Thanks for the reply Stacey, but you know as well as I do in the past years this very contest, and many like it have been extended for various reasons... I find it hard to believe that this year it was impossible to achieve just that...

In my case I was notified 7 minutes prior to the deadline that I didn't add to my description I painted it in photoshop... I did submit the image an hour before the deadline... It took an admin almost an hour to tell me I needed to add that... But was given 7 minutes to ammend it. I literally missed by seconds...

An admin had the ability, or definitely should have the ability to add that information to the submission with the artists permission. A simple You forgot to say what you used to paint this can I just add that for you would have saved a world of hurt, and wouldn't have cost the admin anu more time than it did for him to tell me I needed to re-submit...
 
If your software has only the option of approve, or reject an image as part of the submission proccess, you should look into adding hold for a second opinion, or ammending as needed... I run my own forum and gallery with this option as a simple solution... 

That's fine if these is your rules. My argument is maybe some rules have to be modified, or at least give your admins more leaway... My situation cannot be the norm, so making some allowances can't be that big of a burden on your staff...

I'm quite sure the state is only strict with regard to what your rules state... Please look into loosening them up a bit...

Kindest regards.

Thanks Jani,
but don't worry about it... I already posted my submission in my public gallery... I just don't understand the hard line attitude about the rules... I mean sure rules are rules, but sometimes there are glitches, and I felt like it could have been given a little more consideration before handing down such a off handed decision.

Thanks again,
Michael

Hi mboncher,
This is just my 2 cents please feel free to disregard if you like. In my opinion the problem with the composition is the perspective is all over the place. I would go back to the default camera view straighten the castle up and line all the horizontal building edges up with your wireframe grid. Lower the depth of field a bit. It's stretching the terrain texture in the foreground. If you want to show distance I would lower the horizon line a bit and increase the atmosphere some more rather than rely on depth of field to give you that distant feeling. Try fiddling with the grass texture on the nearest terrain to the viewer. Maybe instead of parametric try object space. Leave the distant terrains parametric. This will also give you more of a distant feel.

The biggest problem I think is you haven't well defined a main focus. Connie is absolutely correct when she suggested to bring the cat closer, and enlarge it so that it becomes the focus and the main subject. The terrain should be the secondary focus. turn that castle out more rather than in towards the center of the composition. That will do a great deal to fix your perspective problems. Maybe even bring the whole castle closer and just show a part of the castle that the cat is sitting on. Once all that is done, then bank the camera if you want. The problem is it needs to all be lined up right perspectively before you can bank the camera. Or it all just looks skewed.

Try different textures on various areas of the castle. The lower wall would be slightly different than the walls of the roofed building on the top. That's certainly up to your creativity.

These are just my observations anyway.
Good luck.

Yeah but Rudy you are the exception rather than the rule. You are gonna get your art noticed no matter where you post. That's not the case for alot of other people. I guess I really have it backwards what I said anyway. At least here at Rendo one of the only ways to get noticed for many Brycers is the top 20. I wasn't thinking of it like that when I wrote what I said. I guess what I am addressing are the artists that really have a strong desire to get their work seen. You know as well as I you just can't limit yourself to Renderosity and it's top 20. You might luck out and get an assignment if a recruiter or publisher happens to stumble upon your work. But in the galleries where it's just a free for all, then getting individual attention is extremely dificult.

I agree these top 20/voting things all have the same problems at any gallery that implements them. Even the juried galleries where they limit the uploaders all suffer from the same exact issues. Renderosity has been great for building my confidence levels in my abilities, and the sense of community is appealing as well. But, it hasn't yeilded many assignments, at least not for me. For that I have to rely on my own marketing skills.

@ rochr Your absoulutely right. To much emphasis is placed on the top 20. I understand why Brycers feel the need to be in the top 20. It's because there's just not that many places for us to show off what it can do. If you want your work seen though, the renderosity top 20 or top 50 whatever it's called, isn't gonna get you noticed. There's a whole big world out there. I use Bryce professionally. I have commissioned dozens of novels, and numerous magazine covers over the last year. I'll never get rich doing this but a few hundred dollars per Bryce pic isn't to shabby, and it's doing what I love to do. I didn't get there though by being concerned if my work shows up in the renderosity top 20.

I don't post here much anymore because it's just become to easy to get lost here in the sheer numbers of users. Renderosity is a great community for learning about Bryce, or chatting with your friends. Just don't expect to get anywhere here as an artist. That's the real reason why the truly great ones are all leaving. Even they started to get trampled by all the hobbyist poser people.

Rayraz,

not sure if you got this fixed or not, but you need to make sure you delete your ipod updater as well as itunes, and quicktime. Once you uninstall the ipod updater follow these steps

**Remove leftover components
**12) Open My Computer. Open your hard drive. Open Program Files.

1. Delete iPod, iTunes and QuickTime folders if present.
2. Move back to the hard drive root. Open Documents and Settings. Open All Users.
3. Select Folder Options from the Tools menu. Select the View tab. Select "Show hidden files and folders". Click OK.
4. Open the Application folder. Delete the QuickTime folder if present.
5. Open the Apple Computer folder. Delete the iTunes folder.
6. Go back to Documents and Settings. Open the folder with your username.
7. Open the Application Data folder. Open the Apple Computer folder. Delete the iTunes folder.
8. Open the Local Settings folder. Open the Application Data folder. Delete the iTunes folder.
9. Go back to the Local Settings Folder. Open the Temp folder. Delete QTInstallerHelper.dll.
10. Empty the Recycle Bin.
11. Select Folder Options from the Tools menu. Select the View Tab. Select "Do not show hidden files or folders". Click OK.
12. Restart the computer.

