I’ve been trying to use area lights instead of too much indirect lighting, to cut down on render time. However there’s no doubt indirect lighting gives a better result, at least with my current skill in setting up the area lights. This image uses indirect lighting, but I managed to keep it down to 3 bounces instead of the default 12. Total render time was about 10 minutes at 256 samples.

I think the hard part is coming up – detailing. I tend to get bored working on details, which is probably why  I never finish anything properly. Perhaps I just need to work on it a bit over a long period of time. After all, what’s the hurry?

I don’t know what’s happening about my new computer. I put in a dispute with Paypal at about 2am today, when the money did not appear in my account. However they say try to negotiate with the vendor, and if no luck they will escalate to relevant local authority in about 4 months time!! At least it appears that there is some kind of insurance (buyer protection) when using Paypal so I should get my money eventually, unless Joe finds a satisfactory unit of course. I haven’t heard from him since Monday.