it probably is OTT - though in my defence, each of the lights has been placed to create a shadow or to light a particular area or section of geometry. It's for a uni assignment and I'm more interested in tackling the various types of lights, materials and settings. I'm not knowledgeable enough about them to be able to create a 'mood', nor to be honest, interested enough in it to feel it warrants a great deal of artistic endeavour; i'll probably never attempt another scene like this. But I agree it suffers from more than it's share of newbies insecurities - more is more; or so we think. I guess the closest 'style' would be noir-ish, where the graphic shape of shadow takes precedence over realism.
It's too late to start worrying about that now anyway, I think I've got a handle on things with dielectric materials! =S
oh - yeah it takes a few minutes to render, but so did the tutors during the demos - it's cut down quite a bit once the gather map is frozen. some of the other guys are taking hours!!
Last edited by se7enhedd; 18-05-2012 at 09:01 PM.