Posted on June 2, 2011

I added “Dødenfell” to the gallery this afternoon. I’m proud to say it is my first project designed and rendered entirely on my new workstation (Bucephalus). A huge thanks to all the Members and people who pitched in (over $3000!) so I could work with such an insane tower of technology!

After the Chaiten volcano in Patagonia erupted a lot of people sent me pictures of lightning in the ash cloud and asked if I could do something similar. I received more photos last year after the Eyjafjallajökull eruption. At long last the new version of “Vue d’Esprit” (9.5) adds the ability to limit clouds to a certain area, freeing me to make all sorts of “cloud sculptures”.

This one started as a thunderstorm but as I was working on it I was reminded of the volcano and decided to go in that direction. I would say that I am happy with the top 3/4 of the piece but the bottom could still use something. I thought it looked nice enough to post as is however.

My son Ian drew me a picture of this scene and suggested that I call it “Death Mountain”. I suppose that works too. His version did give me an idea about something I may add to a future render however.

Posted on May 28, 2011

It’s been a hectic couple of days for me, setting up my new workstation, which I have named “Bucephalus“, and sifting through 5 years of digital detritus to separate the wheat from the chaff. I am now finally to the point where I can do some real work done.

This new machine is a real beast and should last me for another 5 years (fingers crossed). The final specs are: 2 Xeon X5690 Hexacore 3.46 GHz Procs, 48 GB of RAM, EVGA GTX590, and some zippy fast SSDs. There’s also 7 fans keeping everything cool so I may have to look into water cooling because it sounds like a jet at times.

First up is posting the next revision of “Riverbend” that I have had rendering on my (old) alternate box for the past week or so. I’ve tweaked the shoreline a bit, smoothed out the water, and changed a few colors here and there. I was still rendering it on my old machine so I haven’t bumped up the atmosphere quality yet. Perhaps when I do a final render on Bucephalus.

Posted on May 25, 2011

I’ve added “Gotham Garden (Spring)” to the free gallery this morning. You can see the Autumn and Summer versions (available to my subscribers) here.

My revised “Riverbend” and “Interopposite” renders are nearly ready so I hope you will stop back soon! I’ve added a new version of “Interopposite” to the Pickle Jar so you can get a sense of where it’s headed.

Posted on May 22, 2011

I’ve added a new abstract, “Interopposite“, to the Members gallery this morning. This one is a study of “interconnected opposition” (or yin yang), a theme I have been pondering quite a bit lately. It is another project that started out on my MacBook Pro while waiting for a render(“Riverbend“) to complete on my main box.

It will be nice when my new workstation is finally assembled (waiting on a few pieces) and I will have four capable renderers available to me. I’m looking forward to posting the multiscreen renders much more quickly. I will also finally be able to render mural sized images (I already have a printing company lined up). The downside is I might have to install a windmill and/or solar array to keep my power bills from going throught he roof…

Check back in the next couple of days for my “Riverbend” render. It is nearly ready but will probably a small nip tuck before I post it. The foggy atmosphere in this one takes a wicked long time to render!

Posted on May 17, 2011

The fact that my next revision of “Riverbend” has taken so long to render is one of the reasons I decided to bite the bullet and purchase my new workstation this morning. Here’s a screenshot of my final order but the main specs are thus: Dual six-core Xeon 3.46 GHz, 48 GB Ram, 240 GB SSD (Intel 510), and a single GTX 590 (for now). Believe it or not I saved nearly $6k building from scratch!

Thanks to everyone who helped out by signing up or renewing over the past few months. As always, I couldn’t do any of this without your support. Hopefully this machine will keep me rendering for the next five or six years!