Posted on August 4, 2000
Where do I start? After the (understandably) less than stellar reception to “Tablaeu” I really wanted to post something cool for a followup. I worked on few different projects but none of them really blew me away as being something that I would want to post as a “standalone”. I would work through the night on a project and then render it during the day with the hopes of posting it that night. When the time came to post the image though, I would find a reason to work on it some more.
I’ve just finished posting 14 images. Some of them are new, some are pickles. Here’s the list:
I’ve also posted…
So that’s about it for now and I think I’m going to take a break from art for a few days to rest my brain. If you have any comments on any of these images, don’t hesitate to send them over.
Posted on July 24, 2000
As mentioned yesterday, my new render is up and available. Unfortunately it did not turn out quite as I had planned. I noticed some things looking at the 1600 x 1200 render that I didn’t like so I’ve been doing some revisions already. The second version is rendering right now, but I think this first draft is decent enough to share. The tentative title is “Tableau” and you can check it out on the New Images page.
Thematically, image was inspired by a photo I saw in a book called “Spectacular China“. Technically, this image was inspired by some of the comments I received about “Relics” in which some of you suggested that the guns would look more realistic if they had some plants growing out of them. This image was about trying to grow a plants on an imported mesh (like a chia pet). World Builder 3 plans to have this feature, but I had to work out a hack using the current software. As you can see, I figured it out (the tall rocks in this image were modeled in Lightwave).
The next version of this image should be up either late tonight or early tomorrow. Hopefully some of the rough edges will be smoothed over by then.
Posted on July 23, 2000
Sorry for being out of touch recently. First of all I want to thank everyone for the wonderful comments you sent me regarding “Song of the Sky“. I spent a few days last week tinkering with it before coming to the conclusion that it should stand as is. So many of you seemed to like it that I didn’t have the heart to make any changes. Of course, I may feel different down the road…
I spent the latter part of the week practicing my modeling skills with Lightwave, trying to learn a bit of software called Macroform. Most of my spare time is spent learning how to create my own meshes.
Yesterday I started working on a new landscape image, and it is rendering as I write this. The first draft should be up by tonight (Monday morning at the latest). Hope you stop back to check it out!
That’s the status report for now. Just wanted to touch base a let you know that I am alive and rendering…
Posted on July 17, 2000
Back when I was in college I took a road trip to northern Minnesota for a “hiking class”. On the way up I caught a display of the Northern Lights. I didn’t know what it was at first. The sky was glowing green and shimmering. It was one of the most incredible things I had ever seen.
I heard that over the weekend you could see the Northern Lights as far south as Denver (can anyone confirm this?). I really wanted to see the aurora, but unfortunately I live too far south.
My point? I spent all of last week tweaking “Relics”, trying lots of different stuff. None of the images really struck me as a major improvement though, so I kept at it. Last Friday I heard about the impending electronmagnetic storm and to assuage my disappointment as missing the Northern Lights I decided it would be cool if I added them to the image I was working on. The result, at long last, is entitled “Song of the Sky” and can be found on the New Images page and in the Night Scenery Gallery. The image turned out almost exactly like what I saw that night in Minnesota seven years ago. What do you think?
I’ve also posted what this image looked like last week before I decided to add the aurora. You’ll find it in the Picklejar.
Posted on July 11, 2000
Added “Relics” to the gallery. I’m still trying to learn how best to use World Builder’s “Z-Buffer Composer”, and this image is another exercise.
There’s a version without the cannons in the Picklejar if that it more to your taste. Either way, don’t hesitate to share your thoughts. Do you think the ray-traced objects “stick out”?