Archive for the ‘My Stuff’ Category

A quick post for a quick render – Sunrise City – my first proper test render with my new 64 Bit PC built entirely with it.  My last PC was supposed to be 64 Bit but there was a complication in the manufacturing (otherwise known as Dell used some 32 Bit parts thus rendering the whole box trapped in a 32 Bit body with 64 Bit RAM and Processor).   Anyway I’m now enjoying the 64 Bit life style.  This quick image was made by taking a quickly built Wizard City from CityEngine and dropping it into Vue 9.5 Infinite.  A few tweaks to one of the out of the box atmospheres to make it redder, to add a low cloud layer and to darken the buildings’ materials so they became stronger silhouettes and nine minutes later a larger version of the cityscape above was done.  Resources never dropped below 85% even with both Vue and CityEngine running at the same time.

The Colonnade (or Loggia) at Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire.

A photograph of the overnight torrential downpour and hailstorm with thunder and lightning from the bank holiday weekend just gone. You can see a few of the hailstones bouncing off the top of the street light as bright dashes flying away from it.

In September 2010 on a trip to London I stumbled into the sets being built for the London sequences of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

It’s funny how your memory can play tricks on you – I thought I had quite a few pictures of the sets but I’d only taken two. Thinking back though I’d gone a bit mad taking photographs earlier on the Thames, at the Observatory and around the National Maritime Museum by the time I got to the College my feet hurt and it was trying to rain so I put my camera away and used my eyes for looking instead.

I think this is the first time DarkDwarf and I have independantly taken photographs of the same thing for our blogs. Here is a shot of the Port of Liverpool Building reflected in Mann Island Development I took a couple of weeks ago but fell through the cracks of being busy doing other things.  Scarily we had almost the same title.

The ruins of Hardwick Old Hall, Derbyshire, photographed from below through the hedge beside The Hardwick Inn.

A Vue 9.5 Infinite, CityEngine and SkinVue 9 Experiment

Click the Image to see Full Sized Version

Every time I hear someone talking about the latest Super Injunction I can’t help but think it sounds like one of the lesser known super hero comics.  Someone who comic fans love but the rest of us will only discover when they get a movie.

No one really knows who Super Injunction is except that he’s wealthy and has the power of (legal) invisibility.  Even in a picture like this one where he’s posing he ends up blurry and indistinct.  One of his biggest advantages is that his work clothes are also his costume.  No needing to find a phone box or worrying if the belly he’s started to get from too many good lunches at Michelin Stared restaurants will look embarrassing in the spandex.  Here he is pictured with Libel Woman another super hero who can be a bit grey and misused.

There is a slightly serious, practical side to this render.  I wanted to try out Vue 9.5 Infinite’s new  fast hybrid depth of field  2.5D algorithm in anger. I’ve not managed to get good results with the old depth of field methods but this new one seems to work really well and is fast enough for me on my 32 bit system.

The picture features Daz’s Victoria 4 and Michael 4 with textures enhanced using SkinVue 9, BC RoofTopper for the close up scenery and a CityEngine Wizard city modeled background.

One of the most popular pages here is Cloud Layer Sculpting in Vue and with all the new Vue 9.5 cloud features I thought I would be a good idea to blow the dust of it and rework it to use the new features.

Here is the original for comparison…

Update: I’ve been busy and I’ve posted a tutorial on how to do this and made a video tutorial to go with it too: Cloud Picture Made with Vue 9.5 Infinite.