Posted on July 21, 2007

• Added “Circumpolar” to the gallery this morning. I spent far too much time working on this one (as Jessie has been fond of reminding me these past few days). The reason is threefold. two of the my fault. I was learning a new modeling program (Zbrush) and I was learning to use Vue’s subsurface scattering. My knowledge of both is still pretty rough at this point, and I have much to learn, but I think the knowledge will pay big dividends down the road.

  The last problem was beyond my control. It seemed whenever I tried to do my final render it would always come out blocky and smeary looking as if I was using the lowest quality settings. So I would jack up the render settings and try again, causing the next render to take even longer but with the same results. I went through this for about 5 days when I finally found a newly released patch for Vue fixing, you guessed it, blocky renders when using global illumination. Long story short, my program had a bug which caused me to waste 5 days.

  I applied the patch last night and the render finished this morning. I could probably keep fiddling with this image for the rest of my life, but I think it’s time to move on to other projects. Thanks for your patience!

• If you haven’t been to the gallery for the past week or so (and you own an iPhone or similar device) please check out the posts directly below. Also, I’d like to mention that I’ve placed a permanent link for adding “Member Testimonials” (it had fallen down the page and out of view recently). Thanks!

Posted on July 20, 2007

• I’ve added a zip file containing all of my iPhone wallpapers to the downloads page.

Posted on July 19, 2007

• I had hoped to be posting a new wallpaper this morning, but I just wasn’t happy with the latest render. Since adding the ratings and comments I guess I have wanted to hold onto my work until it is as close to as perfect as possible. I hope you guys will continue to be patient as I am trying to learn some new software/techniques that I think will pay off big time in the future. I will keep working on the new wallpaper today and hope to have a render done by tomorrow or Saturday.

• While I was waiting for this latest (failed) render to complete, I set about converting my wallpapers for use on the trendy new iPhone (I’ve gotten a great many emails about this) I’ve added iPhone versions of the 2007, 2006 and 2005 wallpapers (look for the “iPhone” link in the resolution choices). The links say “iPhone” in the galleries, but they should work on any device with a 320 x 480 screen. I’ll post zip files as soon as they are all up (I haven’t decided how far back in my collection I will go).

  You may have already made your own conversions, but I would ask that you have a look at these. I tried to do an interesting crop on each and they are all sourced from lossless originals.

  I don’t have an iPhone to test them on (and won’t until it supports 64-bit Windows) so if you have any comments on the iPhone versions please feel free to send them directly to me.

Posted on July 17, 2007

• This new wallpaper is taking me a little longer than I had anticipated. After about a weeks worth of work I basically scrapped most of it and started over yesterday. I’m happy with what I have now though and when the render is complete (either sometime tonight or early tomorrow) I hope to have it up for you.

Posted on July 14, 2007

• A quick update today. I’ve been trying to learn a new piece of software (called Zbrush) and the process has been slow going. It’s quite different from the 3D apps that I amused to.

  I do have a project in the works though and it is in the middle of a pretty long render. I estimate another 24-36 hours before it’s finished.

• I’ve mirrored your comments on the free site so everyone can now read them. The comments on the free site are refreshed hourly. Only members can post though.
• Lastly, I’d like to mention that the galleries should be a little bit easier to navigate now. I’ve increased the number of images on each page so there should be a lot less clicking through the categories.