Hi Ryan,

Great start. Here's a couple of things I would try.

1. Contrast. The balconies are too green and stand out too much. There's not enough contrast in the rest of the scene. Perhaps try lighting with a stronger sun and use GI but lower ambient.
2. Perspective. Make sure you're using a telephoto lens. I'd try my Camera settings around 80 to 110 (I think you already are using a fairly high number there?)
3. Always have people in clumps of 2 or 3, rarely 1. Have them in natural poses with basic muted colors.
4. I would rather see a dark foreground, say a shadow of a tree across the lower area. This old architectural rendering trick 'pulls the viewer' into the image, past the foreground. This shouldn't be hard to setup with the current image. Also, try changing the proportion of the image to be wider and less tall.

All that said, IMO, composition and modelling are great. Hope to see your next pass!
best,
Chipp

Quote - Actually, there's a simpler way to do the Fresnel effect: in the transparency tab of the material editor, there's a slider that controls the "turn reflective with angle". That's how Vue calls Fresnel. You can even modulate the effect.

While that works with transparent surfaces, it won't work with single material reflective surfaces which aren't transparent...like metals, or car paint.

Then you need to do use the other technique.

-Chipp

Here's just another thought, (and the reason I chose Vue over Carrara). Check out the renderings in the respective galleries...not just average renderings, but the best ones. Great renderings inspire me. Especially check out some of these:

erka
czarnyrobert
thomaskrahn
garyandcatherine
sacada

When you see some of those renderings, you know what the software is capable of. I've yet to see the equivalent in Carrara. Now, I know Vue is only a tool, and any tool in the right hands yada yada, but the tool does affect the outcome. If I only have a hammer and wood, I build my house differently from someone who has metal and a torch.

Tony,

Great! Let me know when it's done. I'll look forward to it :-)

best,
Chipp

Tony, forgive me if I'm a bit thick on this as I'm just getting started.

You're saying start with the P4 Lo-res male and use morph magnets to modify the geometry so that there are 'overalls'? I guess I would do this in the Pose room? Or would you export the geometry to do this? I'm not clear on this step.

Next, after it is modelled, I suppose you're talking about importing the named geometry after renaming it in UVmapper? I'm just trying to figure out the correct sequence of events here.

Lastly, do you know of any tutorials which go over this technique? Any help is much appreciated!

-Chipp

Wow, thanks Tony.
Couple of questions. Is there a way to edit the OBJ to get the desired geometry, use UVMapper to setup new UV maps, then just place inside the proper folder in Poser to do this (so you don't have to go through the whole export,import routing)? Just wondering.

I plan on eventually exporting these to Vue for final rendering, so displacement map shaders aren't necessary (and in fact can't be used).

-Chipp

Thanks Vilian! Will check them out. :-)

Great...I do have 2 Gb...Interesting though the other computers I'm networked to have only 1Gb, and one of them is a 1.66GHz Core Duo laptop, which renders faster than my 3.+ GHz 2Gb Desktop.

OOPS sorry, 3K is 3000 pixels x ~2000 pixels.

Are there any significant problems with rendering a large 3K still to the screen?

Just wondering....

Attached Link: http://www.altuit.com/webs/altuit2/altTerrainBuilder/UsingaltTerrainBuilder.htm

Attached Link: http://www.altuit.com/webs/altuit2/vuelab/TerrainMappingII.htm

Hi Peggy, Nice tutorial! Thanks :-) BTW, the links to your other PDF tutorials are broke..at least on my browser they are. best, Chipp

Attached Link: http://www.altuit.com/webs/altuit2/vuelab/TerrainMapping.htm

"The plot thickens. I made a similar object but much simpler with only 14 holes. The unsmoothed mesh was 180 polygons and in Vue was also 180.
After smoothing the mesh was 720 polygons but in Vue was 960.
After smoothing again it was 2880 polygons but in Vue was 4320.
I can't see any logical reason for this."

I'm guessing Vue is probably triangulating all polys greater than 3 sides, as it does when importing objects, as triangles are guaranteed to be coplanar. And since it appears there are a number of concave polys, it is taking it's time.