ched

[ched]

sorry for the delay, just been trying to put food on the table.
First the artistic effort (and I'm no artist)

468 banner

and I'll even throw in a bonus 1024 3d wallpaper render

I'll take a shot at the more "conventional / professional" banner as soon as I have time. (hopefully Sunday afternoon after the NASCAR race).

[SensoVision]

hi Ched! it seems that we have new competitor here you don't have to be sorry since it's free to participate or not, also we accpet submissions for a bit less than 2 weeks check it out here.  BTW I think your 468*60 will work as banner but not sure if it would work as a logo but we'll see what folks will vote for. BTW I think you overcompressed it a bit or maybe I'm too sleepy and see some artifacts which in reality doesn't exist
Thanks for background BTW, can you tell where it was rendered Vue? as I'm curious how you get such water(I keep having trobules with rendering water all the time )

[ched]

yes, normally I do use vue.  I have Bryce, but don't use it much anymore.

Also, not really interested in winning anything (except maybe targeted traffic), so I'll throw in a link to the winner on a few of my more popular pages for a month or so.  I submitted mainly because I like to give back a little to the forums that give so much to me.

wasn't really working on logo so much as banner, and yes, I agree - too much anti-alias, and too much compression makes it look blurry - I took more time making the free webmaster key wallpaper, since I figured it would be more useful as a give away.  Didn't figure to see the 468 banner once the contest was over (competition is great! - you folks are doing a wonderful job.)

[ched]

I agree with water issue in Vue as well, I play with the scale of the material, and sometimes go into the material editor and play with the "bumps" - change filters / functions etc. just trying to get something realistic.  It's the only thing I liked better about Bryce, the water.  But Bryce just seems so "glassey and fake" when you're done (unless you do a lot of post-render work in photoshop or psp).

[greg]

i thought it was bryce when i saw it, i've used it a bit. never heard of Vue.

i really need to go get 3Dsmax

[ched]

Vue d' Esprit is a great little package.  I think it renders more realistic images, although as Denis mentions, sometimes the water is tough to get looking right.  Probably the best of all the packages I've seen are World Builder and Lightwave, but they are top of the line, and VERY expensive.  I've seen some stuff done with them that is absolutely wonderful.  Morning rays of light through a mist of fog and such - wow.  But I haven't been able to master the demo versions, so I haven't spent the $$ on the full CD's.

I looked at 3D max ... seemed to be more for creating models and objects than actual scene renders, but they do create some great looking realistic stuff with that.  I'm luck I can get a word exported to a dxf file to import into Vue or Bryce.  Usually use Ray Dreams or Corel Dream for that.  If you do get 3D under your belt, let me know - maybe I'll try to learn it if I knew there was someone I could ask for help when I needed it.  

[greg]

i have lightwave 6.5

3Dsmax is the best when it comes to 3D rendering. Considering there are some great movies even created using it. But as you say, lightwave, or bryce is probably best IMO for making landscapes.

I actualy havn't messed with lightwave much, i tried to get it working, just really complicated stuff honestly. I probably need to pull it out again sometime and mess with it. I need to get 7.0 as well, i hear it is better.

[Queen Bee]

Hey Ched, nice job!

Yeah, Vue D'Esprit is definitely my scenic 3d program of choice. I used to use Bryce, but the results were just not nearly as impressive.

As most everyone here knows, you can view my Vue D'Esprit artwork on my website... I'm an amatuer, so just think of what the pros could do!

Note to Ched: If you're having problems with alias, try rendering in 'Broadcast' or greater. Anything below that ends up rendering a lower quality image.

[Matt999]

   Wow!  If Greg is not sweating,... I certainly am!  
That some very nice work!  
As for bryce, I have seen some of what it can do.. (my friend has it), but seems like it has a real steep learning curve.  Would like to try it out, one of these days.  Another program, i have seen that can do some real cool stuff is Poser.  Seems like mostly body shapes and movements for movies, looks like a good program.
   Yep, going to have to get cracking and see if I can even come close, using Image styler and Photoshop.

   Good luck in the contest!

[SensoVision]

i have lightwave 6.5

3Dsmax is the best when it comes to 3D rendering. Considering there are some great movies even created using it. But as you say, lightwave, or bryce is probably best IMO for making landscapes.

I actualy havn't messed with lightwave much, i tried to get it working, just really complicated stuff honestly. I probably need to pull it out again sometime and mess with it. I need to get 7.0 as well, i hear it is better.

LW is much quality in rendering than MAX IMHO, but it's not only my IMHO but also opinion of many other folks... Lightwave could be a bit too complicated when you creating animated scenes and Max definitely more easy to use for this purpose, but if come to rendering LW is one of the best, maybe after Maya...
but Max is really good software for all kind of purposes since it's easy to use.

[greg]

i havn't figured out how to use the stupid thing yet. i installed it last night again to see if it would come to me. a program sucks if you can't use it.