andy wants some glowing orb

the rendering part of my brain is collecting cobwebs and dust. here's a little scene to shake the dust off.
i think i'm a little bit rusty though.

grass-o-matic was used for the grass and with the proxy script of Master Zap for making things a lot "lighter" to handle. the main lighting is only a HDRi plugged into the sky slot. mental ray glow material for the orbs and for andy's eyes.

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irradiance particles and hdri. update 2

I have gone to a totally different direction with my exterior archiviz test.
From my regular lighting solution of using Daylight with mental ray sun and mr physical sky, I have taken a new path - Image Base Lighting using HDRI's through Irradiance Particles.

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A few more adjustments. Somehow, I would have to invest in some decent HDRI's. That would come if only I could land in a decent job that would pay me and this hobby. :)

irradiance particles and hdri

I feel like a kid on his first bike ride without the rear training wheels. Let me tell you why. While trying to figure out how to make my exterior archiviz render with mental ray better, I have stumbled upon Jeff Patton's entry on making interior renders "unique". Here he recommends IBL with Irradiance Particles. I'm hooked!

After 4 hours of tweaking with it here is what I have.

I'm still figuring out if I got it working right. The shadows seem soft compared to the HDRI environment which is bright daylight.

 Here are the settings. You can find free HDRI's at www.hdrlabs.com and some at www.hyperfocaldesign.com.

I will surely be updating this.