Rendering the L98A2

The penultimate stage of my project, but the longest. I initially setup my scene to render with Maya Software but it was suggested that I should render with Arnold to achieve a higher level of realism. This is because Arnold render has a better lighting system and can render particles such as fog or smoke. While this would've made my animation more realistic, I believe the additional realism to be negligible as I had already set up Maya Software to suit my needs perfectly. Additionally, Arnold would take much longer to render - clocking in at about 3 minutes per frame. For my 950 frames that would've taken roughly 70 hours, so I decided to stick with Maya Software. Nevertheless, my render still took a ridiculous amount of time - over six hours. This may be because I didn't fully optimise the render as I am not yet accustomed to all of the various rendering settings.

Despite the long wait, I was delighted with the result and couldn't wait to start editing the animation. Finally, I added labels and sound effects. My 3D modelling project was now complete.

I see this project as a complete success as I did exactly what I set out to do; Make a realistic model and an informative animation to the specification of the cadet Army Proficiency Cadre.

However, if I were to do the project again I would allocate more time for rendering so I could render using Arnold. I would also model some of the more curved parts of the rifle, such as the carrying handle and pistolgrip, with NURBS instead of polygons. This would have been much quicker to model and resulted in a smoother surface. Furthermore, I would have taken more care with the position of the camera and the lights so that all of the components are correctly lit and fully in frame.

I am still proud of what I have achieved though, going from no knowledge of 3D to animation to this. I am excited to create more animations and am confident that I can produce them to a high standard.