[Irinikus]

Is Max able to utilize both CPUs for rendering? I can't remember if they bundled Mental Ray with Max before Autodesk bought it.

I actually haven’t checked CPU activity, I’ll check it when I get home.

As for mental ray, I haven’t looked at the render settings in detail yet, as I still have a long way to go with this model.

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It does indeed use both CPU's:

[Irinikus]

The compensator is coming along well, but the most complex part resides beneath the nib! (So I'm going to have to think carefully as to which primitives I use here, when constructing this section of the compensator.)

[Irinikus]

Here's a rendering with the correct branding on the nib:

[Irinikus]

The section is now pretty much complete:

This picture shows what the section consists of: (Many hours of work!)



Here we have the final optimised revision:



Now onto the custom barrel and cap!

[Irinikus]

I've made some progress on the complicated custom filling mechanism, which resides in the barrel of the pen:

[Irinikus]

How about a titanium finish:





Or blue and gold:

[jirka]

How about a titanium finish:

Cool.

I like the  titanium one .

[Irinikus]

How about a titanium finish:

Cool.

I like the  titanium one .

I have to agree with you there!

The blue and gold has been done by Waterman already!

Here's a video that I made, covering the internals of the actual pen made by Waterman (I own three of them: two blue and gold's and one Edson LE)

[Intuition]

Did R3 max have dome lights? Just imagining an HDRI or something creating a 360 reflection across the pens.

I haven't tried one in Maya 6.5.

Might be a fun tut to do a linear/sRGB lighting tutorial. Though since SGI are 1.8 gamma it may be slightly different. Though, interestingly enough I have no idea what the vw320 does. It might very well be sending out a 2.2 gamma signal.

Btw, these are nice models.

[Irinikus]

Did R3 max have dome lights? Just imagining an HDRI or something creating a 360 reflection across the pens.

I haven't tried one in Maya 6.5.

Might be a fun tut to do a linear/sRGB lighting tutorial. Though since SGI are 1.8 gamma it may be slightly different. Though, interestingly enough I have no idea what the vw320 does. It might very well be sending out a 2.2 gamma signal.

Btw, these are nice models.

Thanks Man!!!

Every time I create a new model I want to up the game! 

I really love pens, so what better to model than a fountain pen!

The Edson is a particularly special pen to me, and you'll be surprised how much you learn about something when you model it!

I'm obviously adding in some of my own poetic license, just for the shits and giggles of it!

The machine's currently rendering, and my God it taking a long time! So I'll get back to you on the lighting. (I've made a start on the cap, and again I've broken from the actual Waterman design and I've skeletonised it)

One thing that I've definitely noticed here is that the tessellation modifier is nowhere nearly as optimised as to what I'm used to!