I was wondering if anyone could give me the best rendering size or option to get the clearest picture. I'm never satisfied with the way mine turn out. Everyone else's seem to be so clear. I have included an example of an image I did for you to see what I'm talking about. It actually is my entry in the Bryce contest and the quality of the image seems terrible to me. Which drives me nuts for as much time as I spent on it! I'm still pretty new to Bryce and I have yet to be please with the end result of any of my renderings. So if anyone can give me some pointers it would be wonderful and may just keep me from pulling my hair out! :)

What kind of clarity/quality are you talking about? The scene itself or even the .jpg compression? I almost always just render 800x600. But, the size of the render doesn't have an impact on clarity. Only if you are printing it out do you need to worry about dimensions or dpi. A few pointers may be that your walls have shadows but your floor does not, causing it to appear a little flat or sparse. In this case pretty much all 5 things touching the floor here could have shadows coming off them to break up the floor. At least the pillar, it almost has a floating look to it at the bottom. This can happen a lot. Also on the pillar; lighting pillars on the extreme sides and keeping the middle darker emphasizes it's roundness. I wouldn't add too much to the pillar you already have, it is the most dramatically lit object in your render, but it is slightly flat looking at the top. Play with the lighting, don't be afraid to make it dramatic. Experiment like you did in "Coming Into The World". I really like the second version of that one. Jpg compression; I looked at the properties of your pic and it says it was saved at 85%(105Kb), but your render here looks like it was compressed more than that. The artifacts (distortion) is evident throughout your pic, and especially in the mirror. How are you saving your renders? I suggest saving your render from Bryce as a .bmp (bitmap), then use another program to make the .jpg copy. I have mainly used a program called Thumbsplus to make my .jpg's but there is also a little free pic viewer I use and it seems to do very well also. It's called "IrfanView", available at www.irfanview.com. It has a option button attached to the "save as" window that will let you manipulate the .jpg compression rate. Either way, try different programs (there are quite a few)to save your .bmp to a .jpg to see if there is a difference. I think you can find something that will improve that aspect of your renders, especially at 85%, which is the average rate. Agent Smith

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Thanks Agent. I fight with the lighting all the time in Bryce. I actually used PSP7 to do the lighting effects in Coming Into the World. I also use that to size my thumbs etc. That doesn't actually help the shadows in the actual scene though because it's already been rendered in Bryce right??? It's the sky aspect of Bryce that drives me nuts. I never seem to get it right. I try and add lights and as you saw never place them right. Do you know of any tuts for basic lighting or lighting tricks for Bryce? The clarity Im talking about does get much worse after saving as a jpg. I will defiantly try your suggestions. Thanks so much.

I think your main issue is to drop the bump height on your textures.

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Yeah, I use Photoshop to tweak my lighting in my renders, mostly just small areas of darkening or lightening, etc. I turn my sky off completely when doing interior pics. Tutorials: Peter Sharp has a couple tutorials on streaming light which you could use in a pic like this. http://www.petersharpe.com/Tutorials.htm Here are some references to simulate different kinds of lights within Bryce (color-wise) http://www.castironflamingo.com/tutorial/index.html Of course Bryce Tech http://www.brycetech.com/ Big List of various tutuorials (270 links-Lighting also) http://thebrycechronicles.com/linkstutorial.html That will keep you busy! Keep rendering! Agent Smith

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I don't have a problem saving my renders as jpegs in max quality compression in bryce 4.They look as good as in bryce.I think you'll find it's really a matter of getting all your textures,lights and sky perfect,which does take time.I still haven't quite got it.Just keep trying and experimenting.Good luck CT

I wanted to see the difference in saving as JPG and BMP. This is what I found. No post work at all! Thanks so much for the tip! I saved it again as a JPG and still is so much clearer when saved as a BMP first. I hope the difference still shows after uploading it my example! ;)

I always use *tif or *bmp to save.Also in poser.for making the *jpg i always use psp.and i think its the better way. And i like your image!!The room could be darker and only get lights from the candles.is there a roof above the room? It seems that there is too much light from the sky