This is an image I'm working on that was inspired by one of alvinylaya's images. Any suggestions?

Looks good. I really have a soft spot for well-lit interior scenes. The wall and floor texs are really cool, I'm not much convinced with the wood on the tables, maybe tune down the ambience a bit?

i have to agree with double crash, a little tweaking on the ambience on the wood... and another one... a room especiallya living room or family room has always a window... your picture is in a corner.. it musty have at least one window... It not only gives more spice to your pic it will certainly kill of the drabiness.... well not unless this is a bunker then you have to really put walls and no windows... just a little thought

Thanks for the tip on the ambience. I didn't like the table texture either but didn't know which variable to adjust. One of these days I'll have to actually finish Susan Kitchen's book and learn about the material editor. I really have to thank the forum for this image. alvinylaya inspired this image and also pointed me to the rounded cube in Bryce 5's imported objects which enabled me to model the sofa and the table tops. ocddoug's tutorial on lighting and the forum's discussion on ranged falloff helped me with lighting this room. I used two radials with ranged falloff and soft shadows. Rochr is indirectly invovled. He posted a tutorial on 3dtotal.com which the forumites mentioned. This led me to a new site (to me) which had the wonderful cloth, brick, and wood floor textures in this image. Other details on the image ... Flowers made in Plant Studio. Vase and endtable legs made in Gigahedron's Oxygen. Everything else modeled in Bryce. Vase texture and mug texture are Bryce defaults. Table texture is by Jonathan Allen.

EYECON, I think I'll skip the windows. Picture it as an apartment that would only have windows on one wall. But I'll help the drabbiness by hanging paintings on the walls.

I agree with DC and I must say that it does sort of look a bit impersonal at the moment although I can't tell you what might make it a more livable environment. But a window might do the trick. Jason I wish you luck in reading the section about the materials editor 'cos it goes on forever and there is so much information to come to grips with. I've been reading that particular section for weeks now, I keep going back to bits again and again to get them right. Catlin

I played with the table texture, but I'm still not sure it's right. What do I need to adjust?

i usually put ambience to zero and lower down the reflection field. but i do put reflection... my specularity is close to zero... im not so sure... ill just check it out and post a pic to show you... not if somebody beats me to it

I wouldn't put specularity as dependant on texture A. It makes it more bumpy, and I'm assuming that because of how high it is, you want it to looked polished, so try putting the specularity marble in the default position, but leave it at 15.

Jasonmit, here's my thoughts for what they're worth: the first thing I noticed was that the lighting. The center of the pict is not very well lit making a 'hole' in the center of the pict. The sides each being well lit compete for your attention. if the point of focus is the table, your lights should draw you to it, not away and towards the wall on th right. A window or a picture on the right might help, but only if the focus is there. My ex-wife, whom I seldom quote - partially becuuse most of what she said was incomprehensable to mortal men, always used to say "why do they call it free advice? 'cause it ain't worth nothin'" cheers, - TJ

I really have a personal hate against standard ambience settings, LOL, I really can't understand why they come so varied and confusing, so: I usually set the ambience to the same exact value for every object in the picture (if you shiftclick on the ambience color it will bring you up a color-picker and you can enter the RGB values manually), thus avoiding shadows of different colors. You will discover that not many presets are affected by this, they only look better. Your second example shows, more or less, that I'm right :) Ehm :) S.

Here's an updated image. Is the table any better?

Specularity could be higher(assuming you're aiming for a polished oak look.) Something's going on with the shadows... The shadows of the mug and chair are going in the opposite direction with no hint of a shadow going in the other direction. I like the floor, the texture for that is excellent.

I won't comment on the lighting, because so many people are already offering better help than I could. I would say that I think the table desperatly needs an open book on it. As though someone was just sitting there drinking a hot beverage and reading their favorite novel. Maybe a pillow on the couch for them to lean against? Lin, who has spent many an enjoyable hour drinking hot beverages and reading her favorite novels.

I played with the lighting and the table texture. I also added a book on the table. Still need to add a painting on each wall and a pillow or two on the couch. Any suggestions on how to model the pillows in Bryce? Any better?

Since I got my monitor setting adjusted the whole thing looks a lot brighter! Ignore my previous post if you haven't done so already. My monitor was waaaaaaaaaaay to dark.

Yeah, I like the lighting twiddle! Thanks for adding the book. Are you going to shrink down one of your other renders to make art for the wall? Lin

Lin, yes I'll shrink down two of my renders for artwork.