Few days ago I got some Great help from MityPete about O/S. While working with his advices, I came up with a saving issue. Well certainly it wasn't as terrible as yours. I think you should make a test/demo image in Vue and save it. And then add few more things to it and save it under the same name. And follow the steps one or two more time. (The idea is to see if your Vue can STILL create a bak file & can open 'one name' saved file). Reboot your system and then see if you can open this file. If you can, then you know what is the cause. If the problem presist same as the series saving my bet would be, Vue is having a run time error with the O/S or explorer. Do a quick scan for viruses or bugs. The reason for my assumption is since it's 75%, but not all, that means the error doesn't occur every time. So, something is sticking it's nose while you working in Vue. See what other programs run in the background, they might play some role too. ... Presuming you are in Windows system. Sorry to hear your situation.

Like Gebe mentioned Bryce Presets are no good for Vue. So, if all the errorneous are Bryce Presets, you might as well delete them. Other possible situation (most case), either the texture map is missing or corrupted ... like wabe mentioned. You can get rid of those too. I usually pick my poison from download area, download, check in Vue right away, if it is good or I like, I place it where it belongs. It's a bit time consuming, but very organized order and saves lots of headache at later time. I also use WinXP pro; that thing itself is a theme park. So many times I had loading or reading errors in Vue. All I did was saved my work, closed Vue and open it again. And then it works fine. If the Freebie is in working order and Vue supported, you might keep an eye on O/S.

Thanks for the review. I'm really very much enjoying this thread. :-) On this pictures I didn't turn off the shadows, probably that's why there are several reflection on the water. On the final version I tried to control the reflection a bit. But not sure anymore whether I should, after reading your review. :-) DOF is distance of Field. I found that it's easy to get good reasult in volumetric settings creating distance of field, applying blur or fog. On the other hand it does a poor job on reflections, even with higher settings. Again, don't know how much that'll help you; as I'm quiet novice at this. But, your review was very very educative for me! Greatly appreciated! :-)

Ok, Smallspace I hope you didn't disappear again! :-) You have no idea that how sad I am that I couldn't find those pictures from my experiment. I'd been enjoying this thread. I'm posting this picture, which isn't the final version. Sadly enough my 9hr of render (last night) crashed after it was done! :( Anyway, this picture has volumetric atmosphere and sun directly behind the camera. I implied the 3 point lighting settings. Sun gives very soft light, 17 lights does the work. In the final version I applied DOF and worked on the shadow and reflection a lot. Which is lacking in this pre-finished version. Now, the question you asked about the Volumetric atmosphere ... I don't know whether my impression of it would make much sense to an artist of your caliber; but here goes anyhow. I found DOF comes very good in Volumetric atmosphere, I got better result of it in Vol. Atmos. then regular atmosphere. And the rest is just simply pain! :-) Bill, thanks for the advice. Already ordered it last night; hoping may be someday I'll get a better critique from Smallspace! :-)

No Guitta, R'osity dictionay doesn't have it! I had to ask someone from this gallery! :-) And I still don't know what are POV and IMHO stand for! : (

I'm with Flycatcher, Yves and Patrick said what needs to be said. However, I disagree on what Yves and Thomas agreed on, "When photographing, you won't catch something extraordinary, some special, almost unreal!". Is it really a true fact? When I first saw a NASA image of a Start Birth, it was extremely extraordinary, very special and most unreal. But, now it doesn't hold much excitement to me, since I've seen so many pictures of them. This is human nature. Anything you present to the viewer for the first time holds special meaning, good or bad, extraordinary or ordinary, real or unreal. :-) Photoreal, Photorealism, Photorealistic ... anything you say, the key word here is "photo"! To me Photo is the true form of realism (in graphics), and Art (with all it's tools) follows through mixing the possible to impossible, real to unreal, ordinary to extraordinary. I really don't understand what's the point of spending hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours behind creating a VoxWagon or few balls look realistic! If I need that, I would just take a photo and get on with my life. :-) When an art reached the realism, I think that looses it's artistic definition/value. By the way, Wabe when I wrote, "Unfortunately I'm rich enough..", I meant "NOT rich enough"! :-) Sorry, if I tried to brought you down to my level of 'wealthy'! :-)

