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From chipr@niestu.com:
Very pretty picture, and good concept.  The diamond seems secondary to the
scene, however--put more focus on your subject.  Too much use of lens flare;
even though it looked nice, it dominates the image.  Good work overall.

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From jay@map.com:
Nice image.  However, do watch your lights.  The lens flare is much too bright
for there NOT to be a light in our view of the scene.  I can't see an
off-camera
light producing that great a lens flare.  Keeping the lights under control is
what
will make or break a ray-trace.  

Another thing to watch for:  wood textures.  Both textures (on the table and the
wall)
look rather odd outside a certain area.  If this isn't intentional, play
around with a scene with just the wall and table, one point light, and a camera
until you get the textures looking the way you want to.  

Creating good scenes is often (I've found, especially with a modeller
available)
a matter of designing a scene, then pulling it apart until you get each piece
right, then putting it all back together.  This does help reduce render times
for
test renders, which will help speed things up.


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From seppo.halonen@hut.fi:
The lens flare eats the rest of the picture.

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From bill.marrs@pureatria.com:
Wow, amazing work for a 13 year old.

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From 93semeno@scar.utoronto.ca:
Bien fait! Take it easy on the lens flare next time, though.

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From ansellaa@acc.wuacc.edu:
I had no problem reading your english.  I'm glad to see so many remarks in
the text file!

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From ucoakc00@mcl.ucsb.edu:
Buddy, the lens flare should be a subtle effect. Don't dominate your image with
it.


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From Matthew_L_Ziegler@hill-top.com:
Nicely done.  I hope to continue to see more from you.  Most 13 year olds would
not have even tried.  I think you may want to limit the amount of turbulence
you place in your wood grain, it will remove the "twice over" effect you are
getting here.

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From wyvern@u.washington.edu:
Umm...

Pardon me for nitpicking...  It's a gorgeous lense-flare and all (though maybe
a little bright).  But...

There is NO LIGHT HITTING THE JAR WHERE THE FLARE IS!  Lense flare is caused
by a light source pointing straight into the lense of a camera.  Hence, there
should be a sun or a very bright reflection at its center.  But, even if this
were to simulate a reflection from a camera "flash", there are no OTHER
reflections from the flash on anything else!  (Like the magnifying glass.)

Maybe put an extra spotlight in the image, with no atmospheric scattering,
and turn up the specular settings on the glass.  I think it would help.

Other than that, I love the image!

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From amarok@geocities.com:
Too big lens flare.

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From lowellr@globaldialog.com:
Nice picture. The only bad part is that the lens flare was way too
bright.  

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From uvasst00@mcl.ucsb.edu:
Nice concept, and good modeling techniques. I think that the lens flare detracts
from the scene in this case though. Lens flare is created in real life by a
fault in the camera lens and for many years was considered very bad style if
seen in an image. Now a days people use lens flare in their images but most of
the time it is only to increase the dramatic nature of a scene or to give and
animation a sense of motion. The key to using lens flare is to use it so that
it doesn't take center stage. Put it in if you like but don't have it dominate
the scene. You have some great talent for a 13 year old. I look forward to
seeing your images in future competitions.

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From karl@pemail.net:
Nice lighting effect

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From ptdawson@voicenet.com:
This is -very- impressive, especially for a first entry. You are probably
the youngest competitor in the IRTC - cool! Keep up the good work!

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From lpurple@netcom.com:
The diamond display looks very nice, but there's too much empty space on either
side.
It would look much better to either add more things (maybe some velvet drapes)
or
else just crop the image to zoom in on the diamond.


From web_user@tonyv.aztec.co.za:
Well done. Too much lens flare though.