Posted on May 17, 2000

• A few new items today…

  I spent yesterday trying to figure out Hypervoxels 3.0, and how it’s different than 2.0. I did a few renders of an abstract nature and I’ve posted them for your review. I chose one to display on the new images page and put the rest in the Picklejar, along with an animated version of the scene. The animation is MPG encoded, and it should run on just about every OS. Let me know if you have problems though (try saving the file to your hard disk rather than “streaming” it).

• I’ve added an animated version of “Morning Light“. Once again, this is in MPG format.
• I’ve added a slightly different version of “Neptune’s Garden” in the Pickejar.
• I’ve added an updated version of “Escort” to the Picklejar.
• I’ve added 1600 x 1200 versions of “Planetfall” and “Sleepwalker“.
• I’ve added a second view of “Pyre” to the Picklejar.

Posted on May 12, 2000

• I’ve made some cosmetic changes to “Morning Light“. Nothing too radical, but I did think that the camera angle was a little off in the first version, and that the grass was a little too sparse up close.

Posted on May 11, 2000

• I’m a happy camper this morning. Newtek has released a patch for Lightwave 6 and it looks great.
• Added “Morning Light” (tentative title). You can think of this one as an update to “Palisade”, except that the title didn’t fit. If you can’t tell, I am completely hooked on WB’s volumetric light. I do plan on fixing a few things with this image (the camera angle, the grass).

Posted on May 9, 2000

• I’ve posted a new version of the tornado wallpaper, “Whirlwind“, in the Day Scenery Gallery. The animated version will follow shortly. Thanks to everyone who sent in feedback about the first draft. There may be one or two tweaks left for this image, so if you have any comments please send them over.

• I would have posted Whirlwind a few days ago, but I was distracted when Dynamic-Realities released a Lightwave 6 patch for NatureFX. Finally I can use Skytracer (Lightwave’s “sky editor”) and have the sky realistically reflect off of a NatureFX ocean.

  I’ve posted a set of three test renders in the Picklejar for your review.

Posted on May 3, 2000

• Thanks to everyone who wrote with comments on “Pyre”. Most of you seemed to like it, and those that didn’t seemed to simply want a blue version. Ok, if you want a blue version, you’ll find it in the Pickle Jar.

• My project this week has been to learn World Builder’s “Z-Buffer Composer”. It basically allows you to render a scene in WB and then use Lightwave (or MAX or Maya) to add in additional elements.

  What makes this different from “Photoshopping” the image is that the Z-buffer data allows you to render objects correctly in 3D space (hidden by near objects and in front of ones far away). The process is two-way, meaning you can render a scene in Lightwave and export the render with extra Z (depth) data to World Builder.

  I chose a simple scene for my first attempt, a tornado. You can check out a hi-res render and an accompanying animation in the Picklejar. I’ve only spent a couple of days on this, but I think it looks interesting enough to share if only for the wind blowing through the trees 🙂 The texturing on the clouds needs some serious work, I know.

  Comments welcome.