Posted on April 10, 2016

Lavender (Sunset)

Shortly after posting my original “Lavender” render multiple Members requested a sunset version. Sounded like a great idea to me 🙂

Let me know what you think!

Posted on April 6, 2016

Lavender

I’ve had this scene rattling around my head for a while and it seemed like the perfect exercise to learn some skills in both World Machine (the furrowed field) and Plant Factory (the lavender).

I’ve spent the past few days trying different lighting settings but I’m still not completely pleased. Better to post it here while I tinker because I do think it looks nice enough to share as is. Look for an update in a day or two 🙂

Let me know what you think!

Posted on March 29, 2016

Myriad

Continuing the theme of mathematical beauty I offer “Myriad”, a 3D fractal mandala that I created and rendered using Mandelbulb3D. After the in-your-face brightness of “Fibonacci’s Flower” I thought it would be best to mute the colors a bit for this one.

I hope you enjoy it!!

Posted on March 23, 2016

Fibonacci’s Flower

Leonardo Bonacci (a.k.a. Fibonacci) was an Italian mathematician during the late 12th/early 13th century. It was he who popularized the Hindu-Arabic system of numeration that we still use today. He also gave us the famous “Fibonacci Sequence”; a series of numbers where each number is equal to the sum of the previous two before it. 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, etc.

The sequence appears throught nature in many ways. The shell of the nautilus, the arrangement of leaves on a plant and the number of petals in a flower is a good example. The numbers form the “Golden Ratio”.

I created this flower in “The Plant Factory” using the Fibonacci sequence. There are 377 outer petals, 233 in the next set inward, 144 and lastly 89 in the innermost ring. The numbers are used in other ways too. Hopefully the sequence will create a bit of extra subconscious realism.

I rendered the scene using Vue d’Esprit. Let me know what you think!

Posted on March 15, 2016

Castlemere

Now that I’ve gotten halfway decent at using The Plant Factory I have turned my attention to another one of my helper programs; World Machine. World Machine allows for the creation of detailed landmasses with realistic erosion and texturing (going far beyond what Vue offers natively).

I’ve already created a few renders using World Machine (last year’s “Valley of the Sun“, “Valley of the Stars” and the “Cliffs” series) but now it’s time to go deeper.

I’m sure “Castlemere” will draw comparisons to “Highland Spring” (the elevated camera, the color scheme, etc) and that isn’t entirely unintentional. One big difference here is that I’ve populated the scene with deciduous vegetation (rather than evergreens) which will allow me to do a proper Autumn version when the time comes.

I hope you enjoy the new render. Let me know what you think!

PS: I’ve moved “Nemo’s Garden (Night)” into the Pickle Jar for now.