This is a picture that I made many months ago (on an iMac 233 Mhz - 96 Mo Ram). It's just a test to see the render time with all the render options "on" (advanced quality), soft shadows, volumetric world, ect...

Yeah. I don't think that the volumetric atmosphere is worth it.. It multiplies your render time by 10 no matter what settings you are using..

not worth it??!!! I'll let my image render for a week if I can get the effect I'm lookin for. But thats just me. I think the volumetric atmosphere is definitly worth the time!

...Brholte... You can fake it with almost as good results using large volumetrics (very fuzzy) with a render time that may be 2x as long instead of 10... Frankly the longest render time I have EVER had is 2 days, and the second longest was 14 hours... I don't have the patience to let something render for a week.

Nor do I...but man, the top one looks so much better...

I have used only one time the volumetric atmosphere for a picture (except this one). My computer is not strong enough to support this kind of render...

good point ornlu, but for the best quality, I prefer to just let it render as long as I need to. I for one have the patience...lol. when you grow up in a house with 5 brothers and 3 sisters you tend to learn that..lol

The top picture does look good...but is there anything there that looks any different from a well-designed DOF?

This is not my "second childhood". I'm not finished with the first one yet.

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

"I'd like to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather....not screaming in terror like the passengers on his bus." - Jack Handy

I think I'm with Tjohn on this one, and this effect itself (Depth-of-Field) can be done WAAAAYYY faster in postwork than with Bryce itself. These machines are Artificial Stupids, not Artificial Intelligence-es, and making a 17-second render go for 10 hours for no really necessary reason is just poor economics. Even for animation, it would be far faster to render to images and run the DOF with Adobe After-Effects or some such utility... But it's cool that you did this, Euxeb007, I always love to see more benchmarking and time-projections on this great program...

As long as it works.................8)

i have to agree with the others using postwork... postwork is a whole lot better... well let me see what i can add so that i would get the ten hour effect.... mmmm 1. Gaussian Blur or 3 coupled with a layer mask 2. mmmmmm thats it! hahahahah that'll take what? 30 mins max? or even less... you still add a few others like sharpen with layer mask, glow, glare and others... but your test eux is great at least i know that i should not really turn that options on... (now if i was using vue... then it'll be lot faster...)

Yes, After-effect and Photoshop are good to supply for this effects... ;0)

The problem with postwork DOF using masks is when using transparencies or metaballs your depth mask render is buggered. To me the best DOF effect is a subtle one suited for close range images.

Pass no temptation lightly by, for one never knows when it may pass again!