Posted on August 26, 2009
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My render finished this afternoon (it took around 52 hours if you are counting), but a doctor’s appointment, Ian’s Tae Kwan Do, and putting the kids to bed had to come first. I’ve called this one “Afterglow”, though it doesn’t really bear much resemblance to the original.
As long as I have been using landscape programs, I have never been able to work with a real (round) planet. I’ve always built my scenes on infinite plains. This only really comes into play if you move the camera really high or move the sun below the horizon. It is basically impossible for the sun to cast light on clouds if it is below the horizon of an infinite plane. Being able to render my scene on a giant sphere makes possible (without cheats) scenes like “Afterglow” where the clouds are lit by a sun that has set. The only light in the scene comes from the clouds and the sky (so it may seem a little dark to some of you).
It is a scene that I have always wanted to do (this probably won’t be the last you see either) and I’m glad it is now possible. Unfortunately, Vue d’Esprit crashed every for minutes while making this. The planetary render mode was designed to render these spheres from high altitude (think pictures of planets rather than the surface of them) so perhaps that it why it got unstable.
Anyway, sorry for the long explanation. I hope it was worth the wait!
- If you didn’t catch my Twitter/Facebook updates the past couple of days, I was in San Antonio yesterday with Jessie. The nice folks at Rackspace flew us down to tour their offices and meet the crew. I don’t take many business trips so this was a special treat for me, even though I had to give a little speech (shudder). Anyway, they were wonderful to us and I left with the feeling that my site was in good hands. We even got to see the Alamo(and will never forget it).
- Just a quick note that some new pricing will be rolled out in the next few weeks. I’m not going to say much else beyond the fact that if you like the current price I offer for Lifetime Memberships I would recommend you not wait too much longer.
