Hey All,

Been a while since I posted anything.  I have sinced moved in with my girlfriend and was studying ALL summer long for the sergeants promotional exam which I finally took on October 25.

Anyway, stick with 5 if it is working fine.  I had 6.1, set an image to render overnight while I went to work, maxed out the settings to make look real pretty.  When I came home, Bryce had crashed.  When I went to send the error report, IE could not connet.  When I closed IE, it Bryce went down and I blue screened.  Using XP on an UBER power system that my friend and I built.  Well, that was the last time I saw my desktop.  I MAJORLY screwed something up and is currently undergoing serious surgery.  So, stick with 5.

Awesome!  Thanks, Glyph.  I'll be home tomorrow for a while before I have to go to and I will be able to grab it from you then.

Biker, thanks for throwing that in there.  I wasn't totally sure about that and didn't want to ask for it and figured on waiting for the site come back online.

GG:  Not a bad thought.  Maybe some that were stuck in the muck.

Thanks for all the replies, everyone.  I'm at my girlfriends house for the next couplke of days, so I won't be able to post any updates, but it seems like I've got a bit to try when I get home.

 Biker:  Not going to go crazy at all with the caustics.  I'm figuring this thing is pretty deep so the caustic effects will be very slight and not in the mud cloud.  If they do show up in the cloud, I'm figuring that I can just Pshop them out.

 Glyph:  I've seen the caustics generator before and went looking for it.  Like you, I found the site to be down also and couldn't find anywhere to get it.  If I am able to get it somewhere, I'll try your suggestion of the black and white.  Also, thanks for the tip on the lighting effects.

 Mugsey:  Like I replied to Biker, the caustics will be very light.  I'll make them strong enough to notice them, and weak enough not to kill the image.  The dust cloud that I had in mind was going to be falling away from the hull as it rises and billowing slightly as if the debris was falling back to the ocean floor.  I had the same thoughs on the sharks...just one in the background, really, to add the element.  In the foreground I'm thinking some rocks with some coral growth here and there, but no too much.  They aren't the subject matter.  It is easy to overcrowd and I though of that as I was i've been working on it and trying to visualize.

 Diolma:  Not a bad idea, but that changes the scene into something completely different.  Maybe after this is done, I may give it a shot.

 Dawg:  Good suggestion.  i will try that and see if I can control and limit the cloud by limiting the amount of visible terrain.

3 Ornlu

2 skiwillgee

1 rrmmiss

You guys have been reading my mind. 

Biker:  I was thinking of doing that in photoshop, but I want to try and do it in Bryce first.

Erosiaart:  Those objects are already on the list to be put in.  Not sure about the wavy water, though. 

I do want to try and put in some caustics on the bottom.  Anyone have any ideas on how that's going to go?  I thought about uding s gel on the lights, but I'm not sure.  Also though about adding a plane below a light.  Experimentation is in order.

That's absolutely phenomenal.  I just pushed that link along to my best friend who just got back from Iraq.  Got a good laugh out of that one.

As a law enforcement officer, I have seen the news get twisted plenty of times on events that I have been involved in and done the actual reports.  They have a way of telling the story, but taking the events and facts out of sequence to make it sound "juicy:...even on the "THIS JUST IN" stories. 

That was it, nruddock.  I didn't know that the importer was incorporated into the new release.  On the money now.

Thanks, everyone. Tjohn, that's what I was looking for. Awesome!

Thanks for the help, guys. Much appreciated. I guess i'll just keep on looking.

OK, Rayraz, if things get to the point where you really fear doing something, then it's time for 2 things to happen. #1 - Back up, i.e. copy/burn, anything you have on your main drive that you don't want to lose. Whether you burn it to disk or swap it over to another drive, it doesn't matter. #2 - Do a fresh install of yor OS now, because the situation is not going to get any better. Spyware/adware has been a huge problem all over for sometime now and all the programs you have to detect/remove that trash from your system are taking up space all on there own. I fresh install of the OS and proper monitoring of your system will prevent this in the future. This would be your best option. There is a adware/spyware scanner from MS in beta version out. My network at work has it and it seems to work pretty good. Of course, there are also the plethora of others out there you can get.

