Great modeling and texturing! Nice and smooth. Great use of colors. I'm always glad to see someone who dares to go beyond the easy way out - mint condition with reflections - and put some time on the texturing instead, instead of using the preset textures. If you want to experiment further you could add more UV-maps for diffuse, bump and a small blurred reflection.

The sides are completely flat. You can clearly see that on the surfaces like this. The glossiness cuts off directly at sharp edges, making it less realistic. If Cinema 4D has some rounding tool that can smooth the edges (by adding more polygons), it could look really good. Small amounts of bump is of course always useful. Good luck

Nice, awesome, and all that regular...

I liked the angle you had on the previous render better. It gave a better view. But that's just me.

I agree with Ichappel about maybe using random cards. It gets a bit too uniform with the queen of spades. But I can see why you did that. It would take a lot of extra work to achieve it.

Anyway, I don't think that's a problem, since a majority of the voters probably won't even notice it.

Nice but blurry.

Sorry, I wish I could help, but I don't know how to use Blender. It's not done over night, but look for tutorials and play around with the settings. It can be useful for future projects as well.

The modeling is really great, according to the SBS!

The texturing on the white leafs on the other hand isn't equally impressive. It looks too white and sterile. If you add some more maps (your own) it will probably be great.

About that water: to make it look more real you could first of all make it colorless. Usually water isn't blue. Depending on the viewing angle and depth, it will get its color by the reflections and/or transparency (mix with fresnel for the angle). Next step to tweak would be to add light bumping. While at it, you should add some textures to all objects.

Great and simple idea that works very well, even with default materials! I really like it!

But in Hi-res edges become visible on the pills. Looks like they're not merged. Also, is probably too symmetrical, turning the reflection stretched out. Adding really small bumps and/or subdivide+distort it slightly would probably solve it. About the reflection map on the pills; it's reflecting a forest, but where is it?

Author, I see you point with the plastic effect.

But if you want to imitate a plastic surface, you should probably make it less glossy, but make it equally specular and reflective.

With the current reflection and glossiness it looks more like porcelain. But porcelain looks good too of course (with lower reflections).

Very creative I must say. I would never had come up with that idea.

I like everything but the smileys texturing. That poor dude is so abused with reflections that he almost looks hollow. The lighting could also have been better, it makes old school ray traced sharp shadows. It may look better with softer, global illuminated shadows.

(The SBS on the other hand doesn't say very much. It doesn't really show how you modeled the objects and the work progress at all. It will probably not help very much if someone wants to learn from your entry)

This one has been posted before.. did you model/render it?

The detailed model looks good. I also like the colored glass. You could of course add small variations to different channels to make it look slightly worn and thus more realistic. Also, the specularity makes it look more like plastic glass. Easy things to fix though.

But just like another entry in this contest you've excluded one of the more vital parts of transparency - background and surrounding objects. It's not really coming to life with this setup. I can see that it reflects some kind of image, but there's no trace of it in the image.

The model and the texturing is nice. I don't know exactly how a hearth is supposed to look like, but I like it.

The dissapoining part of your entry is that you didn't do anything about the background. When it comes to reflections, but especially transparency, a good surrounding, with background and objects will be one of the main factors for making it look good.

Good job with the modeling, and great SBS! I'm not a 3dsmax user, but I learned one trick I could use in my 3d software.

The texturing however could have been better. I like that you added bump to make it look more worn and realistic, but it's too strong and uniform. It makes it look like a stone.

You could add more irregular bumping layers (maybe like long scratches) and lower the overall bump effect. It could then be enchanted with reasonable amounts of reflection and specularity.

I like the idea, but not the choice of background colors. It also looks blurry and like it's suffering of some sort of heavy jpeg-compression. Many of earlier 3DS Max renders on this site tends to do that. I haven't been able to convert to 3DS Max yet, so I don't know why, but there has to be some really simple mental ray setting to avoid that (I bet someone has a good answer for that?).

Ok, I see.. bump maps doesn't have much effect without specularity and/or reflections. Try experimenting with those values and you'll see the difference.

