Agreed. The HDPE needs a more reflective/glossy surface. Otherwise, beautiful stuff. I gave up in 3DS after blowing up a teacup :)

TEAPOT YOU INSENSITIVE JERK!!!!!!!!!!!! Just kidding.

Haha...
I would have to agree with you on the criticism of the HDPE. Im still trying to get that to map correctly. It keeps turning out really really white.

It's okay sunny...Some people juss dont understand...

all in all the image doesn't look too bad.. but the shadows need work.. there aren't any coming off of the boxes.. that's one of those things that you have to MAJORLY look for, my guess is that you either did a scatter or copied them, and when you did, to reduce render time you just extluded them from the shadows list.. but either way.. there's no shadows... sorry but i just noticed that first off.. and sunny is on the money with that metal textures thing.. but hey.. all you can do is just guess and test stuff.. good job all in all though ;)

Now that's what I like to hear, and you are also right about the shadows, though you could get away with them with the proper "false lighting". By that I mean just make it look like there are a lot of lights in the arena, as there usually are.

Wire Mesh Texturing
 

I wonder if there are any easy ways to map the wire mesh on the surface of the ramp. Right now we just hawe a plane with mesh texture+opacity+specular maps, and it looks alright at a close-up, but the problem with it (and i think it is in some way similar to the problem with rendering originally posted in this thread) is that the mesh is almost invisible if viewed from farther away, creating an illusion that the ramp consists just of the bare support structure. Is there any way to solve that? (I tried adding self-illumination, making the mesh wider, bump mapping, but it doesnt seem to help)

I think the problem we are dealing with is a product of the 640x480 resolution. There is only do much data that many pixels is able to convey. It is certainly limited when compared with reality.

Perhaps the only solution is to choose angles that accentuate the mesh and hope for the best in final render. I dont think making it brighter will help. Think of it as a pixelated image. You can't clear is up without adding more pixels.

Do not interpret this reply as a recommendation render your aniumation at greater than 640x480 pixels. You will just run into more problems compressing it back down for the judges.

Just my opinion... any other ideas?

the resolution idea seems to be my idea...and I don't kow if there is any other way around that...but test this out. Just render a still frame...if you see the wire mess then it's your compression...if you don't see it then try this. Adjust the amount of length and width segments in your box...this would give you more wire..that it visible from a distance. Sorry i can't help out that much..but I'd have the see the model to solve it.

also a question to reisser (hope I spelled it right) How did you material the wood on your model...I am having an incredible difficulty materialing the wood to look as realistic as yours...any help would be appreciated.

This is definitely not a compression problem, at least not in my case. (Try takling a real picture of the ramp mesh - if you scale it down to 640x480 you'll still see the wire mesh).
As far as i understand, the main probmel comes from the fact that the rendered mesh itself is flat, and when viewed at a not-direct angle, the width of each wire is decreased. Of course, i could increase the wire size, but then it would look too large from more direct angles.
My renderings also seem to have another problem - when viewed from very far away, the ramp looks like the supposrt structure covered with a WHITE semi-transparent solid... This is what puzzles me the most - where did white came from? I checked the specular/opacity levels, and everything seems to be normal... any ideas?

Just a possibility - maybe use a very crude geometry for the mesh instead of a flat plane (just a box per each wire with correct opacity maps will give much better results) - should take about 4000 additional polygons.

Another thing i noticed is that shadows significantly improve overall quality of the wire renderings - A mesh-like shadow cast on the carpet and the ramp structure with raytarced shadows creates a nice contrasting background for the wire itself, improving its visibility.

The problem comes from having the plane opacity mapped, I expect. Try doing it using three-sided unsmoothed cylinders and see if you still get the same results.

The wood texture is black paint. It has somewhat glossy settings and a noise bump map for some irregularities. I don't remember where I discovered that it should be black... but it should. Good luck!