Wow! You build it, I'll buy it.

They look darn good to me, but you have to consider that I know nothing about rendering and even less about architecture

I was going to offer a suggestion, but then I realized something - I haven't a clue

I don't use dropbox but ran across this article expressing some concerns about it's security, just FYI http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/sorry-dropbox-i-still-dont-trust-you/4173?tag=nl.e539

@007 said:

Some more tuts Here, second one has a little on clay render....by our master here Majid

Oh great! More stuff to print! Thanks, I already had some of it, but found some new stuff that should be useful

Still sifting thru all the material. I have a copy of "Sketchup 7.1 for Architechural Visualization", and even tho I'm not interested in architectural modeling it uses KT for all it's rendering, and has a ton of useful info. Or at least it will be useful when I figure out all the terms and whatnot.

I had purchased IDX Renditioner Pro a few months back, but gave up on it, mainly because there wasn't a real community behind it. This was my main reason for switching to KT, it seems to have a large, active, dedicated community of people behind it, and I think that will make all the difference.

My poor printer is starting to smoke and make funny crying noises

Thanks for all the input and suggestions, I'm working my way thru them. I've found a lot of good stuff in some of the references, and some of them have lead me to more good sources of information and I'm printing them all out to study. I have a LOT to learn, but that's what Michigan winters are made for. I just hope I haven't gotten in over my head with this stuff.
I'll post the results of my efforts, and I'm very sure I'll have a lot more questions, so please bear with me.

I've just started using Kerkythea, and I'm attempting to make a clay render of a model I'm working on, but it's not coming out very well. I'm following the instructions in a PDF tutorial I found online for this type of render. The detail and overall appearance of the rendered model is just just not up to par with other clay renders I've seen in the forum. I've downloaded, printed and read all the tutorials I can find online, and must admit that at this point a lot (most) of what they are talking about is way above me, which I suppose is normal for somebody just starting out. But this type of render should be very basic, right?

Anyhow, I'm including as much information as possible so you'll understand just what I did for the render.

This is the original model, in SU

I click "no" here, then open KT and import the model from the folder where I saved the export, like you're supposed to (right?)

Changed sky color to white

Changed attenuation to "inverse"

The render settings

The rendered model in Kerkythea

After adjusting the levels in PS. Looks like a big piece of cheese gone bad

Black and white with levels adjusted

Maybe I'm just expecting too much from this particular rendering program. Any advice/suggestions would be much appreciated.

(the model is in it's early stages, lots of parts and pieces and detail to be added yet. Gonna be a forgotten project in a barn, or something along that line)

These are incredible! Didn't know that level of realism was possible. Wish I could afford Thea.

This is so impressive! I don't know which I'm more in awe of - your talent, or you ambition. I'm a huge Tolkien fan, and if I wasn't terrified of heights I would love to live in Minas Tirith. I really hope you will continue to post updates as this project develops.

Like most people here I didn't know him personally, but Honolulu's passing has affected me much harder than I would have expected. Perhaps because this is such a close-knit little community. I've never been very good at expressing myself, so I'll just say RIP, Honolulu.

@unigami said:

I'm sure that a lot of the arcs are much higher resolution than they needed to be...

I didn't change any of the arcs, just broke down the wheels and cog into smaller components. I like a lot of detail in my models and I'm always fighting to keep the file size down, so I've been teaching myself every trick in the book. I sometimes download large models from the warehouse just to see how much I can knock down the file size, for practice. I just naturally started doing this with your model out of habit I suppose

Thanks for sharing your fantastic model! Don't know if you're concerned about file size, but I played with parts of your model and the results are shown below. And I only worked with the tires and the drive cog, I could easily get it down even further. Like I said, I don't know if file size concerns you that much, just thought I'd throw it out there.

@unigami said:

You've got to be kidding...that Roadster is waaay better than anything I've ever done!!!!!

Thanks, but your Snow-Trac is so clean, so perfect in every detail...my models are ok, but I have not been able to achieve that level of amazingness (is that a word? ). I believe in giving credit where credit is due. So there.

@numbthumb said:

Nice avatar, hellnbak (now that´s really OT)

Thanks. I don't normally smoke a pipe, but decided I'd go for it

I knew numbthumb was only joking -- you gotta have a sense of humor nowadays (especially nowadays)

WOW!! I used MySpeed to slow it down 70% and still got dizzy! Fantastic work

This is similar to what happens to me when I eat spicy food just before going to bed

This is amazing! Well beyond my meager capabilities. I'll give you five bucks to teach me your methods (not all at once of course, we'll have to work out a payment plan)

@frederik said:

Nope... The image must have been removed...

Huh. Well, despite that I think it's a very impressive model.