050 - Treasure trove

Dim Sum slips and slides as she pads her way across the slippery mound of gold coins.


As I was wrapping up my shoot yesterday, I got a ding-ding from a sheep named Ham, which seems like an illogical name to me.

Anyway, Ham owns the volcano. He was telling me to keep following the path to discover a pile of treasure and other surprises. The chamber with the nest had two gates. one said "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here," flanked by two stone dragons, and the other said, "Turn back, it's not too late," flanked by two stone lions. Earlier, I had moved my cam to follow the path through the stone lions gate and found a chamber of crystals, then another gate between stone gargoyles and found a chamber of mushrooms, then another gate between stone maidens and more lava flows, then a dead end.

I mentioned the dead end to the sheep, but he insisted that I "go through 'Abandon Hope' and follow your nose." I told him that's how I got in, so it would take me back out. He reassured, "No, it won't. ... trust me :))" I secretly thought he's a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Cat that I am, I simply said, "If you say so," and I followed my nose. And it didn't point me through the Abandon Hope gate. ;)

If you follow that path, here are my tips:

• Don't just cam; actually go through it; you won't get to the dead end.
• Don't touch the plywood cube.
• And when it gets too hot, jump.

location: Avilion Loch

Technical notes

windlight: Bryn Oh's BLUNIVERSE (modified)

Depth of Field:
View angle: 1.047
FOV: 30.3
F-number: 7.0
Foc Length: 196
Foc Time: 0.5
CoC: 10.0
Resolution: 0.7
Aspect Ratio: 1.0

Glow Settings:
Quality: 8
Iterations: 3
Strength: 0.35
Luminance: 1.0
Warmth: 3.0
Width: 1.3
Alpha: 0.25

Again, the lighting here is mostly local lights. And one of those lights was rotating, so I waited until the lamp on the top right was red and lighted. Without the local lights, the scene is almost black, except for a few glowy things.

I didn't want another dragon picture, so I focused on the wonderful textures on the walls. It's not quite Celtic knotwork, but just as pretty.