Having finished the edit on the book yesterday, today has been about learning all the stuff that's been sitting there, waiting for me since before Christmas. I have Studio, Affinity Photo, Affinity Publisher and the new Word open, and am using a new keyboard that's tying my fingers in knots! I have NOT run back to my old programs, not even once (not that I wasn't tempted!) ... so here's today's effort. Yep, we're into dragons, and Iray at last. Walking home through the meadow, you come upon a dragon who's juuust settling in to snooze for the evening -- big lizard, you understand; sun's going down. So steal by softly, and maybe he'll just take a sniff at you...
This is the Millennium Dragon 2, snoozing in Merlin's Wild Borders, with DOF on, Iray lights, and a sky designed in Terragen. Took about 30 minutes to render at high quality, after about 50 test renders at speedy settings. I learned a lot ... especially that studio 4 is not really "friendly" toward a lot of the older models; and that you can be as clever as you like with Iray lights and progressive rendering, and if you're not using Iray *materials* you'll end up with a storybook illustration, not photographic quality. So let's call it a storybook: I like it!
