Just as a side note, if you're Vue users, you can make a couple of "key" prehistoric plants by modifying some standard Vue solid growth.

Imx3d made a great calamite (horsetail) using the Prehistoric Pine Tree. I did the same based on the work he did. You can see the results clearly on this image

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2190427&user_id=457113&np&np

And I've made a fairly descent monkey puzzle tree using the Scots Pine. You can see that clearly in this one.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2124322&user_id=457113&np&np

http://www.amazon.com/Prehistoric-Life-Definitive-Visual-History/dp/0756655730/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326419075&sr=1-1

Hey adorety

Ancient plants are a real problem in 3d. There's the xfrog series that are ok, availabe at cornucopia, but they don't have info, are really render intensive, and expensive. As an alternate, i'm attaching a link to a book called Prehistoric Life, availabe at amazon. It has lots of info and pictures about plants sorted by era/period. It's a huge book for the price and well worth it.

Quote - You have not initialized the ".bat" file that the installers leave on your desktop.

Hey Basicwiz -

Thanks for your response. Actually, I did do that. 3 times, in fact. 

For what it's worth, I ended up switching to a volumetric point light - something I'd never tried - and the results are 1000% better. Definitely long render times, but worth it, I think. I'll post the final image when completed.

Thanks, Bruno. That seems to have helped some. Now I just need to figure out the rest of the composition

Thanks, Bruno!

I'm trying to use talk Designer for the first time. Poser 8 on Windows. When I try to import a .wav file...INCLUDING THE .WAV files included with poser, I get a pop up "The audio format is not recognized by Poser, and then another saying This audio format is not supported for lipsync. Any suggestions?

Never mind. I think I figured it out. Changing the softness parameter in the Sun light panel then enables the shadow softness. Weird. I had increased that earlier and it didn't enable the shadow softness, but this time it did.

Sounds like user error.

Attached Link: Creek

Good to hear from you! And thanks for the tips. I'll try them out. I ended up putting two terrains together and using the resulting "valley" between them for the creekbed in the attached image. Not a totally unsatisfactory result, but it does lack some control.

Hey Nabob -

Good to hear from you! And thanks for the tips. I'll try them out. I ended up putting two terrains together and using the resulting "valley" between them for the creekbed in the attached image. Not a totally unsatisfactory result, but it does lack some control.

Thanks for your response. Have to admit, I'm feeling like a complete idiot not being able to figure this out.

Here's three images. The first is how the interface appears when I go into the editor. The second is an example of what I'm trying to do. Basically I want to create a simple terrain with a creek running through it. That much I can make happen, as you can see. Then what I want to do is soften the edges of the creek bed with the effects painting brushes. Image three shows how I'm trying to do that, but nothing happens. The brush acts like it's trying to paint, but no effect shows up. By the way, if it matters, I've got the rock hardness set pretty low in the Effects Tab if that matters.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Agree with all the posts here. Something to struggle with constantly.

Speaking of which - in the plant editor, can someone explain to me what "Falloff" does, and how this differs from "length"? I know this is probably a stupid question, but whenever I adjust the falloff, it just seems to change the length.

Still frustrating - and inconsistent. For awhile mine was rendering at 400%. Was doing this on test renders too. then it stopped. Didn't change any of the settings, didn't install a service pack. Just suddenly started doing at 100%. Very odd.