[bathsheba]

if you like, you could render the scene without caustics. I'm curious to see the difference. Maybe, you don't need caustics in this scene so much and you get less noise on the ground.

I tried it with all of the caustic layers turned off, and it looks exactly -- almost pixel for pixel -- like the result with caustics. So it seems that the noisy features at lower right are not caustics at all, since they didn't go away.

It seemed to run faster at the beginning, but now at 8 hours into the render, the images with and without caustics look identical.

It's mysterious...I wonder whether the caustic layer switches are working properly.

-Sheba

[bathsheba]

Just the red one was what I referring to. I'm thinking cheap Christmas ornament. I did say cheap. :P

A little too cheap for my expensive eyeballs to see. ;-)

For "physically correct" shader, the gold is not very correct is it?

I think they're more on board with light than with matter. Oh well, it's hard to get everything in the universe right...next we'll be complaining that they're not rendering the dark energy correctly.

PS, I sent it, thanks!

-Sheba

[bathsheba]

Bathsheba, I just read through some of process for how you create your work and I am wondering if you have had a chance to look at a software called Zbrush?

I actually bought it a few months ago, although I haven't really been able to use it as yet. The interface is difficult for me, and it doesn't have a manual or integrated help system. If I had known that, I'm not sure I would have bought it. :-/

I expect I'll find some use for it, though I see myself interacting with it mostly by way of the scripting interface...for this kind of work I can't just push stuff around, randomly: I have to be able to measure.

As I am one of those with the idea and vision but not quite the the digital tools yet to make those things something to be seen. Things are getting close.

It's strange how slowly CAD software advances...I look forward to 3D screens, it seems as though that might help.

-Sheba