Nice effort, I like the concept and it is well executed. Sure looks like alot more effort than my entry that took me an evening to complete. Some times it takes a while for the right idea to strike and the to complete it. It would be much more dramatic if you could apply a ghosting effect between the stages. Perhaps a directional motion blurr would do it or perhaps a zoom blur. So what will be your bump in the night?

Yike's It's time already? I am humbled. So in tribute, I figured to make the next one fun, It can be a scary image or a funny image. It should allow those who like to play with poser characters in bryce and also for those who just like working with objects. A play on fears that usually turn out to be nothing, but then again....... I honestly thought about starting a What evil lurks in the realm of Ducky Wucky. But then that would be rights infringement. So without any further blah, blah. The theme,, shudder, I hope you like, is. "Things that go bump in the night" I for one am interested as to what twists this will produce. Once again Thank You all and have fun rendering. The last challenge was a good one, I hope this keeps up the fine tradition. Best Regards to all Peter Nevai

A great site to get tutorials on how to better use the Terrain editor and bryce is http://www.brycetech.com There you will find tutorials covering in depth the functionality of most of bryce's tools and functions. I hope that this short example helps you move in the right direction.

You will need to use the smooth and lower options in the editor to remove the spikyness and get the height of the terrain from a block like you see here to the flat ripple terrain you see in the picture above.

If you are real good you can paint this type of effext in by hand using the blur brush in photoshop and the doge and burn tools. Or as I did in this inage, I applied a KPY filter called turbulence. You need to do it in the actual image layer though, this will not work on a added layer. You mask out the object you wish to have the disturbance around. Then you go into KPT plugs and select the turbulence plug in. Set the dampening half way. The brush size to the smallest setting and distortion above the half way mark. You may need to experiment with the settings a bit. Then you drag your mouse across the object near the water line. Try varying directions or move your mouse in a circular motion and see how the ripples expand. The trick is that you need to hold your other hand over the enter key on the keyboard. When you think the ripple pattern is the way you want it hit enter this will freeze the effect and apply it to your image. In the preview the entire object will be distorted but don't worry the main image will not have the distortion applied to the area you masked in step one. To touch up use the smooth and blur tools to tidy up the ripples. This is a trial and error way of doing it but it is easy and quick enough to get good results in short order. You may even wish to experiment with multiple passes. This technique can also creat realistic bump and ripple texture maps. Convert a ripple image to gray scale and import it into the terrain editor can create your own ripple and wave objects.

do you have any Idea how long I've been using this SW and this is the first time I learn that that stuff is there?

I suggest you down load the most excellent Vicky Buster texture. Use that as a guide for your freckles, SnowSultan had an uncanny knack for applying just the right type of skin textures for the body. Mason is right on track. Freckles are much more pronounced in areas that are exposed to the sun and much lighter and less dense in the areas that are not. Using the Multiply setting on your layers rather that the normal additive mode will help with this.

Your problem is not with the software but with the human senses. You may also note that the effect you are describing does not work well on a television either. It has to do with the human eye, and motion reflexes. Lacking any other stimulous. We detect that we are in motion by several factors the major one is our sight. When you are watching a clip with motion, if your eyes have no stationary frame of reference, your eyes tell your brain that you must be moving even though your not. This is best illustrated by the effect of sitting in a stopped car. The car next to you starts moving very very slowly forward. This tricks your mind into thinking that you are moving and not the car next to you. To pull this type of effect off. You need a screen large enough to completely fill a persons field of vision. With no stationary objects of reference you can fool the brain into thinking that the body is in motion. So you see it is not your modeling skills or software that is the problem but rather the facilities to enable this nifty trick. If you were to project your animation in a darkened room on a screen large enough to eliminate any fixed references you would realize your effect.

This looks more like spots. THe problem is that every thing has freckles. The ears, inside the nose. the eyelids etc. the nipples the entire brest. Some areas of the skin are just not effected this densely. You need to rework it and be more selective.