Doughnuts

So I figured out the new 3D modeling program I have been playing with has a secondary and much better rendering system than the default one I had been using.  Just fooling around with it I decided to make some doughnuts.  Now I have a few complaints about the scene, but overall I am fairly happy with the way it turned out.  The biggest thing for me is I forgot to make a plate, though this was a little intentional since I wanted to see how the glass would reflect.  Other than that, the scene needs a little better lighting, this is purely with the environmental color; the glaze needs its reflectivity turned down, I did not notice it actually reflected the table - I thought it was a shadow before realizing with environmental lighting on a glass table would make no shadows; and the table glass needs a bit of work, as I was hoping to add a slight tint and instead got a color much deeper than I had selected.  But these are all more refinements I will pick up on as I play more with the rendering system.  What I do feel was highly successful was the use of fluids - being the first time I had a fluid system work successfully for me - to make the glaze itself.  Initially, I had the glaze a lot further down, but I felt the cake part of the doughnut was too lost adn it really did look better covered only half to three-quarters with icing.  Though sprinkles would have been nice, I felt learning the particle system on top of the fluid system would have been too much, though if I revisit the doughnuts, I may try to add sprinkles.

Now, I did do a bit of work on the sword I was working on, but I felt it was not coming out the way I wanted it to.  The big problem is in modeling the grip, which involves a series of twists in the model.  I have a feeling that while the model itself goes together fairly easily, the calculated normals are unsure which direction to ppoint leading to black patches.  Additionally, I was trying to figure out how to make use of the new rendering system I was trying to procedurally texture the model.  I think I solved the texture problem, but the model itself requires a bit more work to get right.  Note that the older render system is more like what I would use in a game engine while the newer render system is more focused on high quality rendering like in animation.  Hope everyone has a good week,
~gunnah