Congrats Humorix, great image! A 100% Bryce image sounds cool. Since we already did cityscapes, what do you think about doing a small rustic village? Kind of like "The Shire" from "Lord of The Rings". I would give people a chance to use the landscape ability of Bryce combined with boolean objects and groups. Just a thought.

You want my two cents? Don't even bother with a critique forum unless you are going to staff it with moderators that have a real art education. Here's why, in the software forums when someone posts an image looking for constructive advice you will get 6 incorrect or misleading responses for every 1 correct and helpful one. Sorry to sound harsh, but some folks just like to chime in on posts whether they have anything to say or not. I always try to be helpful but sometimes you end up arguing with people who are wrong while they insist they are right. The original post is forgotten and it turns into a flame war (worst case scenario). Most people here aren't looking for honest critique, they are looking for validation. "Oh, that's soooo wonderful, great job!" is enough for them. Saying "You need to pay more attention to lighting", "More post work would get rid of those jagged edges" or "Try turning down the ambience on your textures...and turn the shadows on." usually pisses people off unless it's said just right. Creating a Critique forum just gives the "saccharin comment crowd" another place to coo over each other. (gag)

I use InfiniD 4.5. I export my models as DXF's then import them to Bryce and export them as OBJ, 3DS, or anything else I like.

It's not a copyright violation, but if you'd feel better running back down to Mexico to pay the old man who made the sword, feel free. I dare say, that if you made a real sword that looked exactly like the original and sold it by the dozens, you still would not be violating a copyright. That sword design isn't even Mexican in origin, chances are that the maker copied it from somewhere too. It's nice to see you are so conscientious about copyrights, but you're getting a little carried away here.

Never trust anyone who can walk through walls. ;-) Seriously though, congratulations!

Get the book "Animals in Motion" by Eadweard Muybridge, available through Dover Publications. Muybridge was the original motion study guy. There are stepped photos of animal motions that are custom made for creating keyframes. Animal walks, runs, jumps, etc... All kinds of animals too. It's worth every penny for an animator.

Eeexxxcellennnttt....Everything is falling into place... ;-)

Attached Link: http://www.a2creations.com

Great! Now if we could just get someone to port Natural Pose for the Mac and we can get some real work done.

I gotta keep with the Metaball theme and go with Stephen Ray's worm. AgentSmith is my close second with Humorix following, only because they were more boolean than metaball.

Congrats to the winners, and no offense to you Rena, but... I didn't even know where to find the members gallery until after the voting was over. The official rules left out the URL for the gallery. Once I did find it I wasn't even able to view a single entry or winner without Netscape crashing with a Type3 error. I've tried a half dozen times today to navigate past all the pop up advertisements and cookies to view the winner's gallery, only to get the same crash everytime. I never have this problem navigating the Pay site, so I assume it is just the free site that does this. You might want to take a look at the site and see what the problem is. It just does not like Netscape. My other critique is regarding all contests in general that use member voting to pick the winner. They always turn into a personal popularity contest, and rarely have any bearing on the quality of the art submitted. From what I could see of the winner's thumbnails before my browser crashed, the three winning images were not the best images entered. They just got the most votes from other members. In the future, you might want to get a panel of judges to select the winners based on an established criteria of technique, concept, execution and originality. Member votes are always biased and beholding IMHO.

There is a feature in the Marketplace that allows vendors to email all of their customers at the same time. This is supposed to be for notifying customers of updates and fixes. Unfortunately, it sounds like some vendors are using this feature to look for repeat business.

Turn off the Auto-Update on your Nano-Render preview. Only click on it when you want to see an update. Having it update a slow render every time you move something sounds like part of the problem. If your render is that slow, it sounds like you are using lots of Trees, Transparencies, and/or Reflections. Or you just have so many objects in the scene that you just don't have enough RAM to get through the whole render. What kind of machine and OS are you using?

I've got all that stuff already... What I'd like to see is a fully rigged U.S. G.I. with kevlar helmet w/chinstrap and night goggles. Flack Jacket over a fatigue jacket, elbow, knee and shin pads. Backpack, rifle, sidearm, radio, etc... I'd like to see that in WWII, Contemporary and Paramilitary (black). Do you know where I can get that in one package? Am I asking for too much? ;-)

I think someone is asleep at the tiller, and the ship...she is headed for the reef, hehe.