Trade Wind Daylight

Posted on February 9, 2024

Happy Friday! I thought it might be interesting to give a totally different look to the “Trade Wind” sky with some towering cumulus clouds in the distance.   I know this might be a bit too sunny for a lot of folks but I hope some of you enjoy it.

EDIT (2/11/24): A few folks mentioned that the beach was blown out in the original render and it was difficult to see where the water ended and the sand began. I’ve rendered a new version which should fix this, and at the same time I adjusted the camera settings so you can see a bit more of the beach. It’s a wider field of view than the twilight version but the foreground is a bit more important in this version. Thanks for the feedback everyone!!

Sinua

Posted on February 6, 2024

This one started as an experiment with Gaea attempting to produce a “grooved” alien landscape.  After spending a few weeks on familiar themes I wanted to break out and try something very different than anything I’d done before.   It’s a bit odd but I hope you enjoy it!

Trade Wind Twilight

Posted on February 3, 2024

Around February my love for winter scenery begins to wane and I feel the need to create something warm for my monitor (and, hopefully, yours).   The tropics are preferred destination for this sort of escape and this scene fits the bill nicely I think.   I love rendering the ocean because it leaves a lot of room for my favorite subject, the sky 🙂

I hope you enjoy it! This is one of two new projects that I’ve been working on and the second (coming soon) is quite different. Stay tuned!

Borealis (Dawn)

Posted on January 27, 2024

As soon as I’d posted the day version of Borealis (2024) the requests for a “night” or darker version came rolling in.   Fortunately I had already started dreaming of one.   I especially wanted the morning sunlight to shine through the ice pillars but didn’t imagine how much that would add the the render time.    It actually took 4x as long to render as the day scene but I hope you all think it was worth it.

Borealis

Posted on January 18, 2024

Continuing my theme of reimagining “classic” projects to start 2024.   I first dreamed up the ice world of “Borealis” in 1998 using Bryce and did another version in 2006.   This render is more a rework of the original version.   I wanted to use Gaea to add snowfall to the scene and subsurface scattering to add some light penetrating the ice structures.    My traveler also makes an appearance surveying the scene.   

I hope you enjoy it regardless of the temperature where you live.