Here is my first city modeled and ray traced in Blender.

My painting has been suffering lately as I find myself working more and more with 3-d graphics. I’ve always preferred the finished canvas but there is something to be said for letting a ray tracer figure out how the optics of the glass and water should shine. & sitting back and watching it happen or going to sleep and waking to find the final picture rendered. There is a real feeling of satisfaction knowing that your computer is doing something productive while not supervised. “Here computer, work on these renders and I’m going to need those torrents downloaded by morning too.” No thanks.

So my new love is Blender. I had the best time with Sketchup, and she will still be there when I need her but in my look to expand the functionality I came across Blender and it’s great. A free, open source 3d modeling program with ray tracing, animation and a physics engine.  I’ll try to post some splashes I’ve been animating.