new contract

I officially began working with a couple of the lovely Neutrino ladies this week, on a den scene for their web page. I'll begin posting on that process very very soon.

Mental Ray, bouquets

This is a still in a rotating camera shot. The bouquets start to come together. The brass seems a little too shiny... I might bring down the reflection. The ghosted image of a lily flying by appears at the left.

crash-o-matic

I am bulking up the bouquet centerpieces with lilies and poppies for a flowing Victorian look, but Maya prefers to crash every time I try to import my new flowers...

Reboot!

dining room with lace curtains

After fussing with the different metal shaders, I settled with a chrome shader for the silverware. It's difficult to see in this particular scene, but it picks up hi-lights really well.

This bottom shot was rendered at 1080 HD with mental ray. I think the floor reflections were a fair success, although I still need to learn how to allow light to pass through an alpha mask. Click on the image to get the... big picture ;)

dining room with revisions

Theses are much smaller 640 X 480s. I played with the lighting a bit, removed the mirrors, added a different background and voila!

In the second image I added lacy curtains, changed the angle of the lighting. As you'll notice, I don't have light inside the curtains, so I added translucency...

In the third shot I have translucency, but the light isn't passing through the curtain. Thoughts? Suggestions?

Mansion Dining Room Renders

(top) This was rendered at 1080HD with mental ray, two spotlights, an area light and a direction light. An infinite amount of monkeying around helped me find the perfect glass shader and global illumination settings. I will try and post some details of the glasses later.

(bottom) This was also rendered at 1080HD with mental ray, taking about 1.3 hours. I like the light effects on the curtains and floor, and the overall warm glow of the room. I don't like the too-dark shadows and the loss of detail in the darker woods and whites.