Posted on July 9, 2015

With this new version of “Ring of Fire (Night)” I’ve replaced the “fake” glow of v.2 with “real” volumetric light. The effect is a lot more immersive and creates a nice contrast with the moonlight. Triple-screen users gets a bit of lightning on the right screen.

This one took nearly 28 days to render on Bucephalus. It simply wouldn’t have been possible for me to produce this render without Shadowfax!

Members please have a look at my new renewal options here. You can now upgrade your account to “Unlimited” status here and never have to worry about it expiring! CC only at the moment. PayPal coming soon!

Posted on June 30, 2015

With the New Horizons probe quickly approaching its rendezvous with Pluto, I thought it might be fun to imagine just what it might find when it gets there.

I used to model all of my planets using Lightwave, but for this one I chose Vue d’Esprit because it has great options for adding a thin atmosphere and visible relief on the planet surface.

This piece isn’t intended to be 100% scientifically accurate, but rather a fanciful (and hopefully artistic) view of Pluto from its moon Charon.

I hope you enjoy it! I may do a second, strictly single-screen, render of this next because I designed the scene as a wide frame multiscreen first. It took nearly 2.5 days to render at 15360 x 2880 on Shadowfax!

Posted on June 17, 2015

Equip your diamond pick-axe because the DB Sandbox Challenge is here!

The past two Minecraft challenges were (IMO) huge successes. So much so that I thought I should make it a yearly event.

While first two contests focused primarily on Minecraft, I am opening it up this time to any sandbox game.

The rules are pretty simple…

Browse through my gallery, pick an image, and recreate it using your copy of Minecraft or ANY OTHER SANDBOX VIDEO GAME!

Compose and post a screenshot that looks as close to my original as possible.

Submit your entry using this form

DB visitors will pick the winners based on their image ratings.

IMPORTANT:If you are a DB Member you can choose any of 800+ my images as your subject. If you aren’t a Member I would ask that you choose from my free images.

The contest has always been Minecraft based in the past but this year I’d like to open it to up to other “sandbox” games. If enough people enter I would like to have prizes in multiple categories along with the grand overall winner.

Some other sandbox games and level editors…

• LegoWorlds
• Garry’s Mod
• Space Engineers
• Unreal Engine
• Unity
• Cryengine
• Contact me with more!

Some Past Winners…

Prizes (starting point: these are subject to change):

• The Unobtainium Pickaxe

  The Grand Prize winner (chosen by my expert jury) will receive a Lifetime Membership to DB. I will also try to render something you built as a DB wallpaper (if possible) using my considerable tools and post it for the world.

• The First Prize winner will receive a 1 year Membership to my gallery.
• Honorable Mention will receive a 1 month Membership.

I am providing these prizes as a baseline but folks are free to donate more. Simply address a gift certificate to [email protected] and include Sandbox Challenge in the comments.

Spread The Word!!

Encourage your favorite Minecraft YouTubers to enter and film their entries. Who’s really the best? Which game or platform is most suited to this sort of challenge?

Page short link: http://bit.ly/1rNMYSQ

Tweet #dbsandboxchallenge

Here are the prizes, rules and instructions on how to submit your entry.

 

Posted on June 14, 2015

Ever since I started my Members Gallery I’ve been slowly removing free wallpapers from my site, hoping that the people who visit would sign up for my massive collection. Well, I’m not sure that’s worked all too well.

Instead of a site that everyone could get something from, I ended up with a site with little to offer unless you were a Member.

That’s about to change. As of today DB now offers more free HD wallpapers than at any time in the past 12 years. However, instead of having a separate “free gallery”, as I did in the past, you will find the free images mixed with the rest of my collection.

Look for images with a white border in my gallery (you may need to reload the page for the border to show up). Once you click them you will find the “Free HD Wallpaper” link at the top of the page. Let the 1920 x 1080 images load fully and the right-click on the image to either save it to your computer or set it as your wallpaper.

I am considering adding some more free resolutions to the sample pages in the future and I will definitely be mixing them up from time to time.

Start here and work back through the years…

Basically I want everyone, regardless of means, to find a great wallpaper in my collection. If you happen to become hooked, and you feel like giving a little back, then I hope you will think about either signing up as a Member or purchasing a wallpaper a la carte. Enjoy and please share with your friends!

 

Posted on June 8, 2015

I’ve added the night version of “Ring of Fire” to my new images page this morning. This one has been rendering on Bucephalus for almost 6 days now! Let me know how you think it turned out!

Going forward I think I am going to start doing preliminary renders at 1440p, post those and only render the 5K (or multi-5K) images when I am “certain” that the image is final. That should speed up things around here for most of you who do not yet use 4K/5K monitors.

I’m interested to hear what you think of this policy in the comments

In other news, my a la carte wallpaper system will now send your purchased images directly to your email. It should work a lot smoother now so give it a try if you aren’t a DB Member yet! Lastly, if you’ve been holding out on a DB Canvas then you will be pleased to know that Zazzle is offering 60% off for the next few days if you use the coupon code ZGREATESTDAD.

I used this opportunity to purchase the canvas print requested by my newest DB Patron Jeff Csillag!