The Desperate Housewives!

` Great setup! and wow 2 days full render I couldn't even Handle that haha i dont really quite understand hdri and i dont know how to use it.... did u also use the Wet skin texture on the girl in the pool?

- Thanks much Archclan. IBL is very simple really. You take a photo and you turn it into light information to illuminate a scene. The image is applied to a gigantic invisible sphere and it shines light into the scene from all sides including from below. The purpose is to provide real world ambient or indirect light, since indirect light is the light that bounces around an environment from all angles. The images used for Image Based Lighting are unique and must cover a much higher dynamic range than the standard 16 million colors of normal images, thus the name High Dynamic Range Image or .hdri This allows a hdri to hold potentially millions upon millions of colors, maybe even billions, who knows? Anyhow in Bryce hdri can be positioned and the like so I created one that is a map of a clear sky, it has been established to provide me even light from the sky with a hint of blue tinit but not too much. IBL is a great way to provide photorealistic ambient light without using the dreaded awful ambient channel. The only time the ambient channels gives good results is when used as True Ambience under premium AA, which when used properly does not cause objects to glow but makes them reflective of the environment in a highly realistic way. As you may have noticed, there are no skin shaders or anytjing else for sale in a Bryce format at Daz 3d. Yes you can find shaders for Carrara and for Daz Studio, but none for Bryce. So in a word, no, I did not use a wet skin because none exists for Bryce until you the user produce it on your own. I did purchase the Elite Marie Texture itself because I knew I could find a use for it, they are very high resolution and lit very evenly. I played around carefully with reflection and specularity to create the look of wet skin for the girl in the water. My theory is that they think Bryce cannot make convincing humans and one of my goals is to try to change that perception one render at a time. The render time was so long because I used quality 256 IBL which gives light and shadow form all sides. When you are rendering highly transparent objects like water terrains, humans with SSS, trees with transparency leaves, and most of all blend transparency hair mats, the render time jumps substancially, but I think the final results are impossible to achieve in less time, there simply is no substitution for patience. My system is 8 cores at 2.5ghz each, totalling 20 ghz of power. A couple days for me would be a couple of weeks on the average laptop fit with one processor and one core. Thanks for the positive feedback, More to come.

- Another of your beautiful pictures. Now to nitpicking: the girl in the foreground would never put part of her weight on the fingernails. The pose is good enough for an ad for bikinis but just that left hand is a show stopper. That's all of my nitpicking. The rest of the scene is excellent. The water looks very good in the foreground with the transparency and also the waveas are very good. I understand that the pool is painted blue. Perhaps if it were white tiled, you had less trouble to get the water right. The far lady is standing in the pool, so it is not deep and we would like to see the floor. Since it is blue, we think the water is blue ink - were it not for the excellent transparency in the foreground. The background is very good, too. Judging from the shadows, it is around noon and nearly at the equator. archclan - Image Based Light is great and you get nice results by just using one of the HDRIs that came with Brycve 6.1. However, there is much more to it. But Rashad is right in putting it simple in order to give you the courage to give it a try. Do not despair about long render times. No matter what you do, if you do it right, you need time. Rome wasn't built in a day, as the saying goes.

- Horo, Thanks so much for the positive review. I have been observing pools alot lately trying to figure out why pool water looks the way it does. It became obvious to me that clean water itself does not usually display a color tint at shallow depths, so most pools must get their perceieved "color" from the blueness of the bowl itself. In the past I would have used a greenish blue tinted water mat, but this would have been wrong I think from a realsim standpoint so I kept the water mat itself crystal clear. This works to my advantage in the foreground where her feet meet the water. I used a terran for the water surface as a "solid" to create depth in the water, and this makes visibilty to the bottom of the pool more difficult because I am catching reflections from many angles. I am glad that you like the lighting, as I know you pay super close attention to such things as I do. It is not noon, the sun is at about 55 degrees, but it is shining onto the scene in a head on sort of way so not many of the deeper shadows are visible. You know, if I had seen this scene a couple of years ago I would have sworn it was not Bryce. Before the advent of IBL I do not think these scenes would have been possible. Surely with enough skill I could rig a similar lights set-up with radials and produce the same level of realism, but the render time would be at least six fold and therefore unreasonable and impossible. I love IBL in Bryce. Her left hand is an issue I guess. This was one of the V4 Modern Day Poses. I did not change anything but the head position. I assumed from the straightness of her back that she was not actually placing any weight on her hands at all, for me the weight is placed on her butt with the hands merely caressing the pool rim. This scene begs for more iterations so I may play around with it a bit more from other angles and the like. Again, thanks Horo, and more to come.

- The only thing that is missing in the water is the caustic effect. All pools, including mine, have a very high caustic effect at any time the sun, or artificial light hits the surface. This effect is affected by depth, and since the water appears to be around 3 feet deep, this effect should be very pronounced. This will also give the water in the distance some added clarity. Also, your beach ball appears to be very heavy. Minor crits for an otherwise good piece of work. I must also take this opportunity to thank you for your many posts on lighting, they have assisted me greatly in my artwork.

- The only thing that is missing in the water is the caustic effect. All pools, including mine, have a very high caustic effect at any time the sun, or artificial light hits the surface. This effect is affected by depth, and since the water appears to be around 3 feet deep, this effect should be very pronounced. This will also give the water in the distance some added clarity. Also, your beach ball appears to be very heavy. Minor crits for an otherwise good piece of work. I must also take this opportunity to thank you for your many posts on lighting, they have assisted me greatly in my artwork.