Description
I’ve done a few versions of this scene over the years. The first was done in Bryce in the 90s. The “forest” was faked using a spiky
terrain.
I rendered a second version using World Builder in ’03.
The forest looked much better.
I used Vue d’Esprit for this version. Technology marches on!
The Ride - Christmas 2009: theride2k92
The Ride - Christmas 2009: theride2k9nosanta
Mike [liferplus]
The file named “theride2k9nosanta1080p.jpg” is actually 1280×1024 and appears to be identical to the file named “theride2k9nosanta1280.jpg.”
Kelton
Any chance we could see this in 3360X1050?
Harold
I love this picture as a full moon, the color is perfectly caught between regal and eerie.
Susu
Absolutely stunning. I’ve set it as my desktop background and it brings me such a sense of comfort and peace when I look at it. Amazing.
Thank you!
Miguell026
my screen is only 2560×1600… i LOVE Ryan’s triple screens!
shame there is no monitor with 3 times the size of my 30″ apple! =P
Ed H
How beautiful…one of your best! Thx!
Multan
Love it!
Logical
Ryan, is there any chance you could add a dual monitor widescreen split files option for your most recent wallpapers? I just got a second monitor and the resolutions I can run don’t fit with any of your dualscreen downloads, nor do I possess decent software to resize or edit pictures. The split files option is a good idea, and I would appreciate it in widescreen. Thanks!
Tyson
Diggin it! Looks fresh out of a Pixar movie!
Justin
The detail put into the cloud work and lighting just MAKES this holiday picture!
Rw
I have no idea what you mean by the barrel, but as far as I am concerned…. you are just getting better as each year goes by! This is by FAR the best Christmas Rendering that I have seen you do!
Happy Holidays to you & yours
Russ “byteful” Walker
and Family
Travis
Hi Ryan,
I am on the same page as Coleman. I sent you an e-mail over a week ago about this issue…
More specifically, the drop down box does not allow one to open the image in a new tab / window, either.
Overall, the new site looks great and the new images are fantastic, as always! Thanks for making the efforts to improve the site and keep making art, even during this hectic time of the year! Happy Holidays!
Coleman
I have one small problem with the new layout of the site. The drop down boxes for the image sizes suck. You can’t right click and use “Save Link As” anymore. Kinda blows having to load the image before saving it.
Don’t get me wrong. I love your work and like the new layout. Hope you have a merry Christmas and a happy new year.
Thangobrin
Thanks Ryan,
This is everything I was hoping for. A great Christmas present for all your fans.
Ragnarök
Ryan,
I’m really at a loss for words on this one. This image is just that good. The Santa silhouette is perfect. What catches me is the realism here. If I pulled off the side of the road in this winter wonderland, and gazed upward, the mystical view I found would look just like this. Incredible job my friend. BTW – this will hopefully atone for the criticism surrounding your previous work…
matt
first, i just want to say that this is a gorgeous wallpaper. thank you, ryan for your beautiful work. 🙂
next, we’ve heard about the difficulties vue gives with you with distortion on the really wide-angle renders. my question is, would the workload go up too high to do the wide-angle ones just like a real panorama photo (i.e. a series of photos)? i know the render times might still be intense, but would they be longer than the single, full render? just a thought i was having which made me curious enough to ask. thanks again!
Deanna
Love love love this picture.
Deanna
Love love love this picture.
TG
I love your work and rotate them often.
Does anybody out there have a clue as to how to save these as wallpaper for a Motorola Droid?
Lawrence
Ooo …. Nice pic.
GoldenWing
Great Image!!! I agree the clouds do look much better in this version. Can’t wait for the Tri-Monitor rendering. Another wonderful job. *Thumbs Up*
Jason
All I can really say is wow. Truly one of your best wallpapers. Great Job!
Jon
This is one of my favorite of your Christmas wallpapers. It’s enchanting like out of a dream. Some people have said that Santa and the reindeer look too small, but I like how their far off silhouettes make this scene feel more surreal.
One thing I noticed is that the moon does not reflect off the water. Even with the moon at a higher angle, there should be some shimmer on the lake (unless it’s frozen over).
John M.
I like this one. If I had to critique it, I wished that Santa and his reindeer were a tad bit larger. Other than that, it is perfect.
Mark S.
