the geometry s fine bu withouta good map or 2 or in the case I am showing close to 20 that is what gives it the real or stylized look.

Bryce and Lightwave are Raytracers. Poser is Phong or lower than that.I know that 3DS used to be phong only but I think that there are raytracing plugins. They might have incorperated it in the program. One of my favorite rederers particularly for animation is Renderman but there is no longer any support for it on the consumer level. A few years back there were a coupld cool mac programs that used Renderman. I know they make plug ins for it for Maya and Softimage.

WEll the thing you will need is somthing to counter the torque. Having a vent on the ends of th rotors won't do i Autogyro does nto need it because i has no power to it. The problem with an Autogyro is it neds forward momentum thus is no beter than a normal airplane but slower thus the have not been made since the 1930's. Put the rotors on over the other is a simpke soulution. I saw a demo of the Helix in Oklahoma it is an awsome machine. It can fly sidways backwards because of the way the torque is neutral. Cool looking models with a hard edge. Put them in a scene to show them off. Flying at treetop level or something. the Easy waywoudl be just to duplicate the rotor and place it just above the other for a working model. For just looks they are cool keep up the modeling. Working in aviation related buisness for 12 years takes its toll. sorry for all the data. I like building aircraft in Modeling programs also.

the problem that they hav is that thre is nothing to counter the torque of th main rotor. There are three ways this is done. 1. Have a tail rotor at a perpendiculr angle to the main rotor. Most helicopters use this method2. Have two main rotors the Marine Chinook helicopter is a main exampl of this. 3.Have counter rotating rotors. This is two rotors one above the other spinning in opposite directions. this method is used by a Russian Navy helicopter the helix. Without a counterto the torque the helicopter goes into autorotation and and a crash. If the rotor is unpowered it will not require the counter to the torque. This is in the Autogiros of the 1930's and Gyrocopters. You will then need a different form of propulsion. A strong force pulling forward and the rotors go on their own. These kind need a runway to take off and land. I am showing an exampl of a autogiro.

What is intersting for me is trying to think of when you are done. Trying to keep he polys down while keeping the detail up. I like the Idea of thinking of te end game while starting. Also What details will be seen and what are just superflous.

Why not? As far as yoru long render goes one thing you have to think of in Bryce is to render efficiantly. Only have the amout of antialiasing that you need. Don't use volumetrics unles you need them. Sort of like gaming graphics but thinking of rendering effects instead of polygons. I have used Bryce since Bryce 1. It is nto a do everything package. It is really too slow to do animation and the tools for animation are weak. It does rendering well and terrain well.Some modelling tools are there and can be used effectively if you lean them. Working with the lattice is an art and you should learn. The lighting effects is good the control over textures is really great. I get a lot of milage out of diffusion and specularity maps it takes away some of the computer look. Many other programs dont have mapping abilities in those channels. Also another thins is the Blended trasparency funtion that can be used to great effect. To get the most ot of it you will still need a modeller.

Get a modeler. Amapi or Rhino. You might get a good price on Amapi because of wht you have. Rhinois more stable so if you wnat to spend the money or can get the student discount get that. Download the UV mapper it is a lifesaver. Get soem good paint programs. Painter classica and Photoshop LE. come freee with a Wacom graphics tablet. that for about 100$

Something to try is take yoru model in Bryce ungroup the model and then applying reflective textures to the metal parts. The light is ok but there is something in the brain about ligt comming in from the left going to the right. Look at the old masters you will find the lighting most often used is like that. Try some color on the lights I usually make the lights a light orange or yellow. This comes from photography getting up a 6 am and taking pictures.I do like the piture these are some things I try to keep in mind sometimes I break my own rules and regret it othertimes I have a happy accident.

The problem often is not the eyes themselves but the lashes cover the eyes in shadow. Try repositioning yotu lights so the light is directly inthe eyes you will see them again/ Also try making the lashes transparent. Up the ambience on the eyes by changing the ambient color and changing the specular color. These are a couple options that you can try.

Sorry for the spelling errors. I think faster than I type.

You can get preset trees by clicking on the create panel and there will be preset objects bolean trees etc. By clicking I mean on the small triangle next to the create button. The soft shadows click on the reder otions meny and select highest quality there you will have a soft shadows otion. This also will slow the program to a crawl. (quadruple your reder tiems at laest)

There are quite a few weapons in the free stuff section here on renderosity. I have a cache that I made myself in Amapi.

I will have to say for the bucks Amapi seems to be the best I have used. If you run a Mac try pixel putty I use a PC now and that is the one program I wish would be ported over. AMapi is a Nurbs modeller and can do things like facet etrusion that makes for capabilities to make character models. Also a technique I have been using is to make a model in Amapi and then animate it in poser by making different versions of the model and using them as morph tagets. It works out smoother than using the bones in Poser.