View of the front of the cave from behind the dragon's shoulder

Floor view across the dragon's toes of the skull, stalactites, and crystals

Aerial view of the cave

Texture demonstration and glowing eyes

I started putting lighting in my scene by placing a spotlight with a wide angle at the entrance to the cave, serving as the "sunlight" coming in. This showed off my texturing very nicely and then I decided to have my dragon's eyes glow to increase the fantasy idea of my project. The mysterious glow of the gems and the greenish reflection off my dragon's skin were very nicely demonstrated through the lighting and the crystals added to that effect. I'm considering adding the varying color and light reflection attitudes to other textures in the landscaping.

Once I had gotten my dragon textured, I started on the landscape of the cave he'd be starting the video in and the stalactite "maze" he would run through. I tried out a few bump maps for the limestone effect and finally settled on a relatively smooth one for a slightly sandy effect. In fact, that gave me the idea of creating a sandy floor in the cave. Since I also added crystals from Maya's visor brush to my cave and changed them green, the sand effect worked wondrously in the landscape. It also looked more realistic than my previous idea of limestone flooring.

Considering my dragon's imaginary traits, I made a treasure pile with gold and gems on one side of the center of the "maze" and a skull and two typical long bones on the other. The idea is that the camera will be startled by the bones, knock into the dragon, and wake it up, thus starting the plotline of the dragon chasing the camera through the maze and out into the forest.

In the end it took a while to get him all textured-up and to choose the right bump mapping, but I used Photoshop a lot and finished the job. He looked great after all my work and effort and I went through a few wing textures until I settled on the one I liked the most. I added a special luminance and reflective tendency to his "scales" that made them reflect the light as greenish. I also decided that he would be stony instead of scaly, appearing as a statue come to life.