Wow! So many comments and viewings for my chess set. I take it no one went out for St Paddy's day? Or maybe nursing hangovers by going through the gallery. Anyway, I really was happy to see so many positive comments from a lot of artists I really respect, for what was (really) an old tired idea. thanks guys, I'm welling up here. ;-) Phil

It's an excellent image regardless of the idea, and very deserving.

Hey, I see you took my place in the Hot20 at #15! Congrats!

I noticed my last still life was usually a place or two behind yours for most of the week. It's dropped off now. But the chess set has gone in, so that's nice. Your still life is great. And looks like it's the current winner in the challenge area. ;-) I'm trying to replicate your drape. Without much luck so far.

A good chess set is a measure of an artist's competance and beats the hell out of a mirror-ball/shiny sphere. Yours gets my vote!

drawbridgep: A suggestion that might help the knight. I've seen a few poser objects in your images (at least I think they are) so why don't you pose a poser horse head the way you want it, export just the head, make it a positive boolean solid, and then plop it on a base and give it the glass texture. Maybe this would look too real when the rest of the chess set is stylized and might not work for you but it's just a thought. You might be able to work the head over in Wings if you have it. By the way, it's still a great pic, I am one of the Voters for it.

tjohn: Yeah I did consider it. But I agree it might not quite look right, but can't look much worse. I also wanted to do as much as possible in Bryce. The other problem is, when my machine crashed, I forgot to move my poser stuff back across, so don't have it until I get home (next month). Thanks for the vote.

The poser horse head might fit in with the style better if you unsmooth it in Bryce to make it look more angular?

Or ... what if you took the Poser horse head put it on it's side, did a height map, and brought that back into Bryce and made another lattice with that?? It would look less "real", but maybe have enought weight and depth that the one knight's head wouldn't disappear. Just a thought anyway.

I think Ricky idea will work, especially if you keep the lattice res low, making it more faceted.

I like that idea. So, until I get poser reinstalled, who wants to send me a horses head? OK, that sounded a lot more Sopranos that I intended.

Remember Paladin(the western- had a card with a cool horse head. Have gun will travel?) Black on white, inport into terain, add your filter of choice, voila! What do you think? Yours if you want it. btw all mine

He would have to change it a bit if he used that image ... otherwise, he'll end up with a lattice with one ear behind the other. But that is a neat image. You should see if you can make it larger and without so much white space around it so that it's a better use of the image space for a terrain or lattice.

Very similar to the picture I used. Maybe I should make my latice wider. Like Ricky said, I need to use a height map. Although the set I based it on, the knight is flat headed. I'm still going on the poser route, but making the head thinner than the default.

Drawbridgep, the draped is hand painted greyscale in PSP, I find photos of drapes come out too rough in the terrain editor, so I broke down and painted one, brought it into the terrain editor, clipped it, smoothed it(got to watch out for smoothing it flattens the folds), textured it and rendered.... BTW, would anyone be interested in some greyscale drapes, not the hanging in the window kind(although I have some gtreat traditional window treatment drapes and swags), the the backdrop kind? I've ben doing all types....

I'd be interested to see how you did it.

Looks like I have a tutorial to do...:)

Yeh yeh yeh:)

Yeah, Perry, your second b/w picture is a keeper.