Currently, this looks more like a caustics study, but actually the scene as it sits is exactly that! It's part of prep work. The ocean floor is right (in terms of distance and possibly color) and so is a lot of the compositing. It has an old-style photo feel that I am really really liking so far.

Now, when I post something, I want it to benefit you, so I want to give you some sort of help. Today, it's in the form of the progress shot.

> Post in the Mid
Since I know my scene will be very similar in angle and I have my test elements in there, I can start fiddling with the general feeling of the image. This you can do through-out the whole creation process, however, some would like to argue that it's better to leave post-processing for the post, but this is not the case for much longer.

   These days, there is more and more of a push towards using Game Engines to run special effects directly onto the recordings. There are some of these simple 3D animation shows that have actors in motion capture suits and the show is literally captured and recorded in the same step. So, doing post, during the creation and testing phase, is not a bad idea, but, don't be so rigid with your set-up at one point that you won't change it in the end to improve it. Your image will change, so your post will also change most of the time.

> Test, test, test
I don't know how much this is said, because I only watch so many tutorials, but I don't recall it ever being said directly. For example, Andrew mentions that he plays around with a feature and he also says that he rehearses his tutorials a few times before recording. Testing is similar to this, but testing, in this case, is really a method of setting up you scene.

   For example, let's say I am thinking about creating a short and I want to just jump in and make it. If you know how much planning improves your work, you'd probably think: "Oh dear, here comes another one", haha. Planning for a short would involve storyboards and a pre-viz. Now, a pre-viz is like a very very very very very low quality run of your scenes. It's basically for the simplest actions and to test angles. Like this detailed planning, you have to approach your images too.

   The image above is approached with caustics in mind as a feature of the image. That means, it will have to be front and center and working. I don't use Cycles' native caustics feature, because my PC does not allow for 60000 samples on a test render. Not even on GPU do I have that kind of time, so GOD gave me a different method for doing it, which is what you see in the above image. For the method to work, the light has to be just right, so I started working on the lighting very early in this scene.
   In order to make sure the caustics fell as I wanted, I needed some objects and of course the stuff going in is not done yet, so, in comes some basic shapes and Suzanne to the rescue, haha. Never ever be afraid of using very basic shapes to test your scenes before adding the highly detailed things, or your test renders will take forever.

And that's it for this post, but just to recap:
 - Start post production from the get-go to make sure it's as fitting as possible and this will help you in the future
 - Test your scenes by:
    > Pre-viz for short films (don't be afraid of testing lighting here too)
    > Basic shapes to substitute for complex ones - speeds up your test renders immensely
 - GOD can help you accomplish things you didn't think you could

Keep working on those projects and remember to check out Cross Allegiance here and if you don't know JESUS yet, make a special site visit out of it!

Thank YOU!!!!!!!!