Hi all, this is the first time i have tried carrara for something in production and can use critique, comments, tips, etc. Grahan Jungle, translates (approx) to "dark eclipsed land." the render here is darker then it will be as i turned off rendering the fog (which will make it brighter but takes hours to render). The terraces represent Nepal in the future, if you have not been here, this place is being terraced to death. The white keys on the embedded keyboard have been retextured to look more like old marble and i am working on making the dials/buttons stand out a little more, but not much.

I am having a bit of a time rendering, as i don't really know what settings of the dozens should be used for a final render getting the best results. the one below was done at what i think to be "medium" (higher values for pixel accuracy and things set to faster if offered.  But all of those controls make me crazy!  for example, i fixed the texture and improved the keyboard on the render below, set everything to what i think is "best" and it's been two hours now and this graphic is only halfway done and carrara is pegging out my machine at 100%cpu.  arg.  but i can deal with that as the render does look better so far! i get real confused on all the lighting options everywhere. Global illumation options...caustics and photons...oh my!  thanks!!!

ps. any tips on how to get rid of the sharp edges on the cliffs of the keyboard? i guess i can pixel paint in ivy and waterfalls...

The solutions you are asking for are actually a combination of modeling, texturing and possibly using the Surface Replicator. There are quite a few things that can be done to enhance this image. However, a lot of it depends on becoming familiar with the tools in Carrara. Whether you are in the Vertex, Spline or Terrain modelers, there are several ways to smooth the edges. You mention that you are new to Carrara. (nice to see you here by the way) A quick spin through the manual for the modeling and render settings would be an excellent use of time. ;-) If you're interested, I've got some free quick start tutorials on my own site at the link under my signature. Mark

thanks Mark, will do the spin (thru all 500+ pages) and try some tuts. i think this pc may be too slow for carrara - it handles animations and rendering/placement of objects ok, but once i get into the modeling functions, it becomes very very slow. so i have avoided that up to now. cheers!

This is an update...