Final render:

F Stop: 64
Exposure: 1/4s
ISO: 100

Tonemapping: Camera - DSCS315, EV -1.0
White Balance: D55

Lit by 4 mesh emitters and an HDRI environment map

Indigo: 2.0.10, 20Kspp

Worklog here

Very cool image.
Maybe some aperture diffraction glare would look good, or maybe that's frowned upon for such shots.

I am using aperture diffraction just not with an obstacle map other than the generated blades as every time I try to use additional map the whole image gets blurred. However, I will have a play and see how I go.

Wow - nice image. It's come a long way from your first tests.

No crits... except it looks a little soft? Maybe aperture diffraction is cause?.

Apart from that it's excellent. Diamonds look great

Edited :
Hope you don't mind but I worked it over a bit in PShop. I might have got a bit carried away with the bloom

might...?

Really great materials, Wyt!

Well done !

oh god doug, please never use lens flare again =/

Doing another render now with a few tweaks. Double the res, no aperture diffraction, and exponent on the gold and silver materials much higher. Will see how it turns out.

Try it with a matt, colored backdrop, HDRI image, and a close-up so that one ring is mostly in focus and the other isn't.


Just my suggestion for setting up the scene

Noted, appreciated, and ignored.

Seriously though thanks for the input zilla but the scene composition I am completely happy with. I am just striving to get the best output from the current setup now

It's ok I understand. I'm just sharing how I would set up the scene . You have your own personal tastes and I have mine

Sure looks nice
Nothing to critic on it's perfect

Thx Stromberg

Ok Zilla I have decided to give your idea a go and bring the point of focus forward about 2mm. This causes the front of both rings to be in focus and the rear of both to begin fuzzing out. Not sure how it will go but I will at least try it.

However, at 5.76MP (1800x3200) with 2x super sampling this scene takes a hell of a lot longer than the original (900x1600). Currently looking at ~130 hours to reach 20K spp.