I was lucky enough to get myself into a couple of focus group meetings here at SolidWorks World. These are meetings that DS SolidWorks organizes with the intention of getting feedback from users of their product, what is working, what is not, and what could be improved. This morning I attended one of these focus group meetings about PhotoWorks, PV360 and Animator.  There wasn’t much talk about...

It is with great sadness that I pass this news over to you. I’ve just read Rob Rodriguez announcing the 36th PhotoWorks Rendering contest, which will also be the final one.  I feel a bit bummed out, I can’t deny it.  I mean, the rendering contest is a really neat idea and I wish it could continue to be, somehow, that someone could take over and host it for Rob, I don’t know… I even consi...

This is a little trick for creating your own studio that I learned from the Step-by –Step PhotoWorks Self-Study Guide, and decided to try on PhotoView 360, to see if it would work. Well, it does, with a few limitations, but it does work. All it is about is creating a virtual studio with a backdrop, like photographers use in their photo studios, and a set of area lights.  The backdrop is simply...

This is meant to be just a quick post to answer Chris’s question about the color effect on the front of the Mach 4 image that was my entry for last month’s Rendering Contest.  In short, that effect is achieved by using a solid color as a decal and a mask, only instead of black and white the mask is a gradient of grey tones that act pretty much like a sifter, allowing more of the color to be ...

PhotoView 360 was made available for download today, August 12th, and, of course, I had to go and try it out. I must tell you, never before today had I attempted to render anything, but I’m really amazed at how fast and easy it is to use, and how great the results that can be achieved, even by a complete novice, such as me. It was as simple as choosing a material, a scenario, and that’s it, in...