Playing with displacement maps

Using this tutorial as a stepping stone I've been trying to wrap my head around displacement maps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONm2iX5TscE&feature=player_embedded


Here are some of the results:

Test Shot

A test render with all the assets and special effects in place.

Pillar Textures Finishing Touches

I have just finished texturing the pillars and have added slight bump maps to make it look more like stone. Next step is to add a little snow to them to make them fit in with the environment.

Pillars in the Environment With Basic Textures

Broken Pillars

I've modelled and UV mapped the broken version now as well. 

UV Mapped Pillars

I've just finished UV mapping the first pillar. Now I need to model the broken version.

Designing Pillars

 Now that I've finished everything except the textures for the environment, boat and bridge. I've begun working on designs/models for the pillars and the temple. This is what I currently have for the pillar design.

After modelling my first design I found it to be a bit too plain so I added elements from my second design and I quite like how it turned out.

Still UV Mapping things

UV mapping the Ice breaker ship has been going slow. The last couple of weeks have been a bit crazy because there was a dead line for the draft of my dissertation, and that has been taking a lot of my time.
I'm about 95% done with the UV mapping of the models that have been built so far, just a couple of things left to map on the ship, i should have it done by tonight, if not then tomorrow.

It's a bit of a crazy jigsaw puzzle at the moment, because there a so many different angles on the model I had so do quite  a lot of UV projections and making sure the UV shells are all the right size and then putting them all together has been very time consuming.