Renders

I did a final render of the area depicted below, from the opposite direction:

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The image below is the first area through which visitors walk, and features a model of ruins (center, midground) that are depicted at the lower part of the artworks on the wall (left), specifically the angular black structures. I moved the displays around so that I would have an object left foreground, then the model, center mid, with the window in the right background completing the line of composition.

 

The image below is the main space. I tesselated the ceiling and moved the geometry a bit to balance out the fact that everything else is so clean and smooth. I added the lighting fixtures to the ceiling, as well. I had originally used a dark brushed metal material for the fixtures but I felt that they drew too much attention to themselves so I used a lighter brushed metal. This is actually quite a large space and I think a horizontal exhibit would sit well in the foreground. In fact, I do have such a display for showing a model of ruins, but that is placed beneath the large image of the ancient area in the adjacent area. That image can be seen below. There is a similar image on the wall on the left. Perhaps  could make something related to that at some point in the future.
Below is a shot of the same area, but closer. This was rendered with different settings, thus the jagged soft shadows on the white wall in the very back end. Some of these renders took over 12 hours. For these in particular, I used the following settings: Max. Reflections: 1. Max refractions: 4. Final Gather Bounces: 1. You’ve probably noticed that I switched the material of the floor; it is now polished concrete. When I did this, the reflection of the floor clouded the glass exhibits. I found that raising the number of refractions to 4 solved the problem, but apparently also increased the render time. As far as image precision, soft shadows, final gather precision, glossy reflections and refractions go, those were each set to medium quality. If you look carefully you can see the effects of upward lighting on the displays. The effect was not as prominent after I changed the materials of the artifacts. I wanted to put some cut-outs of people to illustrate scale but, alas, I ran out of time.

 

Below is an image looking down on the same area. This was an earlier render that used different materials; the red from the upward lighting can be seen in the artifact in the foreground. I received many error messages during this render: “A ray encountered an invalid color. (Nan), using black instead.” You can see strange black streaks on the glass in the foreground. I investigated the error and found that it might be related to materials. Interestingly, I have never before seen this error, and it did not happen until I imported Obj files from ZBrush.

The image below still needs some work. This particular area is small and confined relative to the open spaces previously shown, and therefore has little room for creativity in composition. The lighting needs to be tweaked, perhaps some shadows turned off, and the material on the artifact needs to be improved.