Been working on this for what seems forever! 
Thanks for all your help - blurr, BgDM, JDA, and everyone else!
Crits still welcome!
It ain’t perfect, but who ever thought any work of theirs was?
C.
http://www.fox302.com/index.pl?s=vf&user=critter&category=Yafray&file=IceCubefinalpost062504.jpg
WOW :o
that look almost photorealistic
i don’t know why but the straw looks wierd(it early maybe my imagination)
but it’s REALLY good
That is fantastic! I especially love the ice texture. Did you mask/stencil the bump texture on it? Only crit is that the tabletop looks a little low-res.
supern00b and metaltailz -
Thanks!
The ice is a single dirtmap (alpha and normap operation) and applied in cubic projection.
I know - the tabletop and straw… erg! I spent a LOT of time on the table tiles and just didn’t have the desire to up the resolution - several guys are rolling their eyes saying “We TRIED to tell him!” but perhaps someday I will make new maps. It took some doing to piece together them to resemble marquetry.
The straw definitely needs work. I just got to the point where I said to myself … need a break from this … need a break from this. (hangs head in shame 
) To stop just shy of trying to make something look plastic-ey…
Think I’m going to try to apply GreyBeard’s tutorial stuff to an animation and try to pull several tricks together. Might be really fun.
C.
I don’t like the straw but otherwise it’s great! I especially like the ice material.
wow! cool!
How about addind a bit of z-blur?
beatifull
Turned out pretty good!
I take that back.
That turned out great!
I think the straw looks ok.I don’t see
anything weird about it.
Turned out great, dood! (And you made this back in '04! Wow! 
) Is the water “rivulet” from the “bumpy-glass version” gone now? Didn’t work out, I guess… I do like the droplets on the straw and elsewhere. Looks great! Congrats! Another one for the Yaf gallery, eh?
Nice and so lovely, only things that bothers me are the stones:
:D:D I demand you bumpmap them and make the grooves between the stones polygon displaced :D:D
um, I’m not sure if the tabletop is supposed to be stones, looks more like formica, or something like that. The reason the straw is a bit off compared to everything else is because it is lacking some spec and maybe a tiny, tiny bit of reflection, to make it look more plasticy and wet… but enough of that.
This blend rocks! Speaking of… water on the rocks, anyone?
yea i like- very nice textures any everything-
only crit- i think that part where the water kind of rolls back on itself (know what i mean?) and the drop should be smaller in relation to the glass- for a more realistic look- unless thats a small glass…?
anyway- good job
good work! i like the water
the table texture is to blurry and the spec of the straw is too low i think
The ice cubes do look very realistic!
The first thought that came to my mind though, was wtf is that reflective sphere doing there 
Other than that not much to crit on.
Mystery
Mystery - Honestly, I have no idea why I put that silly marble in there. I was playing around with color ramps and thought “you know, that looks way cooler than I ever espected.” So I stuck it in. I see your point about the reflective sphere though.
Perhaps a cube instead of a sphere? erm…
Job and Soter - more spec… got it.
Quantourisc - stones? Sorry man, but those are supposed to be wood tiles - inlay… I did bump them a bit but apparently more is required.
All - okay okay okay okay!!! I’ll redo the floor for higher res! Shame me into it, why doncha? 
Soooooo… I’ll post an update in a few days. I’m working through an interesting idea for an animation. If it works it’ll look cool. If it doesn’t, it’ll look pretty bad.
C
Nearly everything looks great.
My only problem is the floor texture, I think that could’ve done with a larger image and bump/spec maps.
Great work on the ice though, very good.
Thanks Dittohead -
I have truly failed on the bump-map - I did it, honest! Really really!
I’ll redo it and the floor texture. I think my error on the bump-map was in being too conservative.
Thanks again for the kudos. It is nice to hear that after putting so much work into a piece. Ok, I’m all done being sappy - no one likes a kiss-ass.
C.
Same here, and I was also thinking the surface tension of the water was a little too strong.
The ice is sweet. I wen’t out to eat today and the ice in the glass looked EXACTLY like that. Great job.
I think, to get it photoreal, you have to reduce the depth-of-field.
Such a close-up shot would definitely count as a macro shot, and that means tiny depth-of-field and a blurred-beyond-recognition background.
(How does Blender’s bokeh rate, anyone know?)
Overall, though, I like the image. The straw reminds me of early CGI images: bold, clean-cut.
maccam912 -
Thanks! I like it when someone else’s ice cubes look like my ice cubes. It hints at a rightness in the world.
Bobulous -
Good point. You’re pointing out to an optics guy (by schooling) what he should’ve already known… macro shot = short DOF.
And yeah, I do want to do photoreal. I may split the difference just because I want as much of the scene recognizable as I can get - shame to waste it with blurriness. Earlier in the WIP process it was introducing a LOT of graininess to the image so I had taken it out.
As to the bokeh, I haven’t made a thorough enough of a study of the effect and modeling it to really want to simulate any particular camera or optical system. The whole concept of bokeh is nice but it is not quantifiable (as it is normally implemented in “the real world”), and that makes it a hard thing to work with - meaning that I will probably always stick with the disk (approximating a circular or fully-opened aperture). But then, aperturing down would lead you into a hexagonal or pentagonal, depending on the lens… Oh, don’t make me think! It isn’t Monday yet! I won’t do it! [!] Look! I’m not thinking RIGHT NOW! See?
(Sure hope I haven’t mortally offended any tenth-level bokeh-masters out there with my sacrilige. Please also feel free to say "Critter, you’re full of ____… %| )
C.
For those interested: