Rendering problems

[Paladin81]

OK sorry, I didn't realize that the images I referred to in my last post weren't showing up. The URLs I posted should work.

I've been having some rendering problems that I have no idea what to do with. The first problem seems to be with shadows - I rendered the image below with "Ray Trace Shadows" and "Ray Trace Reflections" turned on, and I got the weird black pattern on the gold dome. (This was a shape I created by lathing, if that helps.)

http://paladin81.netfirms.com/blackpattern.html

The second problem I've had has been with LightWave rendering backgrounds as low-resolution and spotty. In the image below, I had Ray-Trace Shadows and Ray-Trace Reflections on again, and the gray wall behind the lamp came out spotty. I had antialiasing on, so it's a little hard to see, but it's there.

http://paladin81.netfirms.com/lowres.html

Has anyone else out there had these problems, and what can I do about them? I'd appreciate any help!

Thanks,

- Chris

[Mylenium]

Well, looks like your problems can be solved easily.

1. Either there are overlapping polys ore they are non planar. Try "Unify polygons" or triple everything if necessary. Delete unecessary polys.

2. Actually you spottiness is dithering. This seems to be related to your display (check if it is set to true color) or you incidentally activated dithered motion blur.

Mylenium

[Paladin81]

Thanks Mylenium. I tried tripling, and it did get rid of the central black pattern, but now the dome has what look like black smudges on it. Could these be caused by nonplanar or unnecessary polygons, and how would I determine what polygons are unnecessary? Also, how do I unify polygons?

http://paladin81.netfirms.com/err2.html

Thanks again for your help.

- Chris

[Mylenium]

There seem to be two identical copies of the dome lying on each other. This causes clipping errors when rendering. Do the following: try to merge oints (hit the "m" key), unify polygons ("shift +i"). It should say something about eliminated polygons. Then open up your statistics window ("w") and look for any 1 point and 2 point polys. Select and remove them.

Mylenium