The objective was to use copy stamping and instancing to create a complex scene with repeating objects. My scene is based on floating flowers with candles on them. I really enjoyed the lighting of the candles on the water in the low-light nighttime setting, as well as the reflections of the flowers on the water.

 

I started by modeling a simple petal shape and candle. I copied the petal using the phyllotaxis pattern to create both the flower petals and the leaves underneath. I used the ocean kit shelf tool to generate the body of water, and used the scattered points from the ocean surface to place the copied lanterns. I used these same points to instance point lights. To prevent overlap, I grouped points that were a certain distance or less from one another, and deleted that group. I unwrapped the UVs of the flower/petal shape and created textures for the petals and leaves, and also used these textures as bump maps. I created sun and sky lights with cooler colors and a very low intensity to create a nighttime scene. The instanced point lights I used were changed in to spheres to soften the shadows on the flowers, and I made them warmer in color to resemble the light of a candle flame. I lowered the active radius and used an attenuation ramp so that there was a specific end to the light to save render time, and so the light faded off in a more gradual way.