I’m long overdue for another 3D project! Although I was itching to get back at it, I had to step away for a month due to work—and it’s amazing (and frightening) how much I’ve forgotten in that time! I’ve fumbled along on my own, starting this new image, but I think it’s back to some basic tutorials for me!

Lesson 1 kids: STICK WITH IT!!!

So this follows my progress from the very beginning of a new scene I’ve created & shows its evolution through the stages.

I’d like to once again thank Polligon.com (and Andrew Price/Blender Guru) for use of their great textures.

Additionally, I’d like to give a shout out & sincere thanks to my great, ol’ friend Paul Stodolny for his time & wonderful advice on immensely reducing my frustratingly obscene render times. I really appreciate the help, Buddy!

After conducting a brief poll, the results are in which leads us to this FINAL image!!! As I suspected, the sharper version but using the chains of the atmospheric version was the winner. No weighty render times on this sucker, thanks to the wonder of Photoshop. I hope you like it!

Image 6: (The final image?) This bad boy took about 24 hours for my machine to render—that’s WITH Paul’s advice (No wonder my updates are coming so slowly!).

I wanted to play with adding a sense of atmosphere by trying out some volumetric lighting. I added 2 lamps to help make things pop & changed the material on the emeralds & rubies so they wouldn’t lose their saturation…but I unfortunately think they ended up looking like Jello here & lost the definition of their shapes.

I also wanted to give the scene a low-lying mist, so I ran a smoke simulation emanating from the floor…but aside from losing detail, I can’t say I see a defined sense of misty-smoke unfortunately. I do like the lighting on the foreground chain here.

What are your thoughts between images 5 & 6?

Image 5: I’m really having a tough time deciding if this or Image 6 should be what I consider my final image. There are aspects I like from both. This one is crisper and reduced my render time by about 13 hours.

Image 4 1/2: Have you every heard that ancient saying “Never let your computer render for 38 hours without first making sure your pearls aren’t floating”? Apparently neither had I.

Image 4: Now playing with putting in and manipulating some textures. Still a work in progress with lots of adjustments to make & details to add!

Image 3: Slappin’ in some mad, simple materials before I lay down some textures, yo.

Image 2 & 2b: And look what I made all by myself!!!! No help from no one.

Image 1: The first render of a new scene I’m working on. Still much to do/learn! This render took my computer 3.5 hours to spit out. (that’s alotta coins!)