Now THAT’S what I’m talkin’ about;)…..BUON NATALE!!
Flag Hippo
Great wallpaper as usual.
P.S. Any chance of a Xmas personas??
Just fishn
I now see how you got to a mere 80+ billion polygons.
tbogue
You’ve captured a rare and enchanted night and somehow made a wallpaper out of it. I am very impressed.
revolut10n
You’re planning on doing one for us that have 3x monitors right, right?! 😀
Luc J
I’d love to put one on the ceiling of my bedroom. There is some sense of peace coming out of this night depiction. I’m a big fan of your artwork. I love many of your abstracts too, so don’t give up on the pressure of some people to make big vista’s only.
Wish you all the best!
rev. sK
but this christmas theme wallpaper is badass
Andy
Love it Ryan. Just beautiful!
KRingg
I’d just like to say I really appreciate that, when you choose to “remake” an image, you always do something different with it rather than simply cranking up the realism. It’s easy to take an old work and just bring it up to technological date… but I think it’s a mark of a true artist to portray a different or expanded mood with each sequel. Keep up the great work!
JAMES M
This is a beautiful wallpaper risen out of the ashes of an earlier work, only the work of talented ryan bliss.
Merry xmas to you and you family ans all the best for 2010
from “Bonnie scotland”
Niki
When you pick a size, it should bring you to that image directly. Right click and Save Image As… and save it to whatever location you want on your machine. 🙂
Andrew B
Hi, I’m trying to download your image with Mozilla Firefox, and once I have logged in, selected the size I want, there is no obvious option as the next step to take to download the image.
I would think that I am part of the very tech savvy crowd, but this has had me stumped for 10 minutes, part fo the problem could be that I’m at work on a small monitor, but I am at a loss as to the next step. Any help would be great!
Jon H
Your solution works like a charm! Anyone using Google Chrome should activate the “Autodetect” mode under encoding. All the menus are working great and now I feel like the new DB website is cool and easy to use…
Thanks
miguell026
I Without Words.. this is a master piece!!
your night scenarios are amazingly beautiful!
Im proud to be a member of DB!
Awesome Work RYAN! You’re a Master of 3D Art!
Merry X-mas To all!!
Neal
Beautiful. Simply beautiful. Just the right combination of light and shadow. Thanks!
Corbey
I’ve actually had the 2003 version on my desktop for the past couple of weeks, while I waited for your new Christmas wallpaper. This one doesn’t disappoint. Both the trees and the clouds are rendered very well. It may be a “remake” in some ways, but the holidays are about tradition, right?
All the best to you and your family in the new year!
James
…but thought I would in this case. I really think this one is perfect. It just works for me. I like that there are no lit up trees, I like that Santa is still there, but smaller, and I like that you can faintly see the red nose. Excellent wallpaper, can’t wait for the dual screen.
kellzilla
This year has seen a lot of remakes… and with your illness, there hasn’t been terribly many wallpapers to begin with. I would love to see more new things than remakes of old stuff.
I also agree with a comment far below; I would love to see some non-Christmas winter holiday images sometime. Maybe next year.
Ryan
The dual and triple screen are rendering now and I hope to have them up shortly!
Dave
Hey Ryan, what happened to 2560X1024
Nathan
Thanks for another great wallpaper. I like when you do updates, it is great seeing how far things have come with regard to your skills, as well as the software that is available 🙂
Christian
Is anybody else seeing blurry clouds, specifically to the upper-right of the moon?
Resolution: 1440×900
Jenanne
Hi Ryan, you score again! I love this render — the best of the three, IMHO. The moon, clouds, shadowy pines, reflection on the lake, and particularly the blue and silver coloration, makes this an instant favorite. Thank you for this lovely Christmas present!
BTW, I agree about “December.” It’s one of my favorite winter renders. I’d love to see an updated version, too.
Thanks again and happy holidays to you and yours!
John C
I like the others, with the sleigh more prominent, however, I think this version show just how far Santa must truly travel
in his Sleigh, by the distance shown, from the moon in the background. I wouldn’t change a thing
John C aka DigitalBlasphemy_Fan
Xyverz
Sadly, I think the main focus of this should be the sleigh… I liked the older versions with that more prominently displayed. But that’s just me.