So, this is your definition of realism, eh? OK. Congratulation to your success! :-) I like what Wabe wrote. Unfortunately I'm rich enough like he is, so I'll have to wait a while till I can buy me a SLR with an extra 300mm zoom! :-) And then I'll go catch my realism! :-)

No wonder I was glad to see you back in the forum! :-) Critiques makes someone improve. And for me this was a great tutorial. I greatly thank you for the critique. By the way, just remembered, I sent one experiment to a friend of mine (the sun was directly behind the camera). If he still has 'em I'll post it tonight. I don't know if that'll help you or not; but it's certainly helping me! :-) Again, many thanks. nish

Ok, foreground, middle, background. Foreground, middle, background. ... memorizing it. :-) If I may, look at the reflection on both pictures. In both case, above the scenes I placed over 20 trees (Big ones), but look I merely got any reflection of them. That's why I put the extra light source behind in 2nd picture, hoping that will create a shadow on the water (at least). Water had Zero transparency and maximum reflection settings. No fog. Is it because of the Volumetric Atmosphere? or the lighting was all wrong? And would you be kind enough to give me a lil' bit more details on what you had mind about 'volumetrics on a higher quality settings'? Considering all the things a 3D software offers, comparing to that, I consider myself a novice! I hope that clears out why the idiotic questions coming out my head. :-)

oh yes! don't want to break any rules here! ducks from lyne, dead tree was from zxcvb! PS. In both picture there are few other light source here and there. But, minor I believe. My intention was look at the reflections, not a perfect/ideal image! As you can see, they both look Yuck!

This one, I brought the sun very close as you see the bottom left corner (35 degree soft) and added tons of lights up right. Did not anti-aliased, cuz that gives me somewhat the same reflection as the above picture. What was the intention of this experiment, God knows! :-) What did I learn? Never fool around with Volumetric atmosphere unless you really have to! :-)

This is the first result I got after an eleven hours of rendering in broadcast. The sun is little to the left. But doesn't do any good, so added some extra light from the up left corner. (that's doesn't help you on your question I think)

I did several (weird) experiment few weeks ago, about what kind of reflection I get from volumetric atmosphere. Unfortunately, the end result was a bit dissapointing; due to lack of my knowledge of Vue & overall lighting and somewhat what Volumetric atmosphere did. I deleted most of the stuffs, but I think I still have one. The sun is not exactly behind the camera; it's little to the left. But, I'm posting the pictures anyhow, for you to take a look. I'm actually glad that you brought up the subject. As far as I'm concern of your vast knowledge of Vue, (and since it's very hard to see you in this forum anymore!) you might be able to show me some light. :-)

Yves (YL) inspired me to learn more about lights, (as I'm learning now) so, I know I don't have proper authority to speak in this matter But I think Patrick is right. If you want to create HDRI, my personal opinon would be Vue is not the proper tool. But realism/photorealism, well that's up to the viewers. One person might be happy with the picture from a $50 camera, then may be the next person won't be happy with the same shot with a top notch SLR camera. So, it is up to you, how you want to create your realism. And quiet frankly how can you make up a team, when every team member will have a different definition of photorealism? Look at all the pictures posted, everyone (including you) clamed the pictures are photo realistic. Yet they are very different from each other. But, as I was typing Kutter joined your leage. :-) Good luck to you two. You wrote, "Ever see a 3Ds Max HDRI render.. Thats lighting.. " ... well, that's the first and formost thing ofcourse, but "that's" not all. It requires HIGH detailed meshes, shadows & highlights, then ofcourse gradient plays a role; post work requires tonemapping or may be gamma correction or may be something else! And after all this the end result would make someone applaud and someone turn their face otherway! :-) ... My humble opinion.

Thanks for all the free stuffs! Best regards and admiration to you.