worm (caterpillar) I made for a project based on late 1970s and early 1980s CGI! it's not done yet because it needs to be rigged but I made a few renders just to show it off. Hoping I'll figure out some better lighting too eventually.
made the head in Blender, the other static visuals with Photoshop, and the audio-visualizer and progress bar with JavaScript
So here's the story...
This all started last week. I was getting tired of my desktop screensaver and thought, "I like the look of old school 3D graphics, let's see what's out there." And that's when the world of vintage CGI grabbed my attention. I fell in love with the classic ray trace shapes and environments and came across Turner Whitted's classic demo featuring the red and yellow checkered plane and reflective spheres. I thought that would be a cool screensaver BUT there were no versions out there with a big enough resolution so... That's when I decided to create my own.
I wanted something authentic so that's when I discovered Bryce 3D. I was able to install it in my Windows XP virtual machine and get to work. It took a while to get used to the dated controls but eventually it all came together and I couldn't be happier! I rendered a 4K version (which had to render overnight LOL) and even threw it in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop to create a retro-cool-looking version.
If you like it and want to download, I've included a Google Drive link containing both a clean and "retro" version:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Xqj18UOCn98n6yBepjerOOCw8yZyAFFR?usp=drive_link
Back in the 90s, a ray traced image render on the Amiga computer could take ours, or small animations could take days. I love the idea that today we can generate something like that in real time, so I am thinking of making a videogame with it.