Mother Night

Posted on January 30, 2022

You might recall that I used Houdini’s volumes to create the ice/rock formations in “Subglacial” and “Subterrane” which I then rendered in VUE. For this render I wanted to see if I could use those same volumes to create a nebula to use in the sky of a night scene. Again I used VUE to render the nebula but I think I’m about ready to start experimenting with Houdini’s renderer.

I hope you enjoy it and leave a comment to let me know your thoughts.

I also want to remind my Members who haven’t yet migrated their DB 1.0 accounts to DB 2.0 that you can log in and do so here. FYI! The iOS and Android apps still use the old DB 1.0 logins. I will post here when the apps have been updated to use the new logins. On the plus side, DB 2.0 looks a LOT better on mobile…

DB 2.0

Posted on January 18, 2022

Cris and I have been hard at work getting DB 2.0 ready and I think it’s time to let folks use the new site. If you are a Member and you haven’t yet migrated your account data over to the DB 2.0 please log in to the old account page here and click the link to do so.

I plan on keeping DB 1.0 running for a little while longer but I’m not going to add any more Members here. The mobile apps will keep functioning as well as Display Fusion and MMW Integration for the time being but those will require your old DB login. The one you create when you migrate will only be usable on DB 2.0!.

It is a sad fact that, eventually, all Members (other than the Lifetime ones) will need to set up a new subscription on the new site. The merchant account I’ve been using for this old site was created in 1999 and the data cannot be exported to modern systems.

When your payment is set up on the new site I will delete whatever you have set up here. The new site has more payment options and is much nicer to use so I expect everyone will find it easy to figure out. If your payment isn’t due for a while you don’t need to do anything right now.

Benefits of the new site??

• Modern login system (works with password managers)
• Modern mobile site
• More ultrawide resolutions
• Lossless master multiscreens (Plus Members and Above)
• Free mobile wallpapers for all (registration required)

If are aren’t a DB Member please feel free to look around and I hope you will consider supporting my work by becoming a DB Member!

Subglacial

Posted on January 15, 2022

When I originally created the geometry for "Subterrane" in Houdini I was unsure whether I wanted to create my cave out of rock or out of ice. I knew both would look interesting but I chose rock because it would render faster.

I was still curious though about how the ice would look so I tried it. The scene rendered in 19 hours vs 30 minutes but I think it looks pretty cool 😜

Subterrane

Posted on January 10, 2022

I took quite a few days off while the family was home during winter break. Mainly I wanted to spend as much time as possible with Ian who is now entering his last semester of high school. Now that everyone is back in school, however, I am back to learning how to use Houdini.

This time I am using it to create rock formations for use in my VUE scenes. Eventually I will just render something like this in Houdini but I like to mix learning with practice. This particular scene is sort of an experiment and I might create a few similar in the near future. I hope you enjoy it!

Solstice

Posted on December 20, 2021

Once a month I get up before dawn and drive Jason to school to meet with his classmates. One recent foggy, frosty morning the sunrise was peeking through the trees in our neighborhood and the contrast of the deep red and the cold morning really struck a chord with me. I knew I wanted to recreate it in VUE.

Now that the family is home for Winter Break I plan on spending as much time with them (especially Ian) as possible. By this time next year Ian will be away at college and my life will be very different.

I hope you have enjoyed my work in 2021 and that you all have a safe and happy holiday!