ML Light kit updates coming soon
The two most requested features for the ML Light Kit are dropping soon. Users wanted the ML 02 to show a lens and flare when using a gobo and the 2.0 version solves this. Original on the left - 2.0 on the right. The second most requested update was more cone angle on the ML 02. The original was limited to 40 degrees and the new version will open up to 120 degrees. Updates should roll out soon: existing customers will receive these updates for free and this will be the default ML 02 moving forward on new sales. Details soon.
2024 Show Reel
What a year it has been. Mostly focused on learning Unreal Engine, Animation and Editing, and Blender this year. Lets see what 2025 has in store.
Blender
This year, all of my NYU students have started using Blender as their visualizer of choice. It’s really a great piece of software and is so capable of so many things. I am much less knowledgeable inside of it then Cinema4d, so I’ve been slowly but surely building projects to try and understand it all better, with the goal of being able to really help my students with the technical side of the software. I absolutely love the viewport and being able to work with such clarity before render is amazing. Cycles render engine is also beautiful and a real joy to work with. I’m working on a larger tutorial comparing the two programs, but for now, here’s some stills.
ML Light Kit for Cinema4d and Redshift
The kit is now live and available for purchase! Very excited to see what people create with this set of tools.
Unreal Engine
Finally taking a deep dive into Unreal Engine and doing a series of short animations to learn different aspects of the workflow. Here an early test with weather systems.
Blender
Finally dabbling with Blender 3D! A lot of fun to try a whole new 3D program after 10+ years of working with Cinema4D. Things work very different, so I’m just trying to watch tutorials and spend as much free time inside the program as I can. Some things work better then Cinema and other things are just maddening :) Here’s some test renders from the infamous Andrew Price Donut Tutorial - which I highly recommend for anyone trying to get into the software. Cycles render is great - so now we have to test with much more intense scenes and geometry to see how it holds up.
New Hardware
Well - the time has come for me to upgrade my machine. The current build has been in place for 6 years and has performed really well, though the processor died in 2020 and had to be replaced. So, apart from a brain transplant, the machine has been flawless. That said, it was getting long in the tooth, so I priced out a new system and it was going to be, well - expensive. Very expensive. But of more concern, adding a new machine to the fold would put me over my allowed installs of the software I use, so upgrading the current machine seems like a good way to go. My friend Michael has built many machines and was dumb enough to agree to help me put it together - and by help, I mean he did all the work while I fretted.
So I kept the motherboard and the processor which are:
Motherboard: ROG STRIX TRX90-XE GAMING and the chip is a AMD 32 core Ryzen Threadripper 3970x. It’s three years old, but still work great and pack a punch.
The Power supply from the old machine was also deemed savable as it’s a good unit and has plenty of power to go around. Everything else was bought new from NewEgg and Amazon:
Case: Phanteks Eclipse G500A Performance Mid Tower Case, Black
CPU Liquid Cooler: Corsair iCUE H150i RGB Elite Liquid CPU Cooler 360mm
RAM: Kingston FURY Beast 128GB (4x32GB) 3600MT/s DDR4 CL18
GPU: GIGABYTE Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 24GB GDDR6X PCI Express 4.0 x16 ATX Video Card
I also added a 8TB Samsung SSD and a Samsung 4TB NVMe SSD so we’ve eliminated spinning discs from the whole machine. I also splurged for a Samsung 49” curved monitor, which, after years of working on 2 split monitors is an amazing upgrade and I highly recommend.
So far, it’s been a total screamer and the updated to the GPU and overall cooling of this new case have made the machine loads faster and quieter to work with. I look forward to really putting it through the paces in the coming new year. While all a bit nerve wracking, I now understand the process of what goes into these machines and feel like I can upgrade and take of this machine better. Thanks to Michael for all your tireless research, work, and text therapy. Here’s some images (with the old liquid cooler before we swapped to the iCUE).
Solid Grooves x Amsterdam 2023
Renders for Solid Grooves x Amsterdam 2022. Design by Rene van Dijk. A warehouse space converted into a concert club venue. All built from scratch.
3D objects into a 2D backplate
Been experimenting with this more to understand it’s full capabilities. Makes me want to buy a 360 camera to make my own HDRIs, but still messing around with the basic tech. So for all of these, the car is a 3d Model and everything else is a 2d image.
Spring Cleaning
Been busy this spring with Client work, but here’s some stuff made on the fringes.
Been working on a show with lots of Marigolds!
Rope Dynamics
VDB Testing with Corona for CInema4D
I’d say it works :) Tornado test: Berkeley Rep Theater.
Luggage: Product Shots
Working on some product shot studies. Hard to make the item pop without pushing the background into too much darkness.
Midjourney AI Portraits: Thom Yorke in the style of....
More work with Mid Journey AI. I’m experimenting by asking the engine for different tasks, but using a common element, in this case, Radiohead singer Thom Yorke. A lot of fun to see where this can go.
MID JOURNEY AI
Trying out an AI image generator called Midjourney. I’ve done no graphic work here - I just enter a string of words into the engine and it generates the artwork. Pretty amazing and a fun tool to play with. I don’t worry about being replaced anytime soon, but sometimes it spits out something conceptual that makes you wonder.
Prompt: What a Blind Man Sees
Prompt: Ornate Ballroom filled with Water
Prompt: Cyberpunk Concert Production Design
Prompt: Steam Punk Time traveling Pig
Mid-Century Life Crisis
Not really - I’m fine.
Hans Wegner designed the Elbow chair in 1956. Rendered in Cinema4D with the Corona render engine.
Wegner designed the Wishbone chair in 1949.