The Pearl, Qatar | Great Marina

This has been probably the toughest visualization job I have been working on so far. Originally I've just been asked by Markus Baader to jump in during his honeymoon holidays to finalize this (then) almost finished project, which he had done almost on his own until then. I was just to set up the lighting, sweeten the camera animation a little and eventually supervise the rendering process.

But then the architects changed almost every plan, the whole design had to be redone, our existing 3D models were mostly for the trashcan and when Markus came back there were just two and a half weeks left to rebuilt this entire island plus some detailled spots - with a team of two and just one matte painter!

Well, in the end we were given a little more time, but not more budget - we nevertheless kept working on it to save the client's (and our) reputation, but when again new changes arrived after we considered it to be "done", we passed the job to others. Not just because of being upset, but because of being exhausted - literally. As a CG artist you are used to work long hours over a period of weeks just to meet a deadline. That's the spice of life! And we always made it! But if a deadline is constantly being postponed and your hard work is all in vain, you cannot sustain your enthusiasm any longer. Especially not when you have to reject other (paid) work at the same time.

So what you see here is so to speak a "work in progress". In terms of CG it's almost finished (even though it was done in a rush and under chaotic circumstances) but it doesn't reflect the then valid designs of the architects.