Further Visual Essay Progress

With the deadline looming for this project I have made a lot of progress with my animation. Having been faced with dauntingly long rendering times for the 3D portion of the project, reaching close to 450 hours at its max, that section is now behind me, having produced a scene I am happy with to use at the backdrop for my animation.

Below are some screenshots showing the development of the 3D scene from modeling, to finished with textures.

One thing I am disappointed about is the noticeable difference between the above and below image in terms of having much stronger shadows in the above one. This is down to having to use lower settings for the shadow mapping to avoid extremely long rendering times, which I feel makes the scene lower quality, but still suitable for what is intended.

As well as the finishing of the 3D section I have begun work on the editing and compiling of video clips and voice-over that will make up the essay part of the project, explaining my decision for choosing virtual environments.

Last but not least I have also improved my intro scene, making it higher quality and smoothing out the timing issues to be added to the beginning of my animation once it is complete.