Reinstall itunes.

Let me know if this works if not message me, and I can help you further.

Michael

Rayraz,

there is one main difference in yours and rj001 models I assume. He is selling his commercially. You are talking about someone asking your permission first. rjoo1 is for all intents and purposes not just selling his models to the public at large, but he is also selling a license for the buyer to reproduce something using his model, wether commercially or not. In the case of a cover artist for a novel where would the artist post credit for the use of this model? In the novel itself? Ask the authors permission to advertise for someones models they purchased? That's unlikely, even unheard of. If the artist had a website, or posted here at renderosity, they certainly should give credit for the use of the model, but not when it's being used in print. And I mean no disrespect at all when I say the artist/illustrator of the cover really isn't obligated to do so if they were purchased from a store. The artist purchased the right to reproduce without that obligation.

Borrowing models for free is  a different story all together though. I always get the modelers permission before I use something commercially if the modeller is doing it for free. but commercially there's just no way I can see that giving credit is even possible.

rj001,

I misread I think the original post somewhat. I thought the use of the model was in question rather than the render. If you are trying to get your renders used for publication you might think about advertising in the message forums the use of your renders at places like lulu.com. There are many self publishing sites like this where the authors are starting out as writers and publishing their first book, but need  cover art at an affordable price. You also might be surprised at what they will pay to use it...

tjohn, I think you don't realize how useful and good your stuff really is. Many many artists that work the way I do are always on the look out for things such as you create. Sometimes it's the simplest things too. It doesn't neccesarily have to be textured well either. (not that your's aren't ;-)) Many times I will render a scene in Bryce with no textures at all, so that I can get the layout without having to mess with perspective, and finish it up in painter, or photoshop. It's the shape of the object that matters most. If I were you I would try selling at a reasonable price as a test. You just never know..... Even if you don't sell anything the only thing you lose is a little time.

Hi rj001,

I don't post much here in the forums anymore, but I seen this post and wanted to chime in.
I have purchased models from you in the past, and have to admit that I have used them over and over many times. I'm afraid I'm a little guilty of not giving you credit everytime I use your stuff. I am a professional illustrator full time. I illustrate novels, and do tons of commission work. Now I don't know about the illustrator of the above book, but I can tell you that there are a couple of things that could be going on here you may not be aware of. First and foremost when you do an illustration for a novel that is being sold commercially the director/editor will never give credit in the authors book to a model maker. That sounds rude I know, but the cold truth is the publishing company doesn't care how the art was made as long as you are not in violation of copyright infringement. In the case where copyright infringement is in suspect, the artist wouldn't be allowed to use that object in the artwork. So the point here is the artist that used your work, probably didn't get the oppurtunity to give you credit even if they wanted to.

Secondly, someone very well could be ditributing your models as free, and taking credit for themselves illegally. In that case the artist probably isn't aware that they were yours.

I know some in the peanut gallery may disagree with me, but that's been my experience so far doing this professionally and working with several publishing companies.

I promise though, if I do use your models in a commercial piece, and it is very likely that will be the case in the very least I will pm you and let you know what it's being used for,  Most of the time I'm not allowed to post the published pieces in public galleries for a period of several months, so I'm afraid that's the best I can do.
Take care,

Michael

Theres some Bryce tutorials here at Renderosity under the tutorials section, as well as some at Daz3d.com. I would just do a google search for Bryce tutorials, there's tons. Oh and yeah, just start pushing buttons, that's how most of us learned ;-)

You can save the mask from Bryce then bring it into Photoshop or some other graphic program like photoshop, and make the mask an alpha channel, and save as a TIFF file. You then can import the texture back into Bryce, and it will automaticlaly add the saved alpha channel. Or you could just add the mask into the transparencey slot of the texture, and save as a mat preset and re-use it over and over.

They were meant to be just inspirational in nature, not to commit copyright infringement... Sorry I posted...

That would be it wildman. Thanks I see its in the free section... Thanks a million.

Message edited on: 08/11/2005 02:22

Ang It may not be a virus at all. It could be a corrupt System file. Have you tried booting from the windows xp disk? You can access the xp repair console by booting from the disk, and following the instructions for accessing the Repair console. It fixes a lot of problems. If that doesn't work do what drac said. Or if you can't access the Internet, then use a norton disk or some other anti-virus disk to do a scan. That's just my 2 cents. Hope you get it all worked out.

No worries Bryster. I understood exactly what you were saying. I actually agree. I wished I had never named this picture that. I'm re-working the entire scene, and I will post the revisions once they are complete. ICM Thanks a million. This advice is really a tremendous help, as was everyones. Thanks again and I will post the changes soon.