"Dave Blandston" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> "Kenneth" <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
> > Any critiques and suggestions welcome.
>
> OK, dude - here are my humble suggestions, both regarding the green death
> rays: First, it might be cool to light up the inside of the raygun barrels.
> It seems odd to me that there are beams of light coming out, but the inside
> of the barrels themselves are dark.

Now that's something that completely got by me. I shall definitely add
something there.

>Second, the
> beam coming in from the right seems to be hitting the leg of the Martian
> tripod. Probably a result of how media works, but distracting nevertheless.

Yeah, it's due to the transparency of the green ray. I did add some
absorbing media to it (along with the main emission media) to make it a bit
more opague, but it's still too "transparent" there--which is brightening up
the Machine's leg way too much. This is a problem that doen't have a good
soluntion: If I add more absorbing media, the ray *would* look more solid,
and keep the leg brightness down. But I'm trying to avoid a more solid
look, which would hide some of the green, elongated "sparks" inside the ray
(just stretched, partially transparent spheres, BTW.) Haven't given up on
finding a solution, though. Perhaps scattering media is worth a
try--although that would lead to problems in lighting it correctly.  *Ugh*

The ray is actually three elements: A main cylinder; the random green
sparks; and an SOR object that looks like repeating ovoid shapes. All
(hopefully!) balanced so that no one element calls undue attention to
itself.
>
> This is the coolest picture! It's great to see a completed scene with so
> much detail. The time you've spent working on it really shows. Thanks for
> sharing it!

Many thanks!!

KW

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