snorkz, Spin control is a bear any way that you look at it. The controls are set up so that the object will spin X times per second. If you are rendering say a propeller, you will need to have a very high value to show the speed of the propeller. Try not to make X the number of Frames Per Second (FPS) of you animation as you might as well not have the spin modifier. If you are trying to get the speed of a planet in space, well, that's a very low value, and I don't mean negative. I'm creating a planet animation and I've found that integer values just don't cut it!! But manual entry of decimal values work REAL well. .5 being 1 rotation every 2 seconds, .25 being 4 rotations per second, and so forth. I've found that .1 or .05 work well for my situation as this slow the rotations to a virtual crawl and makes it seem realistic. Hope this helps! Ken

Sure, why not? Under the render room there is a setting for ZBuffer. Select this as your render mode and hit the wireframe button and you should be set. Now understand... if your models are shaded they will take on the color of your color shader, so if you are looking for a pure white wireframe you will have to find a way to use only a white shader or the default. I'd suggest creating a second .car file and removing all but the default shader. This way you don't lose the original. Ken

A few more images are listed... I'm gonna have to try and compile this puppy into a word doc or PDF or sumthin'. While it's cool to see the time listing, I think we need to be able see the images next to each other for comparison. I'll work on it... Ken

Sutoms, Put a bulb with brightness at 1% just outside the box in front of the object (uncheck CAST SHADOWS box) and activate the lens flare.. The low setting will not interfere with the lighting of the scene and it will show the lens flare. Do not drop the brightness to 0% as this just turns off the light, and consequently the lens flare. As far as I know, this is the only way to accomplish the effect. Light will pass through transparent objects, but the effects will not. Check a couple of threads back and you will see something about the refraction settings that seemed to be buggy. Same basic thing... Ken

I'm curious Ken are you rendering out as .avi, .mov or sequential? If you render out as sequential not only are you covered if power goes out (can just stop at last frame) or if its morning and you actually want to use your computer, you also get faster render times. Which if you are animating...IS GOOD!

Brian,
In response to your post in the earlier thread, I use single renders per image. To use an animation/sequence only gives me an average to use for timing. By using several (in this case 11) files and batch rendering them I get exact times for the render.
You're right, though, I should have included at least one light source. The problem is I usually use the Atmosphere setting and it tends to tint things too blue-ish (Can you tell I don't change colors too often?).
But, this is for an evaluation process, so I took some liberties... but I ramble....
May have to make a new one after this is done... For the time being, consider this image as looking east during false dawn or something; not too many shadows.
Ken

Will know more when I complete the renders. right now I'm just compiling times and images, and with GI, that eats up a lot of time, time in which I cannot use my computer. I'll post a link to the web page when I complete the renders. IMO, knowing this will be able to give us a good indication for a good balance. From what I've seen so far, the ambient in GI adds almost as much as the skylight can. The rendertimes haven't been too great a difference, but if you are rendering animations those extra seconds or so can add up to a lot of time saved over the long run. My 2c again, Ken

I know that when I have a mass render to do I just set up my trusty old DualAMD 1.8s and let it run all night (and the next day, and the next day, and the next day.....) Don't know if C2 is capable of multi-machine rendering. Not in the sense of the renderfarms of most other commercial 3D software. Maya and 3DS Max take advantage of a network process that C2 lacks (something for the future, maybe?). The only way I know of to do this is to use a copy of C2 per machine and use them to render one shot per machine. Multi-machine renders of this type would require multiple licenses so as not to violate the EULA. My 2c's Ken

Attached Link: http://www.kenzden.com/Gallery/NWB-Action.html

Here's another test... Link is to the Hirez ver. Marc- Still WIP, but the mouth is a relatively small thing to change. In doing this pose, I found some body constraints that needed to be changed. Just gotta heep plugging. Bikermouse = Now he's mad, but emotion is something that can change. The eyelids rotate in all three dimensions so that more emotive expressions could be created... Can't get bones to do what I wanted on this, so I substituted joint constraints. Not organic, but then again... neither is he. Kix - Planning on a brushed metal with some plastic in there. All in all a kind of a new car kinda feel. I plan on using a few grunge textures with a slider as a mixer in a few of the channel, so as the animation progresses I can weather him gradually. I'm going to experiment dropping pieces of the whole into UVMapper Pro and see if they import back as good. Problem with that is I have to re-establish all the constraints and Hotpoints. I'm also looking at an all-Carrara texturing. I've built a few color grids that allow me to accurately place decals and check on seams in the editor. All in all, I want this to be as good as I can get. Til the next update... Ken 

Forgive the sermon to the converted. It's not so much that I think he did anything supremely spectacular (though spectacular it was), they are common techniques for the shading. It's just that I find his ability to do the work with booleans in Bryce fascinating. Don't get me wrong, I find a lot of uses for Bryce in my daily workings. It's just the sheer modelling that gets to me. I find reading the boolean mesh structure to be very confusing. I usually end up building the models in a different modeller and porting into bryce. I guess the original intent of the post was to complement the artist (I didn't notice it was Rochr), and show that in such places as 3D Total (a notoriuosly Maya/3DS Max area) other programs can achieve as good a result without the hefty cost. I remember the thread a while back about "hobbyists" and Bryce so I guess this just shows those nay-sayers. I still feel more than slightly inadequate. Ken

I AM SOOOOOO stoked!!!! For years, SIGGRAPH has loomed in my mind, but it was always too far to go... This year it's in sunny sandy eggo and I can take the time off!!! I think the exhibition halls will hold enough for me, but we'll see!!! Ken

Ed, Stupid Answer: The only thing that I've found that causes that is mapping infinite planes. I've also seen it happen with centerpoints that are far away from the actual midpoint of the model. I find this occurs when I build a whole model in vertex mode then try to split it up. I tend to do a LOT of vertex modelling and I see this frequently. When it happens I have two choices. Live with it, or save and reload. Not the answer you wanted to hear, I think, but an answer of sorts.... Ken src="http://market.renderosity.com/~carrara/emoticons/dork.gif">.zip

The Testpiece DivX & MOV is the initial testpiece to see if the main character could be animated (quickly!) and look good enough for production. That and the ability to create special effects with Premiere. The animation only took about 2 days to create. It was the editing and camera setups and sound that took the rest of the time. So much for the animation being the HARD part. Ken src="http://market.renderosity.com/~carrara/emoticons/dork.gif">.zip

Attached Link: http://kenzden.web.aplus.net/movies/testpiecemov.zip

OK, for Buijon I've translated the piece into MOV sorenson 3, but it inflated the size over double what DIVX did. I guess maybe I should invest in a QT license as the encoders I have seem to suck.... MOV format- File zipped in winzip 8.0 - Filesize 16MB!!! Ken 

Attached Link: http://kenzden.web.aplus.net/movies/testpiecemov.zip

OK, for Buijon I've translated the piece into MOV sorenson 3, but it inflated the size over double what DIVX did. I guess maybe I should invest in a QT license as the encoders I have seem to suck.... MOV format- File zipped in winzip 8.0 - Filesize 16MB!!! Ken 

Given time I think that I can come up with a MOV, but that will have to wait til the weekend. BTW, I'm running premiere 6.5 and I've had no problem with interaction with DIVX. Makes me wonder what might have gone wrong in your case.... hmmm, just the techie in me thinking.... Ken