Dust Storm, Michael Greenleaf (3D)

[Per-Anders]

Is this the aftermath of a cow explosion i see before me?

Sorry, but as an image this is bad. The textures make the "rocks" look like peices of meat, The ground texture is pretty much default and very obviously a flat plane with a pretty bad bump on it, bryce has lansdcape obejcts use them to add in ground formation if you must use bryce. The volumetrics look stretched and basic. The whole composition is bad and dull, you need to learn better composition.

If want to achieve a certain goal in your images then do yourself a favour and pick up something a bit better to work with, Bryce can be good in the right hands, but while it's easy to do very basic stuff with it it's much harder to do anything complex with than a higher end app. These days you could pick up a decent 3d app for very little, maybe wings for modeling (which is free even), failing a decent app you could always get blender which is free. Certain tools will hold you back, and right here I think you're suffering from the fact that you don't have modeling tools and you need to learn texturing and lighting on top of this in order to help you achieve your vision to a level where it translates to the viewer in a coherant fashion.

[leishman]

Hey 冯麦克
wow ..the Dust Storm very good .I think you could additional a little sand in air..the stone very bad ...keep on study.....
you can spaeking China language? 加油 ............

[B-Mac]

I would call this more of a WIP than a final image.

I would have to agree with Per-Anders. You just need to keep working with it. Would you see this type of scene in real life?

There are blades of grass, little shrubs, smaller peices of rock that could have been chipped off. You need to think about stuff like that.

Oh and I hope thats not the remains of a cow :P

[BnBGobo99]

I wasn't really shooting for realism, more like "hey that was cool when I did that" kinda thing. Think of it as a painting - but on the computer.... like, a computer painting.. but 3D.... a 3D computer painting!

Anyways, who knew what I was thinking 3 years ago! Maybe I did have a distaste for cows...
Thanks for the thoughts! 3D is not my career, just a hobby.. so I'm not discouraged ;)

[locke2121]

If you can, update to Bryce 5.5, its well worth the price in terms of materal production and lighting control! Look in my portfolio for a couple of renders done in 5.5. As for the picture, as a wip, you've got a good thing going. I would first work on the rock textures. They need to be more detailed, as well as rounded off. There are very few sharp-edged rocks in a desert, all that blowing grit rounds them off. A nice range of mountains off in the distance, or well-positioned sand dunes would give the viewer a better perspective. It would also make your sandstorm stand out more. If I were you, I would also take it in post and photoshop a few streaks going by the camera, to simulate blowing grit. One final thing, the sky. In alot of pictures of sandstorms that I've seen, the sky takes on a horrible yellow or orange overcast as the lighter grit up high flies ahead of the main body of the storm. Keep going, you got a good picture in the making here!

[BnBGobo99]

I remember showing my wife this image right after I rendered it, and she was saying pretty much the same thing about the rocks as you guys are. :) If I had saved the file I would deffinately move this over to the WIP and try to fix the rocks and add some brush. I would also change the ground texture to something more sandy. You're right about the sky, looking at pictures of BeiJing and Iraq the sand in the air makes it look more like Mars :eek: .

I'll work on some Max stuff and see if I can get a :love: hehe ;)

Thanks to all who've checked it out!

[Dann-O]

On a lot of levels I like Bryce I have used it for many years. Now because it is all I got and can't afford anything else. This is sa real slimple bryce image with some volume materials. I think add a model make something mroe compleate. If you had more in your scene nobody would notice the rock texture. But your scene is empty. Pick up modeler and learn it. You got max I see but I find the uncluttered view of a pure modeller enhances workflow. Wings is quite good and it is free. Also do seome experemnetation with lighting rigs. I use average 50 lights per scene. I simulate soft shadows with lighting arrays and the like ther eis a lot you can do with Bryce but you have to go deep into it and go beyond the basics.

[BnBGobo99]

Hey Dann-o, thanks for the tips. I've got a question for you, 您是住在中国的美国人，中国人对您怎么样？他们对一个旅行人跟您一样？有的时候我想替一个在中国的美国公司工作。请email还是到我的Portfolio and drop a line. 多谢! :)

[leishman]

BnBGobo99
你中文说的还可以..Great .. 想来中国吗？ 欢迎.

[BnBGobo99]

Leishman, 谢谢，我到中国的时候我要到成都请您跟我去吃饭 :thumbsup: 。成都有越南饭管儿吗？:D

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