Well, I think this is the pre-final. I am happy with nearly everything. I am going to add some pebbles to the dirt and I think that should do it.

Comments?

For my Abbey scene I wanted to model a bird and animate the flight. My intent was to have a flock of birds flying out of the tower (I may still do this, it is appealing).

So I modeled a pigeon, learned to rig it, figured out how to do a looping animation and tied it to a particle generator. The results turned out good, but something just doesn't seem right.

I have finished the modeling for this scene and have wrapped up most of my lighting and camera setup.

Whats left to do... The bump maps on the building in the background need to be removed. Same with the bump on the white material on the building in the foreground. The displacement on the bushes/hedges is... wrong, this will be interesting to fix. The terrain is working, but my blends are not. I am going to break this into two pieces and then I wont have to worry about the mix.

Getting closer and closer.

I'll look this image over and correct any issues I see and probably wrap this up sometime soon.

First test render.

(click image to see both frames of the animation)

In max you can create a spline, make it renderable and have it generate a uv. You can then add symetry via a modifier, adjust the mirror's location and you have a 'perfect' arch.