Thanks guys....I ended up doing two things to get this image to work.  First, I ended up eliminating 5 of the lights I had in the scene.  This will create more postwork for me, but it cut the overall memory cost by about half a gig.  Next, I used (am using) the area render to divide the scene into fourths.  It's currently rendering the 2nd fourth, and it is currently estimating about 14 hours to complete.  The odd thing to me is that the 1st fourth never estimated above 5.5 hours, and actually finished in just over 4.  I'm not sure why the huge disparity.  I mean, there is a little bit more water and light in the 2nd fourth than the 1st, but not that much.  Fortunately, the 3rd and 4th fourths have absolutely no water, and a far less light, so I think those will go relatively quickly. 

Quote - DAZ works out of a SERIOUSLY repressive religous area of the USA.   The sect in that area are as strict as the Taliban, in their own way and at least as controling. 

Yes, because Utah generally has groups of people roaming the streets beheading anyone that doesn't fit the mold.  And all of their women are forced to wear burquas too.  

rolls eyes heavily at the ignorance of some people

Quote - Does it need to be MIMIC compatible..?

 
:laugh::laugh::laugh:

It was Los Angeles. I did alter the angle of the sun though.

Message edited on: 07/29/2004 22:06

Thank you, and you sort of hit the nail right on the head with what I was going for. I wasn't necessarily trying to portray an unusual couple, but rather a couple who believed they were not being seen. My wife's family is Japanese, and you are right, they are very reserved....when they are in public. However, if you've ever seen any of the erotic japanese prints from the 18th and 19th century, you know that they are not quite so reserved when in private. I meant to catch the couple unawares, sharing a tender moment before the man goes off to battle. I think you are right about the cherry tree in the foreground. I agonized over the size of that, so as not to hide too much of the waterfall, but perhaps it would be better to play around with it some more. As for reducing the ambient light, I'm not sure how to do that without making the whole scene appear too dark. What setting(s) should I be adjusting. Thanks again for your advice!

I had a problem like this at first, but installing the latest patch for Vue fixed it.

The easiest way to do it is to import your picture into photoshop, or some other image editor, make a selection for the thumbnail with the selection tool, copy the selection, open a new file, and paste the selection into the new file.

Thank you very much! (G:`,

Okay, I will give that a shot.

Thank you for the tip h-kana! Unfortunately, it did not work. My image is still unacceptably grainy. Any other tips out there? Thank you, Tony

Dang it! I had just finished typing out a reply thanking you all and asking some follow-up questions, hit "Post Reply", and presto, the dang thing vanished! )G:, Maybe what I'll do is just leave a general thanks here, and then IM the specific follow-up questions out later. I'm sorry I can't retype out my original reply (I know I must sem awfully rude..sorry )G:,), but I promised my in-laws that I would go over and help them remodel their basement today. My wife's Grandmother is not doing too well, and they are trying to make a little apartment down there for her to stay in so she doesn't have to live alone. I promise to provide a more adequate thanks later. Sincerely, Tony

BTW...even though this is only my second pic using Vue, please be brutal. I'm kind of dense, so blunt and brutal criticism is the way I learn best. Thanks again! Tony (G:`,

Thank you for the tips! The reason I asked, is that at about a million polys, the poly count turned red, and I knew that I had a ton more that needed to go into the scene. I thought that maybe the red counter was some type of warning. So some imports tend to choke it up faster huh? How about Poser imports? Right now, I'm at about 3 million polys, .8 million of which is from a poser import with probably close to 100 textures if all of the material zones count (if not, then maybe only around 20 or so). So far, things seem to be going ok. I'm just worried because at one point, the scene did crash to the desktop (at around 1.4 million polys). Fortunately, I make a habit of doing what Djeser suggested anyways (in fact, I'm even more anal about it that many people, as I save under a different file name about every third save....I've had way too many files become corrupted in other apps during saves, so I'm quite paranoid that way (G;`, ). I'm sorry if these seem like total newbie questions, but when it comes to Vue, that's what I am (only had it now for about a month). When I'm done with this scene, I'll post it here so you guys can take a look! Thanks again! Tony

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