Josh Smith
When is a this one gonna have a triscreen!!!!?
Josh
This one has always been one of my favorites of yours and I was ecstatic to see it redone. Everything looks really good, but I do agree with those that have suggested the sleigh and reindeer could be a little bigger.
Ralph
Dear Ryan,
your best theme picture for Christmas for me is blue Christmas 2002, how about a overworked picture of “Let It Snow — Christmas 1998” it is also a favorite of mine.
Happy x-mas for all of you
littlemom
What an absolutely beautiful render. It’s perfect for this time of year. Totally amazing.
Loxmyth
Good work! This is a big improvement over past years versions of this. I like this one much more.
By the way, next time you are in the mood to update old ones, I have a candidate: one of my favorites of your early ones is “December”, and I am sure that with your newer programs and the experience you have an updated one would be better. Just a thought.
Thanks for all your work, and may the holidays be good for you and your family.
Kenny J
One of my favorites made with a ‘fresh coat’. Thanks Ryan,I hope all is well and you have wonderful holiday time of year with all the ones you love.
Phillip D
It is nice to see improved version of images from the ones you made a while back. I reviewed two of the ride images from 1998 and 2003 and compared it to this one……. I cant believe the 1998 one the trees are actually spikes (or cones)….the moon/clouds on 2003 is actually perfect for the scene, (not too dark, the moon and clouds were blended and the clouds were soft which makes it beautiful and reindeer actually has a red nose) . So, out of all three, I say 2003 version is the best in terms of contrast, moon and clouds, but the 2009 is best for realism, shadows, reflections, and pine trees.
Some suggestions to improve the image here : the center of the moon has too much lighting (specular light), the reindeer and santa needs to be a little bigger and as a touch-up, add red-nose on the reindeer with a little red lighting around it. If you want perfection, imagine how pretty the image will be if you actually have realistic snowy packed pine trees instead of the ones you have here which is just white-colored leaves (I have seen some snowy pine trees for sale to be used for Vue-I think it is incredible lush in the bonus back for conifer set, not sure)
I hope you dont think I am criticizing in any way, I am only helping you getting feedbacks for improving the image.
Mp
This has actually always been one of my favourites! Thanks Ryan. Makes me think of something magical happening right under our noses. I come back to it every December.
Jerromy
I have occasional issues with Chrome as well but not IE. What fixes it for me is selecting “encoding” from the “control page” menu and making sure it is set to autodetect. When you login and try and download make sure it is choosing a Western setting and not Unicode. Don’t know how or why but this fixes the issue for me.
GW
As nice as the image is, I have to say that it doesn’t have a very Christmassy feel to it.
Ryan
I’m working on the multiscreen version right now. Unless I say otherwise you can assume there will be a multiscreen version for each project.
Davies
any plans for us dual screeners?
Mitchell
Personally I like it but I don’t honor x-mas, but the graphics are really nice.
Neo
I think Santa and the reindeer need to be bigger. looks a little tiny to notice.
Hawk
Looks good! True to it’s predecessors.
Walo
The email update notification is becoming very slow. I’ve just received the email about the new wallpaper and the wallpaper was up yesterday.
Ryan
Were this a photo that would probably be true.
Tom
I think a moon that big and bright would cast a lot more light and create shadows almost like the sun.
Ryan
I wish I could tell you what settings to use Jon. I am using Chrome right now and all the drop downs seem to be working fine. But then I am using the stripped down build of Chrome without any extensions (or plug-ins, or whatever they’re called) installed. Are you using a JavaScript/Ad blocker perhaps?
Jon H
Using IE7, when I select the resolution a want from the drop-down list, a password box pops up so that I can get to the image. But when I do this in Chrome usually nothing happens, it just sits there and does nothing after I select from the dropdown list. (Although occasionally it did work using Chrome, but usually not)
Steve
Ryan,
Seeing how it’s pretty dreary out, I’m looking forward to a new wallpaper that’s not comprised of black and blue 🙂
Keep up the great work!
Tim
Ryan,
Really like this one. I think Santa’s size is perfect, shows him far off in the distance as he makes his rounds.
The only thing I don’t like is the cue ball effect on the moon. Please make the moon look normal….it doesn’t have a shiny spot in the middle.
Roberto
Ryan,
I really love this image! The moon under those stormy clouds is simply perfect.
