Borealis

Posted on January 18, 2024

Continuing my theme of reimagining “classic” projects to start 2024.   I first dreamed up the ice world of “Borealis” in 1998 using Bryce and did another version in 2006.   This render is more a rework of the original version.   I wanted to use Gaea to add snowfall to the scene and subsurface scattering to add some light penetrating the ice structures.    My traveler also makes an appearance surveying the scene.   

I hope you enjoy it regardless of the temperature where you live.

IMPORTANT SUBSCRIBER NEWS!

Posted on January 17, 2024

I was recently forced to switch to a new payment provider and it looks like none of the saved credit card payment info on DB 2.0 will work with the new system. This applies only to the people who signed up using their credit card (but not through PayPal, Stripe, Square, or Amazon).

If you signed up for an auto-renewing Membership using your credit card your subscription has now been reset to manual renewal and you will need to re-enter your payment info here and then set your subscription to use this new payment to avoid a disruption. You can also re-enter it after your subscription “expires”.

To make matters worse, if your credit card subscription was handled by my old DB 1.0 system it will cease to auto-renew after March 31, 2024. All yearly/monthly Memberships still being processed by my old system will be set to auto-expire on their renewal dates. To move your subscription to my new system simply sign up for a new Membership here.

I am quite upset about this disruption to my business and hope you will all understand and continue your support.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions!

Glenwood

Posted on January 8, 2024

Here’s an update to an old favorite from 2000.   The original was created and rendered using a program called “World Builder”, which is now defunct. It’s been 24 years (!) and I wanted to see if I could improve the quality of the plant life and recreate the volumetric lighting using VUE.    The hardest part was matching the godrays from the original.  VUE’s engine just works differently.   

I think I came pretty close however and I hope you enjoy it! 

High Country (Winter/Night)

Posted on January 2, 2024

Happy New Year!!    Hard to believe that 2024 will mark my 25th year since I decided to quit my day-job and make DB my fulltime passion. It’s my 27th year since I first posted my renders online! Huge thanks to everyone who has subscribed or otherwise supported me and my family throughout the years. I could not have done this without you!!

As promised, here’s the night version of “High Country (Winter)“.    As always with a night scene, the challenge is to darken the scene without it being too dark.   After quite a bit of experimentation I think I’ve settled on the right mix of moonlight and shadow here.   I’m still working on a spring version but finding it difficult to populate the scene with enough plants for some reason.   Will continue the fight though 🙂

High Country (Winter)

Posted on December 28, 2023

For my last project of 2023 I wanted to try something a little different with my landscape rendering.   Whereas I usually set my “camera” focal length to capture a wide angle here I wanted to set it to a narrow field of view.   I feel it yields an interesting effect with reduced depth-of-field.   At the very least it insures that my trees don’t exhibit barrel distortion when I render the scene for multiple monitors.

I do have a night version of this scene in the works and might attempt to revisit it in the springtime.

I hope you have enjoyed my work this year!! If you feel like I’ve done an especially good job in 2023 please feel free to leave me a year-end bonus in my tipjar 🙏🏽