My entry to the shadows contest. It's not my entire idea done up but times running out and just this render took long enough to sus out the lighting. I figure I could waste a lot more time on it but I figured I'd move on and call this done. To pick my entry apart... Things I like... - Terrain maps for quite a few places. The pillar decorations, the floor, the gate and arches, the kneeler braces and the window. They turned out rather well I think although with the lighting you don't get to see them all that well. Stupidly enough I used a terrain for the nun and the wolfman as well where a simple poly would have sufficed. Probably an good indicator that I'm reaching the limit of my endurance on a piece when I start doing stupid things. - Vertex objects for just about everything else. - Love the GI lighting results. Without it this wouldn't have worked as well. What I don't like... - Lighting. It's too warm. I really wanted a colder feel to the piece but with a warm glow on the inside from the nun. I was hoping the outside light would have more effect on the inside. - The Nun is lost in the shadow of the gate. Gate is way to busy to see her properly. Probably need to thin the gate a bit. - Looks like I wasn't too accurate with the back alcove. Looks like some light is sneaking in between the alcove geometry and the pillar. Doh! - Almost zero texturing anywhere. The kneeler wood and leather parts are textured and the ceiling and arches but they are done rather simply. You don't see much of the wood texture either, nor for the leather. Everything else is just plain white. The two coloured lights provide the colors. I was thinking of marble floor or something but left everything as white. Doesn't seem to hurt too much and whatever texture I would have put on probably would either be lost in the low light or made the wolfman and num shadows even harder to pick out. Tools: Carrara 4 - Vertex modeller for the alcove, alter, kneeler knee pad part, kneeler book holder part, main pillar part, arches and ceiling. - Cubes to box in the scene and to separate the inside light from the outside light. - GI rendering. Original render is 1920 x 2560. Took about a day to render it all. - 2 lights. One inside and one outside. Corel Draw 11 - Iron gate, Iron arch and window. Photoshop 5 - Iron kneeler braces, tile floor, piller deforations. - Image resizing is the only post process done on the image.