Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=631303&Start=1&Artist=Blog&ByArtist=Yes

Well this is my current effort at photorealism in Bryce. A slight improvement over my previous WIP post. I added a lot of detail to the blade of the knife, and used a more detailed texture for the body. I'm going for true photorealism here, I'd really like some focused critiques on ways I could improve this aspect.

Hate to mention it because of all the obvious effort you've put into it so far, a great render, but you did ask. The handles appear to be intersecting a little bit. There, I said it. :^)

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

You might be right Tjohn.... but to me it looks like that is just an illusion caused by the shadow.

There are 10 kinds of people: Those who know binary, and those who don't. 

A whiner is about as useful as a one-legged man at an arse kicking contest.

No, I'm fairly sure they are intersecting. :^) I hope you don't mind my demonstrating my point on your pic, Blog.

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

Looks like it.....Excellent render tho too...

The appearance of intersection may be a result of the extreme camera position/POV/FOV arrangement. I'm noticing the condition of the blades - as for me, I've only gotten them to look like that by prying open stuck paint jar lids or using them as throwing knives... so having said that I guess they look 'experienced'.

As for the intersection you are likely right, they likely are intersecting a bit, I figured it looked reasonable though. But now that you point it out with your demonstartion tjohn (thx for the diagram btw) I supppose they likely are intersecting quite a bit more than I might like. As for the condoition of the blades I created them by making hieght maps from an actual scan of the blade from my reference knife. Maybe the bump is a bit too deep though?

I'd say yes on lowering the bump. It just looks too grainy to me.

Yep... I see what you were seeing through your diagram Tjohn...8) Thanks for the example. None-the-less..... I really like this image Blog. 8)

There are 10 kinds of people: Those who know binary, and those who don't. 

A whiner is about as useful as a one-legged man at an arse kicking contest.

Aye, it's a cool render! The only thing that bugs me is using RPP madness as a "technique"... Patience would yield a more realistic result.

Well the truth is shadowdragonlord; I wasn't trying to use "RPP madness" as a "technique", my computer is only 800mhz and Bryce's processor based render engine easily brings my system to its knees. I pretty much have to use a low RPP out of necessity, if this were a final piece I would likely spend the time to render it with high quality settings.

Aye, blog, I didnt' mean to imply anything awry about ya, I understand there are definite processor limits we ar all dealing with... Which is why Bryce 5 is so scalabe in the first place! Imagine if it FORCED 256 RPP on every effect, all the time! Still, it's a cool subject you tackled, aside from it being for the challenge all I can say is that doing the Depth of Field in post-work might yield better results, without taxing your PC so much? Much of my work I do while I'm AT work (heh heh), on a Pentium 2/266 with 128MB of PC-66 RAM. Amazing, truly! I can't even install Bryce 5, so I run Bryce 4 and do all of my work from a conceptual standpoint, then load the scenes onto my SmartMedia card (64MB) for my camera, and take them home to Bryce 5... Patience, as always, is the key...