Posted on December 10, 2003

• LATE UPDATE: I’ve posted a new render of “The Ride” on the new images pages. I’ve made a couple of changes to the sky to try and get rid of the color banding for the earlier version and I’ve calmed the water in the lake a little so you can see more reflections. I’ve also made the sleigh and reindeer a little larger (but not much). An updated “riderless” version is also available in the Pickle Jar.

• One of my favorite Christmas renders has always been “The Ride” from 1998. I love the idea, but the execution left something to be desired. For example, the “forest” was made up of bare spikes (that was all Bryce could do) and Santa’s sleigh was a low-res alpha map. I’ve always thought that I could do better, and this year I decided it was time to try.

  The new render is now up on the new images page. The image was produced using World Builder (which does really nice forests). I kept the sky from the original Bryce render, because I liked the ice ring, and I tried to keep the general composition the same. There’s also a version without Santa’s sleigh for those of you who prefer it that way.

  I still have a few issues that I want to work out, but I think it looks nice enough to share. What do you think?

• I’ve also added two widescreen Christmas renders. “Blue Christmas (2002)” and “Spirit of the Season” are available in 1920 x 1200 in the Widescreen gallery.

Posted on December 3, 2003

• Just in time for Christmas, my CDROM has been updated to version 5. It is current up to today including my latest render, “Gaea”. New in this edition are the 1280 x 1024 renders, the 2560 x 1024 dual-screen files, and the split dual-screen files. I’ve added all this stuff, but the price remains the same ($14.95 for a copy with a jewel case and full-color insert, $10.95 for a copy with a plain paper sleeve). Makes a great stocking stuffer. Enjoy!

Posted on December 2, 2003

• Sorry I’ve been out of touch for so long. Jessie and I decided to take Ian back to Illinois last week to spend Thanksgiving with my relatives. We left last Wednesday and arrived back in warm southern Cal early this morning. I was away from my email the whole time so today was spent catching up on that.

  Ian had a wonderful time meeting his great-grand-parents and various Aunts and Uncles. He was a great kid the whole time. We were afraid that being passed around so much would make him fussy, but he took it all in stride. He didn’t even cry on the airplane. Jessie and I are two very proud (and relieved) parents.

  So now I’m going to take a day or two and decompress before getting back to work. Be on the lookout for a new Christmas wallpaper. Ho ho ho…

Posted on November 23, 2003

• Added “Gaea” to the gallery this evening. Nothing too fancy, but I think it makes for a tranquil desktop. Hope you like it. I’ve also posted a widescreen version of “Cosmic Shoals”.

Posted on November 17, 2003

• Added “Cosmic Shoals” to the gallery this evening. I held onto this one for a few extra days, adding and removing different elements. In the end, everything I added looked extraneous and unecessary to me (complexity for complexity’s sake) so I am going with the simple look. This is essentially the same version I mentioned in my Saturday post, which Jessie told me to go ahead and post. I may try some more tweaks in the days to come, so be on the lookout for updates.