This thing is amazing.
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.
Hoping to do More animation in 2024. Here’s some practice.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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
I’d say it works :) Tornado test: Berkeley Rep Theater.
Working on some product shot studies. Hard to make the item pop without pushing the background into too much darkness.
Been playing with cartoon looks and development for an upcoming project. Here are some early tests. The character was bought from Turbosquid with no textures and she is just a stand in for learning.
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.
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
Unreal Engine day one. Hooked.
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.
1970 Camaro Pro Touring. My first attempt at modifying a car - which I have no business doing, as I know nothing about cars. Inspired by the work of Carlos Pecino and Ash Thorp. There are some glaring holes and problem areas, but a fun thing to try out. Modeling in Cinema4d and rendered with Corona renderer.
I’ve started making tutorials again for Vectorworks. I imagine this will spill over into Cinema 4d tutorials eventually. Head over to the TRAINING page of this site or my YouTube channel for the content. Thanks for watching!
I drive a dying Subaru Impreza, and am not really a car guy, but I do love to light them in 3d. Working on lensing, composition and lighting with these shots. Ferarri Monza model from Saksham Kumar and the Alfa Romeo is from Turbosquid with textures by me.
Working to improve my sky/sun setups for better architectural renderings. It’s a never ending balancing act between angle, haze, and camera exposure. Corona renderer makes this a joy to work with. Here’s some tests.
Wanted to try something different lately, so I’ve jumped into some cartoon modeling and rendering. Been fun to just build out a scene without too much thought or pre planning.