Lighting!

I still have some animation stuff I could tweak, but I have to keep moving if I want to finish by the deadline. I painted a texture for the camel, and I even did a couple procedural textures for some of the props.  I would really like to use n environment light and Sub-Surface Scattering, so I did some experimentation.  As you can see the results are beautiful and dramatic...

... but the render times are out of control!  I was averaging about 40 min - 1 hr per frame with this configuration.  Here is the lighting pass I have just completed for the first shot (reference imagery after the jump):

This is no longer using SSS or Environment lights, and I cut my render times down to about 1 - 4 min. per frame.  what a difference!

You may notice that this shot doesn't match the original storyboards.  I did a little camera tweaking after consulting with one of the upper-division grad students who specializes in that sort of thing.  I think the new look is much better.
References: