Major Project: Sponge Animation Tests #4 & #5 + Sponge Scene Cleanup

Here are two more animation tests that I've made for my sponge. I like how #5 came out...after some feedback yesterday and seeing #4 I made several minor tweaks and animated the scale of the sponge so it grows slightly throughout the time it's on screen. I don't have it completely fill the screen as I found when I scaled it that much it looked too obvious because the animation was too quick. I think #5 has a nice balance to it growing without it looking odd. I also kind of like how it nearly fills the frame but not quite, I think it still gives the sense of it swelling. 

Since I liked how #5 turned out, I went into my scene and adjusted the render settings to clean up the graininess and lights. I tried to get away with having 2 samples for diffuse rather than 3 (which is what I use for most scenes) to make up for the SubSurface samples, but during the start of the animation where the camera was facing the floor I thought the bricks looks just a little too grainy. 

I tested out a variety of frames so I could ensure different parts of the shot had enough samples such as the shadows, lights, diffuse, specularity, and subsurface scattering. This was to try and ensure that everything was cleaned up enough without render times being too excessive.