Worked on this a bunch last night. What does everybody think?

Well this is much better ! Maybe some more bump on the floor, and light spheres for the candles . Your metal shaders look good ! The glass too . But i don't like the bump on the table . Did you use the same texture as in the color channel ? And the sword needs to be illuminated . Very good work, though, but i think this can be improved a little . litst

Nice. If my work didn't have deadlines it would never be done. Maybe change the candel light color to a warmer color than white and the amibient light to something more on the blue side instead of gray? Mark

The candle light color is not white, it's a warm yellow, and there's almost no ambient light in the picture. The reason for the lack of ambient light is that I am trying to make it seem like a very dark room (notice, no windows) where the only light is from the candles, and even they don't do much. Still a WIP though so all details are subject to change (especially the candle flames, I hate them).

Dethblud - It looks great. I think the only tweaking I see needed is lighting. Yes, a dark room is cool, but this one is almost invisible! Even though there's no practical source for it, I'd put a backlight in the scene -- something above and behind the axe, pointed at the axe with very soft (or maybe even no cast-) shadows. This light will give an edge to the axe's handle, so we can see what it is. Right now (on my monitor, at least) all I can see is the metal rings toward the end. Maybe a soft edged spotlight on the sword might bring it out, too.... Subtle, but present. Even if you don't make any changes, though, it's a very cool image. - Chip

That's exactly what I did for the lighting from the candles. I used small bulbs, not too strong with a limited distance, and a falloff. Carrara has an option for light spheres which are essentially circles drawn around light sources to make them look like they have some glare to them. I am using them on the candles in this image, but I don't have them set right so you can't see them.

One of the difficulties with dark images is that no two monitors have the same brightness settings, and even if they do, it will look different if you have the lights on or off in the room. I made this at home where I have a reasonably nice monitor and a kinda dark room, and here at work with a less than reasonably nice monitor and lots of overhead lighting it looks much darker than it did at home. I guess this is just one of those ones where you have to view it with the lights out and the curtains closed to get the full effect.

Without Carrara here at work I have to do this from memory, so if one of my instructions is wrong, please forgive me. I used bulb lights for the candles, and on the properties tray on the right select the light in question from the dropdown list. Next go to the 4th tab (I forgot what it's called) with the sorta star looking icon. That tab has all of the options for the lighting effects, including light sphere. There will be an edit button, and I think an activate checkbox.

First of all, please feel free to tell me, "get a life already!" Lighting used to always bite me in the butt in dark scenes. Eric Winemiller from Digital Carver's Guild shared this tip with me in this forum somtime back. Add dark blue lights to illuminate dark areas in a scene unless you actually want them to disappear. (Think of night scenes in movies) I'm not saying that image above is right for your scene DB but here is the technique: add a distant light (or 2) with shadows turned off and color set to deep blue. In the above scene the strenght of the light is 160%. Also, I've got a dark blue ambiant light. That way it emphasises textures and still reveals the dark areas while the viewer still interprets the scene as 'dark'. The bright warm lights in the scene over come the blue where they need to. You've got a great scene going so please ignore this if it's no use to you! Mark

Mark, you're awesome. I am not sure if I am going to use this but I am certainly going to try it. I want the background to be very dark so that the lighter foreground draws the viewer's eye to it, but at the same time, I would like to keep a little detail in the background. (not much) Maybe by playing with this idea I can get a balance of dark and detail that I like. Also, what settings did you use to get the flames on your candles? My flames are too chunky, and too yellow, and don't look like they fit in the picture.

It's easier to show than to tell... Mark

That's going to help me a whole lot! Thanks Mark! Now I am really itching to get home and work on this. Stupid work machine not fast enough for Carrara and no personal software at work policy.

Dethblud- This is much better than the first one, so my hat is off to you there. I think there is a plug-in for Carrara that allows "glowing" objects to actually cast light. I would recommend (if it's free :) ) to nab that and try it out on the candles. I can't tell if the candles are illuminating anything at all. Also, if you want to focus attention, try the "Depth of Field" option, to make the background slightly out of focus. Mark, you rule. But get a life. :) Hoborg

Ok, I have worked on the image a bunch more, and I think I have reached the point where it looks good enough that I don't feel bad that I am tired of working on it now. I tried everybodies suggestions, and used some, while others didn't work with what I was trying to do. They were all great suggestions though! I am going to post the final one to the gallery, and then give you guys the link to where it's posted. Thanks everyone!!!