Nature's Wonders Sneak Peek Thread

[Ken Gilliland]

I thought I'd share my Christmas image which might unlock some render ideas that you hadn't thought of...

One of the most magical times in the Sonoran desert is when a storm dusts Saguaro Cactus with snow... it's one of those weird combination you don't think about... desert and snow... but I've seen several times on my southern Arizona trips that I like to take in February. The snow in this image is courtesy of Snarlygribbly’s Snow Machine v2 (a free python script for Poser).

...and yes, for those wondering, it did take a half day to render even on my "fast" machine.

 

[Miss B]

Now that's a site I've never seen in all my trips to visit my family in Arizona. Then again, I've never been there that time of year, so I guess not so surprising.

 

[Mythocentric]

Seeing that image Ken is so off the wall it's almost unbelievable. It just goes to prove that whatever man can come up with through his almost boundless imagination, Mother Nature can always leave us standing. That's just gone onto my sights to see before I pop my clogs list!

 

[Ken Gilliland]

Just to show I'm not making this snow stuff up... here's some pictures from Saguaro National Park

 

[Alisa]

Just saw this in the Birds in Render thread. Wow - love this!

 

[Miss B]

Totally amazing. Thanks for link Ken.

 

[Pendraia]

Thanks Ken...this looks sweet.

 

[Ken Gilliland]

I can never quite take a true vacation break... while going some renders "for fun" during my time off between projects I decided I needed to do a couple things....

First, I needed a "Habitat Extender" for a couple for my sets. The Kiwi, Sagebrush and Saguaro Preloads are nice but I found myself having to create an entire habitat around them to make my images. So I decided to create a "Habitat Extender"-- a simple circular stage with a skydome and foliage wall-- similar to what I used in the Big Cypress set.
The low polygon count on the Extender really speeds the render time. I'll probably have this ready in January with Kiwi, Sagebrush and Saguaro backgrounds.

Second, I'm converting the Kiwi Burrow and Duck Pond sets to the 4 renderer format (firefly, superfly, 3Delight, iray) in have in my newer sets. I've also been improving Duck Pond by adding a significant amount of plants, rocks, etc. While the kiwi update will be free, the changes are so significant that there probably won't be a free update on the Duck Pond (half my Duck Pond sales were free bonuses for purchasing the waterfowl sets during their release). I have some sort of upgrade price on that

.

 

[JOdel]

Your own patented Infinity Cove. Or Infinity Hemisphere, perhaps. Yes, that will be useful.

Will the edge wall blend into the sky dome, or will it be a separate figure -- maybe with transmaps for the different texture sets) so one could plop any of a number of different sky domes over the whole thing? (Or render it without a sky dome and add a 2D sky in post.)

 

[Ken Gilliland]

The skydome will be a seperate piece so yes, you could plop your own favorite dome/background in. Mine will have the stock skies I used in Big Cypress's set (maybe more)

 

[Alisa]

oh, awesome!

 

[Mythocentric]

 

[Miss B]

 

[Ken Gilliland]

I'm still working on the habitat extension (pretty close to done), plus I've been modeling a couple new birds (prairie chicken/grouse and peafowl), so crazy me, threw another log on to the fire and came up with this... (another project I've been meaning to finish lol)

 

[Miss B]

Ohhhh Ken, those are gorgeous!!

 

[Alisa]

Sure are. Amazing how beautiful moths can be!

 

[Miss B]

I know. When I was still in High School I had a hard time telling the difference between butterflies and moths.

 

[Mythocentric]

There are some truly beautiful moths in there Ken. I'm grateful that there are people like you who take the time and effort to bring them to our attention. Looking forward to them and the environment extentions with anticipation!

 

[Flint_Hawk]

Oh, WOW!

 

[JOdel]

Lovely. Really lovely.