. Thanks

I use an nVidia card just like yours and do use it with OpenGL enabled. Previously, I used earlier nVidia GeForce cards. I've never, ever had a problem. I suspect the problem might be with your drivers. Perhaps you should experiment more with downloaded drivers from a number of sources, and make sure you are using the one specifically meant for your operating system - before giving up on the card.

Two minor comments. If you render in Sketch mode, it is possible to check the positions of the plants very quickly. Also, Truespace Version 3 is now widely available and is FREE. It has a very precise 3D coordinate system in it that is very easy to use. You can both build the terrain mesh in it (or export it from Vue or Bryce into Truespace if you have already built the mesh), and then position little cubes or sticks very precisely for the veg positions. Vue imports Truespace files.

Sorry folks. This wasn't done intentionally, and it looked like only the one message was sent. MightyPete, I appreciate your email. I'm an IT professional, so I am aware of the bad effects of spamming. So, my apologies folks, it appears to have been a network stutter.