This is it: the horrendous image that I've been complaining about. I'm 
contemplating whether to change it and if so, exactly what to change 
(otherwise it gets junked directly). I've had a few ideas thrown at me 
from family members, so I might give it a shot.

Anyway, I wanted to show this version to you all for opinions and 
comments. The WIP status indicates that it may undergo future drastic 
revamps, not its current development status.

The thing in the middle is a big conical pool, which is what was sucking 
up so much render time. It rendered from the top of the image to the top 
edge of the pool in ten hours (including the pretrace), and has spent 
the last 122 hours 31 minutes and 8 seconds rendering the little bit 
from there on. Ugh.

I'm particular interested in advice about the window spotlights. I've 
applied no density or turbulence to them and I'm getting a weird effect 
in the window media. It's like the windows don't have antialiasing on 
them. The lights are way out there (the room is 30 units wide and the 
lights are another 45 units out again) so there aren't any coincident 
surface problems, at least with the lights. Is there an obvious problem 
here or should I supply some code (not sure if that's legal under the 
rules).

Thoughts and comments (or ideas) appreciated. I'm the worst critic this 
image has seen yet, so don't worry about hurting my feelings. :) I also 
apologize about the size - I felt it was necessary to be able to see the 
media detail.

~Mike

[x-posted to p.competition]

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Attachments:
Download 'render.jpg' (123 KB)

Preview of image 'render.jpg'

I don't know what effect you're going for, but the light streaming in from 
all directions from 'outdoors' makes the picture look funky to me.   I would 
like to see it with one light source from outside.

Are you sure that the room media ends where the water media begins?  If the 
two intersected, it might create a very computationally wierd scenario.  If 
you're using global media and then interior media for the water, that might 
cause some grief as well.

//Free advice and worth every penny!

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