I suppose you are a beginner? There's a lot of things things that could have been done, but here's some things you can experiment with: It's not that easy to make out how you have been texturing, but for learning you could try applying the bump map (the one available in your source url) to the bump channel and make it specular and slightly reflective.

It looks really good (except from a dull background)! Reasonable specularity and and great bump/displacing makes it look natural.

The only things I can come up with is that the procedural maps could have been less uniform. I would also have wanted to view it in higher resolution, and seen a detailed SBS about the texturing. I think there's lots to learn from it.

Good job anyway!

It looks like some sort of genital tumor! Anyway, I guess that's an acceptable result for this contest.

Nice. The texturing (though you say you didn't texture it?) and the details on the lower half of the face looks great! But there's some things that makes it appear unfinished:

The white artifacts in the eyes looks like it has some rendering error, especially in Hi-res. It may be due to too high specularity without AA or reflection. Should be easy to fix though.

And what's that on his head? It doesn't look like hair. You could experiment with some fur plugin or at least change the color.

That's one scared dude! And also: wow, modeled the traditional way. Impressive. But what I really like is the texturing! You've also done a good job with setting up the scene. The great lighting lets you by get away without making the hair.

The model actually looks overall good for being sculpt in ZBrush, you've captured a lot of details, besides the eyes that look weird. And the ear could use some detail.

But the most important improvement would be tweaking the hair and eyebrows! Don't know how to fix the it in 3ds max, but maybe you could make the hair more dense with multiple hair layers.

Also, you could probably add even more details with a bump detailed map. Then this would probably be a great entry!

Not the merry christmas I would wish anyone!

That's what I call nostalgia!

Great amount of detail and good texturing (though default vray materials). Good use of the reflections. Especially the discreet ones on the lid. As you probably already know, the reflection on the glass is for some reason jagged. Another thing about reflections, only mirrors reflect sharp reflection. It should be somewhat blurred - especially on flat surfaces. Really nice render anyway.

Sure, really simple and all that. But I can't help to like the abstract pattern.

However, it looks photoshoped with a black background. Glass always looks better with natural surrounding to refract and reflect (not only a background image though).

Great idea, and great way to achieve it. Very refreshing. Clean and simple. The only thing I miss is motion blur on the bullet. But you'll get my vote anyway.

For being the first 3D thing ever, I must say you've done a great job! I've allways considered Bryce a crappy 3D-software that only can make mediocre landscapes. Allthough i still believe Bryce has its limitations, you've proved me wrong!

Great concept, nice angle and good result in low resolution. I miss a proper high resolution version though. I also miss a proper SBS. It only shows the cages. What about the bridge and the bushes?

Author: nooo, don't change to UV if you like the present result. If that's the result you wanted to achieve then that's what it is. In that case you could enchance the melted effect by adding an adjusted version of the ground texture image to fit as a bump and/or diffuse map.

Author, so may very well be. That's up to the contest mod to decide. Not me, you or Wlado. Nevertheless, it's hard to give a fair vote exo planet contest when the only trace of the planet is planar polygon with an unknown image (no source) on it.

So, I do wish you good luck. It's a nice image. But I'll rather throw my vote on the other great entries, with detailed SBS and a modeled planet.

First of all it doesn't seem to fit the contest theme. It doesn't show very much of your "exo planet" (see the "part of the landscape" in contest goal). The planet doesn't seem to be 3D - it looks more like an image (so far without a source) pasted on a planar polygon, with some nice towers and creatures.

Also, about your SBS, it's impossible to tell whether you've modeled the flying creatures, background planet and the clouds. I think you'll have to do some "on theme"-adjustment.

I'm glad you spent the enormous amount of time to re-render it! By doing that the great ground texture is visible.

The only flaw I can see is that you've applied it planar - stretching it when it gets steep. You could fix this by making UV-textures, adding a displacing texture on steep parts, or simply reproduce a similar effect with procedural bump and color textures. But don't get me wrong, I still like it.

