Posted on November 21, 2007

• Afternoon update: I’ve made a couple of changes to “The Astronomer” and have posted a new version. The clouds are a little softer in the new version and I’ve changed the color of the lights on the platform. The first version is in the Pickle Jar. Let me know which you prefer and I will keep that one in the gallery.

• After posting “Song of the Sky” earlier this month I immediately set about working on a new “planetscape” wallpaper. I really wanted to have something done in under a week.

  It didn’t turn out that way though. Every night I would set it to render thinking that I would post the wallpaper in the morning, and each morning I found something that I wanted to change. Art is like that sometimes I guess. I just didn’t want to post it until I was completely happy.

  I’m as close to “completely happy” as I am going to get so my new wallpaper is now up for your review. It’s called “The Astronomer“. Sorry it took so long, hopefully it was worth it.

  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating!

Posted on November 15, 2007

• I’m sure some of you are wondering if I will be posting a new wallpaper soon. I am working on it right now actually and I hope to have something up in the next couple of days. This one has been something of a challenge, for reasons that I will elaborate on when I post the image. Thanks for being patient!

Posted on November 5, 2007

• I’ve added multi-monitor versions of “Song of the Sky (2007)”.

Posted on November 4, 2007

• I’ve posted a revised version of “Song of the Sky (2007) on the new images page. I had really not planned on doing any revisions to this one. It seemed that most of you liked it the way it was.

  Unfortunately I was bit by a nasty Vue d’Esprit bug whereby saving my file actually wiped out some of my work. Most of it was still there but my trees were all messed up. The end result being that I won’t be able to render the image again exactly as I had posted it on Friday.

  So I set about repairing the file and (and trying to avoid the bug). Other than the trees (which I was forced to change) I decided to change the aurora a little. It’s a little softer now and I’ve added more green tones. I’ve also tapered it a little at the top to more closely match the original (2000) render.

  Not much could be done about the reflections in water. The angle and proximity of the trees keeps the aurora from being reflected.

  Hopefully the new render will be as well received as Friday’s (since there’s no going back to it). Next up: Multi-monitor versions.

Posted on November 2, 2007

• So far this year I’ve updated “Tropical Moon” and “Haiku”, why not try another old favorite? This time I chose “Song of the Sky“, and composed the scene using Vue instead of World Builder (which, as far as I know, is dead software now). The updated render is now up on the New Images page.

  This one may exhibit some of the same darkness problems as “All Hallows Eve” on some monitors. Like most of my night images, this one is supposed to be dark (with mainly silhouettes and shadows) so lack of detail is intentional.

  I hope you like it!