Hi everyone. I just came back after some days of work and discovered my WMD pic high in the Hot20, lots of comments on it (and no insults, this is great!) and the thread about this in the Forum. I think it's better to clear out something. I've left the picture, some day ago, at #19, or 18, don't remember so well. And I wasn't happy with it, because I knew that it would stir up something. And, frankly, in seeing my black screen as high as Hobbit's last work (ok, he was descending, but the fact reamins) I didn't feel okay at all. I'm not excusing myself, mind me (I'll talk later about the pic, bear with me a tad longer, please). But I do feel a bit embarassed about this. So, I want to make public apologies to all the people who felt (to some extent rightly) bad about my empty black screen being in the Hot20. I'm sincere, really. I've read the other thread way down to the bottom, and I think I can understand what people said. And it's clear and positive that there's absolutely no jealous issue in the debate. The postings were from people whose work I admire a lot, like Doug, Striving, MadDog, Angela, TJohn, Brendan, Alvin just to name a few, so I just can't avoid to consider the opinions posted. When someone whom you admire says something, you feel like you have to listen very well. This said, I must add that I'm happy that my WMD pic got so many comments. I wasn't expecting at all to receive such great feedback, and with my surprise, a great part of the commenters are people that I didn't have contact with before. I got some insulting IMs, but this was expected, and frankly I didn't care too much about it: way more important are the comments, both agreeing and disagreeing, that I got on that one. I'm happy because that picture is not a joke nor a prank, as I said in the caption. I was so pissed off when I heard on CNN that another of Colin Powell's pre-war statements proved false that I felt I had to express something. And I could've put a black paint-bucket screen made in Photoshop instead of rendering a Bryce black sky, but this just didn't feel right to me. Apart from writing, in the past months Bryce has become my elected mean of expression, and mostly because of this community and this forum. Being here I discovered, along with the marvel of graphics, that a Bryce black sky preset could be angrier and more emotional than a whole article I could write. And I'm glad that people reacted to it. Many approved, and I didn't expect this. Others disagreed, but with absolute fairness. I don't think that picture has any artistic merit, but it does express strongly what I felt in that moment. The Hot20 is a completely different issue. Hot20 is something of a goal, it was a goal for me when I started posting images here and I know it is a goal for many valid brycers here. You all know that I'm serious when I'm brycing (and in the other thread you expressed it... really thanx for it), both when I make serious images and when I make humorous ones, and it's exactly for this reason that I understand fully the irritation that someone felt seeing a 1 second black render up there. I repeat, I felt embarassed in the first place to see WMD with the same number of votes of Hobbit's or Alvin's. But I do think that people reacted to the image for the right reasons: because they felt something strong in it. And I'm really happy about it, because I really didn't think that I was able to convey my message like this. Ok, I'm done. Thanks to you all for having read this long message and for the very balanced and serious discussion that went on in the other thread while I was out. May Your Renders Be Short :) Stefano