Dusted off the old Magical Crystal Compass Rose

[etrnlflame]

Great inspiration! It I love that compass.

[ThomasR]

Except for my lousy border, it's beautiful. If it helps, I can provide the .psd file.

[SteffenBrand]

Well crafted! I personally like to blur the further areas a bit in this style of close-up illustration to enhance the sense of depth. This could be done easily in Photoshop afterwards, don't know about 3Dmax. =)

[Robbie]

Yeah, I'll probably do some depth of field work in the final. 3ds Max has it as a camera setting.

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[Robbie]

So I've switched this over from 3ds max to blender and am using much better materials and such...Any thoughts?

[Mouse]

Well its certainly given the gems on the compass a sort of radioactive glow

The wood is better. A lot better. I think just that one thing has shifted the dynamics of the composition in a pretty startling way, and greatly improved it overall

[Redrobes]

I like the cork and gems of the old one better and everything else about the new one is better.

[Robbie]

Hmmm...I just adjusted the glow of the center gem to match those of the outer ones...and I also changed the IOR on the inkwell. Rendering again. I need to make the cork dirtier I think and inky...What is it about the old gems you liked better?

I definitely think the wood texture is the best part...What do you think about the patina on the metal bits?

[Robbie]

A few minor changes...Mostly the center crystal and glow balance. I've decided to get rid of the feather and model a dip pen instead...Soon.

[Mouse]

Patina on the metal?

Ummmm..... a bit large in scale? I don't know. Either that or it should be only about half as noticeable, perhaps?

Its really difficult to say. The problem is that you probably aren't modelling this based on a real physical compass?

Just looking around me at the various bits and bobs on my desk that happen to be metal, the patina seems to be far less noticeable than the environmental reflections, but it may just be that the metal I can see at the moment is all fairly highly polished good quality steel (umm, my dinner cutlery ). I don't have any brass or anything else to compare.