Are you kidding me - an hour?! That's nothing when it comes to one frame 3D rendering! My late test render usually takes about an hour and my final at least 4H!

C'mon now, crank up the details and let the CPU burn over night. There's plenty of time until deadline. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's curious about the details.


(About the poly-count, I know the feeling. I'm sure 3DSMax has some sort of polygon reducing function)

I do like it, it looks good in LO-res, but it's impossible to review any details.. so, please render a bigger HI-res version!

The model itself looks great and that's usually what should generate high marks. But i can't help thinking the background is extremely boring. Perfectly square corners,100% reflective mirrors and no texturing at all makes the whole image sterile.

You should really try remodeling the background (if you want credit for all your hard work), since that's what makes the reflections on the car look natural.

I liked the color and reflections in LO-Res, but not that much in HI-res.

The water looks weird - probably because it isn't flat. I also think you've ruined your nice looking buildings by cranking up the reflections way to much and using almost the same texture on all of them. You can do better than that.

Who knows, the future may be very reflective, but this one would look far better and more detailed with reasonable reflections and different textures.

Looks better now! I'll save my vote until the voting days, in case of other improvements.

Great entry! I like it. The glass enhances it. But I don't understand what's happened with the red and white blocks though. They look overexposed and ruins the details. Is it because of too intense light? Post processing? Too diffuse textures? You should also try to go on theme by adding a LEGO-background. Besides that you've done a great job, with a good detailed SBS.

It looks interesting in LO-Res, you caught my attention, but it doesn't look very good in HI-Res. The image quality is not good enough - it's blurry, grainy and jpeg-compressed. Your 3D-software can render better than that.

The texture works on the distant buildings, but shows too much contrast on the close buildings. Especially on the closest ship.

About your SBS - it doesn't show your texturing and render settings. Anyway, this one has potential - I'll vote later.

Wow! I really like it. The SBS shows you definitely know what your doing!

Great texturing - you did a great job on the realism. Reasonable amounts of reflection and refraction makes it look really good. There's some minor flaws visible in HI-res, but the only thing worth mentioning is that the honey in the jar looks more like tea water (too transparent). At first I actually thought the jar was shaded. But besides that you've done a great job and will get at least my vote!

Congrats Troma! I actually think you should have my 1st place. The details in your model was way better than mine.

Author: I can understand that. I can't speak for others, but I'm keeping that in mind on my vote. Please send me a link if you render a proper setup in the future, I'm curious about the result.

I really like the texturing, but It's hard to make out any more than that because of Low Res and lack of light. The SBS shows the modeling better, I'll vote with that in mind instead.

Great modeling! The back parts looks great, but the proportions of the neck and head looks bigger then the rest of the body. I don't know why though, since you followed the blue prints perfectly (according to the SBS). Maybe it's just a matter of manual fine tuning, point by point.

I really like the idea - clean and simple. What I don't like is the angle. The cake looks 2D - your modeling doesn't show at all. You should also make the ants more random by (different size and rotate the legs individually for every ant). Besides that I really like the concept and will save my vote for later.

The resolution is too low to view the details and give you a fair review. I hope you have time to render a bigger image before the deadline. And I would really like to see the SBS.

Looks ok. But you should adjust the glass and water some. It seems to refract to much. Water refracts 1,333 and glass ~1,5. It should also refract 1,0 going back in the "air" (add an inverted layer). Also, adding a caustic effect on the glass would make it really good. All those suggestions are very easy to change. Good luck.

For being your first render you did a decent job! There's a lot of tweaking that needs to be done though. The glass isn't correct transparent and should refract (look for glass tutorials about that). As for the texturing you should smooth the surfaces and add bump maps.

Hurray, wow, great job (and all that)!

All the small details makes it look very good! I hope all your hard work pays out.

I realize you've rendered it for display, but it would however look even better with textures making all the details even better. Making it slightly worn would make it realistic. And, finally, it would look extremely good placed in a scene with other objects to make the reflections come to life (please send me a message if you do).