Shane
I have to agree with jbhodges7 on doing a non-christmas wallapaper if you get the chance. I’m pretty sure people would be a little miffed if there wasn’t at least one christmas wallpaper but i’d love to see what you do with a non-traditional holiday wallpaper. I think I remember seeing a yule log some years ago?
jbhodges7
How about something from Yule, Saturnalia, or Solstice? Draw from the holiday’s true pagan roots.
Justin
any idea when the dual screen renders will be up?
Lidia
Well, this one certainly looks more elaborate than the previous versions, and yet I like the previous versions much better. This one’s just too dark. I think the first one (1998) was the best in terms of how dark it is. I also think the moon is way too big and bright and Santa’s too small.
Benson
I loved The Ride when you made the first one, and this is an incredible addition. Thanks for your amazing work.
Skip
A bigger Santa and Sleigh with Reindeer would be wonderful. As always I love your work.
celmendo
I love it. Beautiful. Don’t change a thing.
Tony
Looks like you have a dark theme going on is everything OK? I do love your work but seeing too much gloom lately. Maybe splash of color for the next one?
Brandi
I think this is beautiful and a great remake. I like how Santa is passing overheard; blink and you’ll miss him. There’s a realism to how small he looks that I like. No wonder we don’t believe in him anymore-he is hard to spot on Christmas Eve!
Eric
Doesn’t feel very christmas(y) I agree with others having a lit up little town covered in snow with maybe a train or something and santa over head would be cool. It looks super real but needs color, string lights n’ junk! There’s still time to save Christmas!
Chris B
I like everything about it. except… in the 1080p version, the task bar cuts off almost all of the near shore which is amazing & helps frame the image giving it more depth. It’s not that big of a deal, just the nit-pickey photographer in me 😉
Can I put my vote in for an ’10 remake of Winterborn 2001? It’s been one of my favorites, just doesn’t stretch well enough into 1080.
http://www.digitalblasphemy.com/preview.shtml?i=winterborn
Randy
Forest scene, check.
Full Moon, check. (Actually only nine days in the moon phase – just past half moon.)
Santa and reindeer, check.
John
Love the exquisite details on the trees/moon, but where the water meets the shore looks very off and not pleasing to they eye. Also, the feel echoes “Harbinger” almost exactly it seems to me
rw1171
Ok, being honest here. Normally love your work, but don’t care for this one at all. I was ready for a new wallpaper for christmas, not a remake of a previously remade wallpaper. I am ready for new wallpaper not remakes of previous years.
rw1171
Ok, being honest here. Normally love your work, but don’t care for this one at all. I was ready for a new wallpaper for christmas, not a remake of a previously remade wallpaper. I am ready for new wallpaper not remakes of previous years.
Doug W
I’ve been following your work for 10 years now. I always look forward to Christmas. You never disappoint. Merry Christmas to you and your family.
CR
The clouds that Vue 8 is capable of look more realistic than the ones outside.
CR
The clouds that Vue 8 is capable of look more realistic than the ones outside.
CR
The clouds that Vue 8 is capable of look more realistic than the ones outside.
Toetenel
a more than worthy update fot the famous ‘Ride’
Vue 8 is beautiful
Sunlizard
I do like the visibility of Rudolph’s nose in the original. I realize that would mean making Santa and the sleigh a bit bigger. I wouldn’t make it much bigger. Love the foreground and clouds.
Ryan
I would have preferred to keep the voting system the way it was but the current system is a compromise born of merging the two sites. I might play around with cookies to solve some of these issues
Mark
Great picture there! Anyway, I agree with another comment here before, any chance of a summer version for us New Zealand and other summer Christmas countries?
Looks awesome!
Eyal
Hi Ryan,
I liked it better when the Rating was only visible AFTER voting.
Is it a “bug” or a “feature” that the rating is visible as soon as I look at an image?
BTW – the ride is wonderful (as always…)!
Helen
Utterly gorgeous!
Fandeboris
Santa should have been a bit larger. The rest looks great as usual
Tina
It really does look great. Santa is fine to me, he’s way up there so he’s not going to be very big.
Harry
I know the economy is bad but poor santa having to downsize that much.
I think santa could be made more proinent as it is a christmas/festive wallpaper, at the moment it is lacking in the festive spirit, compared to some of your othere.
