Here's my final image for the contest, and let me say that I'm glad it's over. If I was to do it all again I'd spend more time on the eyes of the nun, I'm dissapointed with ho they tuned out in the full size image. Other than that, I should have focused on texturing as it is my weekest side and is lacking in my image.

The only depressing thing about the whole experience is the awesome quality of everyone elses work.

Hope you like it.

Adrian Oostergetel

Due to my choice of software - Animation Master, my rendering options are very limited. There isn't a lot of scope in AM to mess around with rendering to get different looks, apart from the toon renderer which I find very tiresome for very average results. AM also struggles with the size of the image that I wanted to render. Originally I started at 5760 x 10240 but had to cut that in half to 2880 x 5120, even after I moved to my work machine to render which is a dual p4 xeon machine with 4gb RAM. it is amazing what doing a large scale rendering of your scene can show up and really I should have tried it a lot earlier than 2 days before the deadline. I'll know not to make the same mistake next time time.

As for my exact settings to render I just used the basics... No multipass rendering, no depth of field, raytracing and shadows are on.

I chose to light my scene in three passes. I wanted to get a nice streaming light from the door down the isle but also needed to keep the nun seperate for fine tuning of the lighitng. The crucafix is lit seperately as to give a little bit of depth by adding shading on the right hand side... This doesn't make much sense when you see the lighting on the nun's face, but I felt there definetly needed to be a bit of shading on the side of the crucafic. You will also notice from this picture that the back of the crucafix was never modelled, I knew it would be heavily blurred so I just modelled the front which was also used on the rosary beeds in the nuns hand.

Had I more time, better software and better hardware I'd try for some nice volumetric lighting throuh the door, but I've run out of time and patience. Maybe next time.

Because I\'m choosing to mae the image black and white as well as use depth of field I can get away without doing a lot of texturing. As you can see, the texturing I\'ve mainly concentrated on is the nun, the rest has been quite a quick job.

Late I know, but I finally found a scanner to scan my less than impresive concept sketch. Early on my idea was not to show the crucafix but rather just a shadow on the floor. This was changed quite quikly and an out of focus crucafix was added to the scene.

Due to the fact that I only have a laptop at home - I'm actually using Animation Master, which I'm finding at this stage to be tedious to say the least. I find that simple things are very easy and quick to do. Modelling and texturing are no problem but when you get into the fiddly stuff, volumetric lighting, soft shadows etc. you can pretty much forget it unless you want to spend days playing around with fifty thousand lights in your scene, and then there's all the crashing to worry about. Apart from that, I'm really quite happy with how my shot is all looking. My concept was always to do a black and white image and try to make it look like an old photo, this would also mean texturing would not need to be so crucial as I want the whites to be over exposed, as most indoor photos with light pouring throug an open door does overexpose in lit areas. Tell me what you think, Obviously it's not all done yet, I have to texture the hands, the pews, the crucafix and finish the nun's gown. I also want to add the neklace part of the rosary beeds around her neck.

Lighting and composition? What do you think? Any comment welcome.

Before starting I had a very firm idea of what my finished piece should look like, for this reason, as well as time constraints, I've chosen to model only that which I need. You will notice the crucafix needs quite a lot of work, but it shall be blurred in the final image so it isn't a problem, and I've actually modelled the hands in the position I need them rather than wasting time rigging. The face of my nun is by far the most important part of this piece, and is what most of my time has been spent on so far.

I think that lighting shall be the key to my finished work.

A lot of work to go and so little time left, I hope it all comes together in the end.