Best wishes to all from Breitenbach, Germany.

...since every week or so someone asks for comparison between Vue and Bryce or other software, to add a link to the header banner with something like "Compare Vue and other s/w" or something. That would save a lot of the "should I buy Bryce or Vue" posts. I don't think "Cool, Groovy, and Free Stuff" would naturally lead someone to look in there for the comparison info. And I agree with Rimkopf re flame. Unnecessary.

Not too sure about Carrara, as I don't use it, but most programs will not export booleans. I know Bryce won't and Vue won't either.

Where do you find the "destroy object animation" command? Which menu? I've never found that; sure would come in handy!

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?ViewSoftgood=9540

One thing to know with PBooost....download the demo checker first. And check how your disk is formatted. If your hard disk is formatted FAT32, PBooost will not work on the fly. Meaning that it is designed to let you switch banks while Poser is running; something about FAT32 file system won't let you do that. So if you're like me, have PBooost and don't want to change your disk format, you can still move stuff into different folders in PBooost, but you will need Poser closed to switch banks.

Looks good; loaded pretty fast, as well. Excellent job! I don't personally care for black backgrounds that much (hard on my eyes) but it looks very classy and subtle.

You're very welcome, Chuck. For the textures on imported Poser items, usually when you click the + sign in your object browser, the things that drop down out of it are individually listed. If I need to find a texture or part of a complex item (like your carriage, for example), I click on each part and watch the mesh window until the section I want comes up. You may be able to get to that particular material that way. But adjusting the reflectivity in Poser works fine as well. Not sure about your comment 3b above...what outside texture? Outside of what, the coach? You mentioned in your first post that you thought the area outside the gates looked empty. I looked at it again, and you're correct. A few suggestions for hiding empty spaces like that: create a wall out of a cube, texture it with bricks or something darker, and set it out there. That will cut off the horizon, and make it look like something is out there. Or you can enlarge a tree and sink it into the ground so it appears that there's more vegetation out there, without having to create a whole bunch of trees. For the size of the stars, you can reduce or enlarge them by going into edit atmosphere, then the last tab, where it has star brighness. If you play with that slider, you'll see that it makes them either hugely bright or you can get them down to pinpoints. Can't wait to see your final version!

Hi, Chuck. I agree with Sharen, I think the lighting came out good. It seems most of your questions have to do with materials/textures. A few suggestions. (You may not want to play with this in your picture, rather on a plain cube) Material scale controls how large/small the material looks on a surface. The larger the material (like, 1000 x 1000), the better, as you won't have so much repeating. If you put a material on your cube (like bricks), look at the scale (at top right, the little number thing under the material preview). Fool around with the numbers; the material will get larger and smaller. This is how you scale it. You said the coach was reflecting bricks...easy fix, go into the material editor and turn down reflectivity on that particular material. If you open the materials summary at top, you can find the coach material very easily. For resources for textures and materials, go to Cool and Groovy stuff at the top of this page. Some good resource in there. Also, I go to Google and type in Free Textures or something like that. Even if the textures are smallish, you can use your 2D graphics program (like PSP or PS) to flood fill a larger canvas and make the size larger. Overall, I like the composition and look of your picture a lot, and think you've done an excellent job.

Loved it! Very funny!

I use Poser 4 with Vue 4.1 all the time. If I hadn't had Vue already, I would have purchased it for the ability to import Poser files alone, although I like it for a lot of other reasons. I am on PC, so can't speak to the Mac issues. You can import the props, everything, as long as you put it into a scene in Poser first and save it as a Poser file.

Are you importing the pz3 file? If you import it that way, it should be fine. I don't get any requests for loading the materials. If you have the latest update to Vue, you should be able to import the Poser 4 figures directly without having to save them as 3ds or other format.

I'm interested in lighting too, and look forward to the rest of your tutorial. I've been experimenting with the atmosphere, particularly the effect of ambient vs sunlight, but haven't really worked on any interior lighting, so I find your information very interesting. Thanks for putting the tutorial together.

Attached Link: http://btr0xw.rz.uni-bayreuth.de/cjackson/

I've done that a few times myself, using Vue renders as backgrounds in Poser. The Vue skies are so great, you can get wonderful effects in the atmosphere editor. I also use Terragen for skies in Poser, but find the Vue editor easier to work in. Pic looks terrific!