Beautiful clouds and trees though, a brilliant scene
JD
Love the Xmas pictures. They make great wallpapers for this time of year. I think I still like the 2003 version better because of Rudolph’s nose it visible. I share that version with friends every year.
Ryan
I don’t have cookies set up right now so the site only knows you are a Member when you try to do “Member Stuff” like download hi-res files, rate images or leave comments. As I’ve said, this is a transitional site and the new one will have cookies which will hide the “non-member” links once you’ve logged in.
Dana
Loved it!
Todd
The shine from the center of the moon is a little much.
Walo
I was thinking I would have liked to see a new version of “The Ride” and here it is! “lol”. The only difference is that I was imagining a town scene with a few chimneys, but nevermind my idle thoughts.
I like this image a lot, the scenery and lighting are stunning. I disagree about the sleight being out of place, it looks natural to me. But there’s one thing that doesn’t fit, and that is Rudolph’s nose, I can’t see it at all, it should definitively be brighter.
Scott S
Ryan,
I love the image – Rudolph’s nose is hard to see (more a suggestion of a red nose rather than an actual one), but that’s not a quibble 🙂
the quibble is, I can’t seem to rate images anymore in Safari. I can if I use Firefox, but no joy in Safari… Just thought you might like to know.. (and I did disable the pop-up blocker in Safari as well)
Thanks!
T7
This is a very nice piece. Dual-screen for this would be even nicer.
As usual some things with it does not correspond with reality, such as the flying Santa. 🙂
The light reflected of the moon should have a much more “even” spread, and you can’t have visible stars that close to the moon due to atmospheric refraction. Also the moon is much too large…. nag,nag,nag
All of that is irrelevant due to the simple fact of artistic freedom. Rudolph’s nose is noticeable in the 1280 res. It’s still one of the best x-mas renders I’ve seen.
Josh
Pic your time of day and season! Maybe it’s day time in winter and people are iceskating on the frozen lake. Maybe it’s summer and just gorgeous. Maybe it’s Halloween. I really like this one and would love to see some variations.
Angie
I love this one but I can’t see rudolphs red nose on the 1600×1200 version… and I agree with previous posters that Santa could be a tad bigger and that it needs more “winter”. Perhaps more snow or something? Other than that I absolutely love it. So beautiful!
Robert
Love the picture. I like the subtlety of having a small Santa, but I suspect that as you increase screen size you’ll need to shrink Santa again to keep that.
Minor thing about the site. I’m logged in and a member, but it has no easy indication that I’m logged in, or who I am logged in as. It might be nice if the “login” and “signup” links were replaced with a “welcome back”. Or even a “logout” button.
Timmo
What an intense image, I can’t help but get drawn into it.
I get this feeling that theres something stirring in the woods underneath that strong moonlight…er and then Santa brings me back.
It totally works for me.
Merry Christmas Ryan to you and your family.
Thanks for some wonderful artwork this year.
Cant wait for 2010.
Mark J.
…I think Santa and his team need to be bigger/nearer.
Ingo
I love the piece but something does seem strange to me. Mostly, it just doesn’t feel much like a winter scene to me. It doesn’t feel very “cold.” I loved the moon ring in the precious version. On the other hand, the quality of this piece is fantastic, among the best I’ve seen.
Ryan
The red nose is still there but it is a lot more subtle in this version. Perhaps it is only visible on the 2560 x 1600 version…
Jan
Thanks great remake once again! This image is really stunning!
Merry Xmas to you and your family! Best wishes for 2010!
Ryan
I wanted to update to seem “larger” than the bigger scale called for a smaller sleigh. The only way to have it be larger would be to move it closer to the camera. That would require Santa to be doing some major maneuvering to get over the hills in this valley…
Simon
i like the realism of this new version, but i think it’s a shame that the sleigh is *so* small – and, more importantly, Rudolph’s nose has gone altogether! i thought that was a nice touch in the previous versions.
Jamie Wenn
Dude,
I have never felt the need in the past to comment on one of your pics. While some I think are AWESOME, others are average at best, and still others I have to ask myself “what was this guy thinking”.
But hey..ya know…you can’t please all of the people all of the time an all of that.
