20080708 – Minor fixes. I’d fix more, but I’d need to either redraw or commit to a serious repair slog. It’s Good Enough, I think.

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Looks like I finally figured out how to use Mental Ray properly.

23:00 < mdxi> that there is the best rendering i think i’ve seen yet in atc (no offense)
23:00 < mdxi> i mean pure rendering
23:00 < mdxi> without your usual infinite layers of dirt and flame and blood and whatnot :)
23:02 < solios> yeah, there’s a reason I kept beating my head bloody against Mental Ray until I figured it out.
23:02 < solios> look for the bridge and rec area to be improvements, as the central corridor was originally lit for scanline.
23:03 < solios> (as was the wardrobe)

Camera angles and linework conspire to hide any seriously jarring change from the previous page, which was generated with a scanline radiosity solution. I would have stuck with that save for the fact that radiosity does Horrific Things to bump maps at acute angles, and the file containing the solution is anywhere from 150 to 500 megs in size. Fuck, as they say, that noise. While Mental Ray comes with its own headaches, it’s ultimately no more difficult to work with than other rendering methods.

So, the comic proceeds for a few more pages. Then, The Bridge. Fortunately for everyone, the majority of the Chapter takes place there – it’ll be nice to proceed in more than fits and starts for a change!

Mastering notes, 2016.12.07 – Rewrote the last line of dialogue.