===== From bobfranke@halcyon.com: The trees are pretty good and I like the sky. Also the snow on the ground and the two snowpersons are pretty good. The biggest areas for improvement are the beam of light and the smoke. Try experimenting with media. The light shaft should have softer edges. Improving the smoke is a harder task. ===== From ande8545@blue.unco.edu: Very good image. Might it look any better if the snow kept going out of the chimney instead of stopping? ===== From newkirk@snip.net: Trees are too regular, wood texture on logs would be better as bark, ===== From kniazfam@ohio.net: It's a cute idea. I think you need to make things seem less starch and bare. The snowmen could appear more like snow and less like spheres. Also, I bet you could make the snow more thick and "magical". :-) ===== From Sean_Hamilton@amrcorp.com: Great idea and a lot of good work went into it. There are some technical difficulties with the snow on the trees and the smoke. The best thing is the two snowmen. I think the heart made of stars is distracting and doesn't help get your message across. There is a lot of potential here! ===== From dick@buckosoft.com: Nice pine trees. The Heart stars are in front of the smoke? ===== From gmccarter@hotmail.com: This would make a nice Christmas card. Unusual viewpoint -- is the camera on a ladder? Generic purple POV-Ray sky is unimpressive. A real overhead spotlight with atmosphere might be nice, if you could afford the rendering time. ===== From djconnel@flash.net: Promising scene! However, it's a bit flat... Look at H.E. Day's image for how to use lighting and texture to achieve a sense of depth in an image. The snow-flake-heart is a cute touch. One small note.... I don't see any signs this is a "first" encounter. ===== From east103@dialaccess.com: Made me smile. Smoke dosen't really seem to fit in and there are object edge lines or something like that on the lower left. ===== From ethelm@bigfoot.com: Would make a good Xmas Card! An entertaining image. ===== From blaineholmes@hotmail.com: Cute scene. Very detailed. ===== From wozzeck@club-internet.fr: This makes one of the best POVRay greeting cards I ever saw. Not a single bit of realism, but perfect in its own style. Technically, somewhat perfectible (artifacts on the ground, smoke, too regular trees...) ===== From clem@dhol.com: The idea is a bit cute for my taste, but not bad. Four sided snowflakes? They must be magic! :) In any case, this image contains some nice modelling and some clever touches. The trees are well done, except that they are far too regular and it is too obvious that they are clones. The rounded top is a mistake, too. I do like the snowy branches and the suggestion of bark on the trunk. The snowmen are routine but ok, except possibly for the excessive roundness and regularity of the snowballs that form them. On the other hand, the well worked and somewhat melted snow on the ground is very good indeed. The cabin is also well modelled, if a bit small in scale. The blob smoke doesn't work at all. It would have been better omitted or at least much more subtly textured. The "heart" is cloying and a bit redundant. Mich nicer and more subtle to just let the expression and pose of the snow people carry the message. A couple of little touches I really like are the translucent icicles and the Christmas lights on the cabin. ===== From r@haka.saunalahti.fi: Magic or not, you'd think the snowflakes would tumble as they fall. Oh, and weren't they supposed to be hexagonal? Neither have I ever seen conifers shaped like that, and the smoke frankly looks like nothing if not a stack of granite disks. The snowmen themselves are quite well done, though, as is the log cabin.