But while this is a REALLY nice “winter” scene…the sleigh…or lack there of. Well…it REALLY leaves a lot to be desired.
Guedd ya can’t hit a home run all the time
Kevin
I too agree with Paul. It’s a beautiful night scene, and I’d download it purely as that, but the Santa does feel forced and out of place. I would like to suggest if you were to make another “Ride” wallpaper that having it look over out over roof tops, whether modern homes or older style villages, would provide more of a Christmas context than just having a shadow against the moon.
Brian
I liked the bigger Santa in the past versions.
Chad
I would have to agree with Paul on this one. The sleigh in front of the moon throws the whole image for me. Not only that, but it’s a refresh of an earlier piece that I already have… I won’t take the time to download yet another copy of a copy 🙁
Paul
The wall paper itself is a great Night/Winter scene. the clouds and the moon are some of the best you have done.
But the Amblin Entertainment/Sleigh across the moon instead of comming across as subtle, looks last minute and forced. Like ” I have a really kick ass wall paper here, how do I make it Christmas?…oh yeah I will paste a tiny sleigh in there.”
JeffK
I really like this but I have to ask, is that I bird I see in the tree on the right edge of the 1280×1024 version? Maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me.
Ryan
Thanks for the comments guys. I’ve done a fair number of lit trees in the past few years and wanted to do something a little different (as different as a third revision can be anyway).
suab
I don’t want to argue w/ anyone (everybody has his/her favorite kind of wallpaper), but personally, I am glad that there are no lit up trees this year. I think we had enough of those in the last few years (2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 – all lit up trees of some kind).
Don’t get me wrong – I love these “lit-up” wallpapers (and maybe would like to see another one of these next year), but for now I am happy about this change.
Ray
Would be interested in seeing what image would look like with the trees lit up like in Yuletide or Snowy Creek Christmas
Joshua
I always love your night time wallpapers with the moon lighting up the landscape, but I was hoping to see something a little closer to your old Christmas wallpapers (Lit up trees, ornaments, snowflakes etc) instead of another Ride variation. Still a great wallpaper though, thanks! 🙂
suab
One of the best. I especially like – compared to previous versions of the ride – that now the santa’s carriage is not so evident at first glance = it looks much more “magical” imho.
Thank you Ryan and happy xmas to you and your family.
Brian
I really like this rendition of your previous work!
Greg
I like it, but I was hoping for something a little more, well, ‘Christmas-y’… How about a variant with a few of the trees lit up like Song of the Sky Christmas 2008?
Chris
LOVE it, Ryan! I love how the moon is so realisitc. The “ET” effect with Santa riding across the moon’s glow is perfectly subtle.
Another DB masterpiece!
Ryan
Could have sworn I had the ratings popping up like they should. Need to test that some more I guess. For now I’ve added a submit button which should do the trick.
scott wray
how come im logged in and its asking me to sign up? like to toss this background up on my desktop dual wide screen!
Curtis
Ryan beautiful Re-make of ‘The Ride’ Vue 8 is amazing.
But where is the Sony PSP wallpaper? I have a Samsung P3 and it has the same screen resolution. Did you stop doing those?
Kaz
Is there no way to rate without a comment?
Still having problems with the site treating me like a paying member. I cannot access the larger versions. I’ll try it from home tonight. I suspect the firewall here might be blocking script.
Well – the preview version looks nice, at any rate =) Happy Holidays, all!
Thangobrin
Ryan this is awesome, i was hoping to see “The Ride” redone – I’ve always loved it but it was beginning to loot dated. Now super fresh.
Now please when you do the dual screen version don’t cover one screen up in trees, but leave us with an open cloudy sky.
Thanks
Ian
Hey Ryan, this is a beautiful picture, but I was hoping for some new subject matter. The Ride has always been a favorite of mine, but next year go for something new! There’s gotta be something out there in the world of Christmas that you haven’t covered yet! Thanks though!
Matthew
I miss the 22 degree ice halo from the first two iterations.
Michelle
Love the new background. I’ve been following you since 2000 probably and finally signed up because I always love your Christmas/Holiday backgrounds. Keep up the amazing work.
The Metal
Is there a version of this wallpaper in 5760×1200 without the slay on the moon, but everything else exactly the same? (It has a nice dark winter touch to it with the dim lighting.)