Hello again, This picture started out as an attempt to make a "serious" tropical scene, but after I got it going, I began to really kind of like the almost surreal look it was taking on. But, I'm wondering, how can I avoid that plastic/perfect sort of look the terrains have? The surfaces seem to be out of scale or something, and all those bumps on the one terrain in the background are just a little too perfectly shaped and sharply focussed. Eroding it seems to produce about the same results, only with smaller features. Is there a way to or a good technique for smoothing it out some and making the features a little less defined?. Any good tutorials out there for mixing materials and getting the proper camera focus? Looking at the scene from the top and zoomed way out, that terrain is actually quite far from the foreground, but it doesn't look as far away as I feel it should. Or is it because I used a panoramic setting of 95 degrees for the render? I've tried adding fog and haze to it, to fake the appearance of distance, but it always seems to end up too thick or too tightly concentrated. For that matter, what's a good way to spread out and thin out the fog and/or haze? Thanks again! Mike

heyas; when you have something selected and look at the materials tab, check the scale setting. you can make the texture really huge, or really tiny (and more repeating). try editing the terrain, and press the x2 button on the left. then do some of those erosion and stone and other things. this increases the resolution, and makes the individual bits smaller. that won't help with texture, necessarily, but it will get rid of the repeating lumps somewhat. not sure how else to help the textures. anybody got some good tips?

bloodsong, Thanks again.... I already knew about resizing the actual resolution of the terrain itself, but I hadn't noticed we can change the resolution of the texture, as well. While I was waiting for someone to answer this, I went and did the thing I really hate....yes, I read the manual! Well, so no one thinks I'm some kinda wimp or anything, I only casually glanced at it. ;) So, I guess I learned something, and one of those things has to do with the "trick" of piling terrain upon terain, with different textures, to get far more options than simple material mixing. :) Cool, yes, and I'm sure not the only way, but definitely a reasonable workaround. :) Cheers, Mike

Hi Mike! You really have to play with that material editor :) When I first started using Vue I avoided it too. I was a former Bryce user and Bryce's material editor really turned me off to procedural textures, believe me! But Vue's is really easy to understand and you can really create some great stuff by mixing materials. I'm not an expert on Vue or anything, but I've been using it for quite awhile, as have a lot of us here in the forum, so if you have any questions, you know where to ask them :) Happy rendering! Laurie

Hiya Laurie, I know what you mean about Bryce... I still haven't figured it out. But thanks to your's and bloodsong's suggestions, I'm getting a little closer to understanding the many many options for materials. :) Now I can go back and "fix" some of my better pics....good thing I saved the scene files! Cheers, Mike Now, if I only knew what to do with "functions"......LOL