Mahray is right on the money with what wdfmgr and symwsc are. adskscsrv is the licensing for 3DMAX/Autodesk. If you have outlook zone alarm and everthing else running in the background when you are rendering, that's going to eat up resources right off the bat. Another problem that I see, is your disk space. Once you start getting low on disk space, your system WILL get screwy on you. Your C, G and H are low. Try to unass some of the stuff you have on those drives. If it's garbage, lose it and if it isn't, try to burn some stuff onto disk to save it and get it off the machine. If you can't run scandisk, pass on that for now and run the defrag. I'll bet that is one of your main problems. After you run it, try scan disk again. If the drive is really fragged, that may be one of your big problems. All those spyware and adware removal programs you have are only a temporary fix. I tired them all, also, and they never seemed to get everything. There was always still something there. What operating system are running, btw?

Rayraz, what I suggest to you a few things. 1st - Go into program files and look through all your programs and see what doesn't belong there. If you know your computer, you should know what you installed and what installed itselft off the net. If there are things that don't belong (i.e. spyware and adware) get rid of them first as best you can. Sometimes you are going to have to manually shut stuff down in the task manager yourself and delete registry keys manually (I suggest you back up your registry first if you are going to do this) Also, how many processes do you have running in the background (could be an indicator of spy/adware which has been a huge culpret of computer problems for the past 10 months) 2nd - Run your system tools. Run scan disk and defrag, in that order. Then run your anti-virus after you do that. Also, what OS are you using and what is your drive capacity and how much free space do you have? If you are running low on disk space, that can cause problems. Hope this helps some.

Continuation..... Excellent pictures, everyone. Really cool. Nice one, Angelo. I didn't think that you saw that 2 second freak out. LOL (I didn't really freak out, but the other members of my party seemed to think that I was on the large side or something like that) Oh, I know exactly where the dino's head was. You guys just didn't see where Max put it after I ripped it off. (Let's just say it used to be really dark) Max was getting a little flaky with the umbrella and helmet and we also have to get him to work on his smile a little bit. ;-) Keep on with the pictures. I'm diggin' 'em.

Hey All, I finally got some down time after a literally NON-STOP weekend. I have to say that we had an excellent time in NYC this past weekend. For me, it started off a little late. I had gone out the night before and due to a little bit more traffic than I anticipated, I was the last one to arrive. I pulled up right in front of the Roosevelt statue, jumped out of my truck and asked if I was late. (We were supposed to meet at 11-11:30 and I got there a little before 12)and Miden(Mike) hops off the wall and informs me that Ang25 and Quest just walked away. Quick introductions were made and I sped off to park. When I came back, I met Ang and Quest and we found out way to a small restaurant a block or so away from the museum. Ang wasn't too fond of the bread or the menu. Actually, none of us were too fond of the menu. The bamboo steamed vegetable dumplings didn't appeal to any of us while the Grilled Burger made its way to Ang's front. Point is, there were some strangely named dishes on the menu, but we all managed to find something we liked. The wait staff were definitley not the sharpest tacks in the box, but they managed. Thank you again to Quest for treating us. We then made our way to the museum and started on the 4th floor where the dinosaur exhibits were and from there, we didn't stop walking. We were basically on the move for about 4-5 hours straight. Working our way down through the different floors and exhibits, we went to the planetarium. Max and I picked up some space ice cream....Max, knock yourself out. It's all yours, bud. The ladies wanted to stop by the mineral and jewel exhibit which was pretty interesting. I've never seen jewels the size of my fist before. At closing, 5:30, we made out way into Central Park for a little walk and some texture gathering from the area. How did they turn out, btw? A short walk later and we were up by the castle which is on high ground and giving you a nice view. Yes, Ang25 was the slow member of our party, but we never left her behind. :-) Eventually, we made our way to a small restaurant where we stopped off for a drink and a "snack" for Max. It was around 7 or so that we made our way back to the parking garage and said our goodbyes (my brother flew up from Florida and I wanted some time with him). The short and sweet, we had an excellent time and the weather could not have been better. I have a feeling that the weather man had a case of the dumbass when he predicted rain. Angelo, Angela, Mike & Lucy and Max, thanks for a great day. It is something we need to do again, but starting earlier (and not driving 100 miles out of the way.....MIKE!!!!!) next time.

Nutley, New Jersey. USA. And NO, we don't say "Joisy", either.