Posted on December 12, 2012

Like most of you, I was heartbroken by the tragedy in Newtown, CT last Friday. I have been hugging my own first grader extra tight ever since.

Here is my meager tribute to the 27 victims.

The render has 20 (young) blue stars and 7 (older) red/yellow stars forming a new constellation in the heavens.

If you would like to download the wallpaper it is available in the free gallery. There are more resolutions available to my Members in the here.

May the victims rest in peace and smile down on the loved ones they left behind.

Posted on December 12, 2012

Vue 11’s new “360 Ecosystems” (populating instances on all sides of an object, rather than just the “top”) opens the door to a lot of interesting effects, but the first one that came to my mind was Christmas lights. After bedecking “Sleepwalker Wood” and “Gotham Garden” the next scene that cried out to me was “At World’s Edge”.

I hope you enjoy it!!

I have also added a version with white-lights to the Pickle Jar. Let me know which version you guys prefer (by leaving a rating) and I will feature that one in the gallery.

I also wanted to mention that my friends at Zimnix has produced a free Android Live Wallpaper (with blinking lights and snowfall!) based on my “Sleepwalker Wood” wallpaper.

Please leave a review if you enjoy it!!

Posted on December 12, 2012

I thought I would take a break from the Christmas/seasonal wallpapers for a moment and do something a bit different.

I’ve added “Unchained” to the Members Gallery this morning (dual and triple-screen versions available). I created this project to illustrate how I feel creating art on my main machine (Bucephalus) after only being able to work on my laptop for a long time.

You are, of course, welcome to make up your own story. I hope you enjoy it!!

Posted on December 12, 2012

I’ve added a third (probably final) version of “Gotham Garden (Christmas)” to the Members Gallery this morning. After trying Vue’s volumetric snow in the first version, and no snow in the second, I have come back to the original snow from the winter/day version (which is not available in the free gallery btw).

A number of folks suggested multicolored lights. I tried that but I wasn’t very pleased with the results. Sorry!

I will get cracking on the multiscreen versions next!

Posted on December 12, 2012

After I figured out how to light up the trees in “Sleepwalker Wood” I went looking through my gallery for other candidates for arboreal illumination. The one that jumped out at me first was “Gotham Garden (2010)“.

I’ve posted two versions of this scene in the Members Gallery. The first (now in the Pickle Jar) used Vue 11’s volumetric snow, but the effect is a bit grainy. The featured version has no snow (it’s an early December scene I guess) but I may add it in a future version.

I must say that Vue 11 is very peculiar about saving files. More than once I have worked on files and saved them only to have them not open later or open but be radically altered. I’ve lost two projects to this in the past couple of weeks.

I’m still hoping a future Vue update will fix the problem, but it has certainly had an effect on my output these past couple of weeks. I may just go back to Vue 10…

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little update of an old favorite!