Render Globals and Photons!

So I went back to what is so great about Maya: Render Globals and Photons! For the scene with the two statues I used a simple area light and moved a point light to create some groovy shadows. On the wine glass I used Caustics and Raytracing and hand-animated the ripple effect... I played with dynamics a bit, but decided that this was a better approach. Ocean effects work well on wide bodies of water.

Unfinished 3D Reel: finally, it's coming together!

My 1-minute video game reel is coming together... finally!

So I used mental ray on every scene except for the scene with the priestess, since there really were no reflections to speak of. I tried a couple different rendering passes to get the background right. Hair was fun to work with, and the dynamics are simpler than you think. I'll go into that in my next posting since my computer is on fire rendering out the 'semi-final' scene in After Effects.

There are quite a few gaps that need to be filled to pull together my storyline.On another note, I am looking for the right sort of soundtrack to lay on top of this scene. On a later post you'll notice that I used Chopin--a classical piece. I would really like to see something a bit more moody/mysterious/haunting... I thought maybe even some classic banjo-y bluesy bit would work since it relates somewhat to the bayou...? I'd love your input...