Digital Blasphemy | 3D Wallpaper
Posted on February 2, 2003
-
A week or so ago, the Friday before the Super Bowl, Jessie and I were watching the late local news when something unusual happened. The broadcast cut to a live interview with Columbia astronauts William McCool, Michael Anderson, and David Brown. McCool, who had been born in San Diego, was the focus of the interview. He spoke of his fond memories of the city (especially the Zoo), predictions for the Super Bowl, and his hope that the thousands of soldiers deploying to the Middle East would all come home safely. Very cool.
It’s a shame that most of us only seem to notice the space program when something goes wrong. Outside of Israel and India, I doubt that many of us even knew that Columbia was bound for home yesterday, or would have celebrated if she had landed safely. These brave folks fly for all of us, and each successful flight inches us away from our base origins and towards our future in the stars. When we eventually return to space I can only hope we pay as much attention to the successes as we do the failures, and honor the astronauts who live as well as the ones who perish.
- On a lighter note, I added “Alpine” to the gallery this morning. CG mountains are a dime-a-dozen on the web, but I wanted to see if there was anything I could add to the genre. I hope you like it.
- Thanks to all the folks who wrote Jessie with birthday greetings (see 1/31 post). She really enjoyed reading all of your messages. We had a great time yesterday and we’re still recovering from Buca di Beppo.
Posted on January 31, 2003
-
I just wanted to let you all know that I started working on a new wallpaper a few days ago. I’m putting the finishing touches on it right now and I hope to have it up before Monday. I won’t be working on it tomorrow however, as I will be spending the day with Jessie celebrating her birthday. We are going to have a picnic on the beach, go shopping for maternity clothes and then end up at Buca di Beppo for a big Italian dinner.
I know Jessie loves hearing from you guys, so if anyone wants to send a “Happy Birthday Email” you can send it to this address. Thanks!
Posted on January 27, 2003
-
I’ve posted a dual-screen version of “Sangre” in the 2X gallery. I had meant to have this one ready over the weekend, but I ran into some technical difficulties regarding Lightwave’s native Depth-of-Field rendering. It just looked bad at the higher resolution and nothing I tried helped.
Finally, I broke down and purchased Evasion3D’s Xdof plugin on Saturday. I had to wait until today for the licensing to go through so I could actually use it. I’m amazed. The blurring is smooth as silk and the render times are only a fraction of what they were before. I’ve posted a “cleaned-up” version of the single-screen render as well, though the improvement is not as dramatic. I’ve set up a side-by-side comparison so you can see the improvements for yourself.
I’m going to be taking a few days to do some research and take care of a few other things that I’ve been meaning to do. I’ll post here when I’ve started working on a new wallpaper.
- Just so you all know: Yes, the folks at Sapphire purchased a legitimate license to use my work on their Radeon boxes. They are not ripping me off. I appreciate everyone’s concern however, and I hope you will continue to contact me if you see my work “out there”.
Posted on January 23, 2003
- Added “Sangre” to the gallery this evening. I’ve always been fascinated with the small places inside our bodies (probably from too many viewings of “Fantastic Voyage” and “Innerspace“) and this image continues my exploration of that theme. It may or may not be appropriate desktop material and I apologize if it doesn’t work for you.