There is a bit of shadow on the RH side towards the back, that does not work with shape of the building. Also, the shadow in the center is not as dark as the rest of the shadows in the image. Shadow does not get lighter.

Ya, thanks for that, but you missed the more obvious "the column is going through the bus" cynical comment. You need to work on your observation skills.

At 600px, with no Hi-res, it's hard to see what the column is going through, just that the angled shadow going through that bus is not consistent with the shadows coming off of every other object in your background, most noticeably the trees...Since the bus is casting a shadow, the shadow on the ground should be of the same value as the bus shadow. Shadows don't get lighter...

My observational skills are sufficient to see glaring errors...

Looks good, I would suggest some kind of supporting frame for the dome on top of the building - until I looked at the SBS I couldn't tell it was a dome I just thought that was the shape of the roof.

Shadows could be a bit darker too

The issue with the shadow that the building is casting should be able to be fixed in your software. There should be in your rendering options a way to adjust your shadows, maybe increase them. Also, if you increase your refractions by one, your dome will stand out more as a dome and not just the shape of the building, I think. I can see it now, like farsite said, I couldn't until after seeing the SBS. Just trying to help.

Ah, perhaps my knowledge of what that was supposed to be has blinded me to what a new user would see. The whole thing is ugly. I should have never uploaded it.

Yes Author you should have uploaded it. I could see the dome and your skills will improve. Do not be discouraged. It is not ugly.

Cheers

Author I think it looks pretty good. Good idea for this contest.One suggestion would be to use Photoshop and clone that pesky bus out of existence. Like Cabldawg said it's not ugly. Kudo's for your efforts, the only way to learn this stuff is to just jump in there and go for it. Good start for this contest BTW.

Author: Don't take criticism as insults! Honestly after seeing the SBS, I see the dome everytime. And the image is a great effort. Sometimes people make criticize without offering actual solutions, either a result of not knowing the solution because they don't know your program, or just lazy. Either way, everything that we say here should be a learning experience. Never remove an entry that doesn't break the rules. You can always improve it and resubmit it. But NEVER remove something that you worked hard on because it's not "perfect."

I think that the render you had in your workings document actually looks better than this final image... it's the one with the black building (before you textured it).

On a side note, there is no way ever that that building would ever be constructed, the french are VERY particular about keeping "their" truly historical.

This entry is so beautiful author, you did a lot of work on it I can see from your SBS, don't get discourage from anything, people try to help, best of luck! :0)