So yeah, this is the first in a few things I will be posting that showcase what I was doing back when I was beginning to go more and more hardcore in 3D Art.

This animated piece was made during my second course in 3D Environmental Art, when I REALLY wanted to make 3D art my main hobby. No Man's Sky was just about to release and I thought about replicating the procedural pulsating diamond that was shown in the trailers!

As you can see, I kinda got it down! I got the procedural pulse correct and even got it to extend to a very sharp point on all of the the spheres edges. This, of course, required a ton of polygons on the sphere alone. Mix that with the simulated glass that the diamond is textured with, the textures in the back and their normal mapping, as well as global illumination and you get what took around 4 hours to render! I think... all I do remember was that this took forever to actually finish rendering.

But yeah! A very small and simple animation I made during the workshops in my 3D environmental art class! I have 2 other ones I made, buuuuuuuuuuut they are more test animations so I won't post those (especially since I look at them and think "good god I can just re animate this and make it look better")

If I were to go back and re do this animation... I think I would completely re create the idea of it. My mind drifts to the diamond sticking out of sand while the sphere pulses with a red glow and the glass diamond covered in a thin layer of dust. Even adding in some weather particles for a dust storm effect (something you see very frequently in No Man's Sky).

EDIT: Sorry for the really crappy looking quality (pixles and shit)... size restrictions are a pain in the ass