Hi Richard! You were up pretty late posting it looks like -- I know how moving preparations, etc. can certainly keep one busy around the clock too -- whew! ![](http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/eek.gif)
I'm happy you like this one.
Ya know I've never seen the Dinotopia stuff, I know there's a book and it has something to do with dinos and people at the same time, but I have never picked up a copy or looked at those images. I don't know if this dino or scene is kinda like Dinotopia (?) but the idea of this little dino maybe along those lines.
Anyway this is the Tawhak and I loved it's features and everything about it--it is very expressive all around the face with eyes adjustable with expressions even, mouth, lips, nostrils, head crest and tongue fully posable too, the rest of the body also easily posable and the dino has elegant proportions and looks very alive. V3 had to be scaled down to 70% to fit properly or scale the dino up, but my scenery was rather vast in scale so I didn't want the characters so big I was stuck with only closeups. You could probably use Aiko with it very easily too if wanted. (I have the Dragon Princess in mind...that would maybe work.)
The lighting settings I'll have to email ya about as they are pretty complex -- let me know when I can email ya at your new place and I'll let ya in on how to do this if you want to.
There's no way I could describe the settings in text here...but in spite of the complex lighting, the render time was (using the final Production setting and this was rendered with a dpi of 300 and a window image size of 800 x 600 I think it was) about 8 minutes. As I was just making a postable still image for forum use that's all I needed for here. I then made a forum sized one copied as .jpg "save for Web" in PS so the file size could be reduced as much as possible for posting. It showed pretty good detail even at such a small size for a 8 minute render like that, imo, but it can of course be made at much higher resolutions and sizes for printing. The background is a cyclorama so it's fully adjustable for positioning the characters within and you can get all sorts of camera angles in there and put the lighting wherever you like. I've added more vines, more plants could be added too but I didn't want the scene to get too heavy in geometry, (you could use PS for making the jungle even thicker though and have no extra geometry and render times)just looking for a quick image, it was a bit of a story idea I might continue with.
Well, like I said, let me know when I can email ya, and I'll pass along the lighting secrets.
Thanks for looking at this one, Richard, and the comments! Take it easy over there with the moving. ![](http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)
---Maya
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover."
-Mark Twain
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