Bringing back the Magic Compass

[Robbie]

Thanks evile_eagle!

Korash, I like te idea of ink on the quill...The two candles are pretty much side by side on the right hand side, they're only casting the equivalent of one light because they're close together, distance apart is about 5 inches (kinda like a two candle candelabra). One wasn't bright enough, so I just cloned it instead of doublign the brightness (for realism)

I'm definitely not satisfied with the balance of the glow, versus the scene lighting, so yes, I think the glow from the gems should definitely cancel out the shadows. Also, the gems need to appear to glow internally, not externally. If you look at the gems in the site header you'll see the diffrence...they were done a different older way using shaders that I think I'm goign to revive.

As for the moonlight, it's not really supposed to cast any really noticeable shadows...I have shadows for it turned on, but the size of the moonlight emitter is large in order to make the shadow edges very diffuse...The moonlight was basically to cast some white light on the scene so it's not so yellow.

The ink bottle is the most complex shader solution in the scene. It's actually three different index of refraction calculations: Ink to Air 1.33/1=1.33, Glass to Air 1.5/1=1.5, Ink to Glass 1.5/1.33=.83. This gives the correct refraction for the different surface interactions as light passes through it, lol. Neat