Anticipating the change in seasons from winter to spring. This rendering will warm your spirit during the sub-zero weather in our Canadian forecast.

Howdy. (The Promise of Spring, Ryan, Digital Blasphemy, 2008). Our Canadian Groundhog predicts six (6) more weeks to Spring for Western Canada. Environment Canada says expect longer. - Horseman LR

Howdy _ the rays of sunlight that drape the tree could also be interpreted or caption, 'Sign of Hope' especially during these difficult times while the U.S. and N. Korea rattle sabres. Horseman LR

As someone who deals with seasonal depression in New England, this image speaks to my heart, of the the hope of a spring after a cold and dark winter. Thank you.

This reminds me of Tiffany's tree in the Wintersmith (by Sir Terry Pratchett). Lovely work. Going to share it with some of Sir Terry's fans on facebook.

A promise of spring

Sun illuminates the snow

No Facebook -- alas!

Love this - I am so ready for spring.

This piece of art is the reason I signed up to this site.

I really like this wallpaper, I live in Utah and it is always cold here up to almost all the way thru May. I have played with volumetric lighting in Vue , I can imaging the render times on this is a long one. Perfect job on the light rays.

Just new to the site. I am currently using this one with my duel 24" dell ultra sharp monitors and the duel SLI Gc's that really bring the picture quality out and I must say I go wow every time I enter my room.



Lifetime membership well worth it :)



Regards,

Anthony

Man, you out did yourself with this one. Very simple and totally awesome.. Props to you on this one...

I come here for Art, not a reliable posting of Desktop backgrounds. I'm glad to see that you are willing to risk failure.

I think this is my most favorite one ever. It's just so magical and peaceful. I have it on my computer at work and I look at it often, and feel my stress melting away :-)

Thanks DB, I needed that! Been a loooong Feb.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I too like the NO BLOOMS version. Not becasue of light and dark or anything other than the fact that the blooms almost do not look like blooms but pink leaves. All in all great work and for all those that say that it doesn't look real . . . DUH it is 3D art the whole concept it to create a new reality. Open your mind and and eyes. Art is never real. It is what we wish could be real!



Thanks for the great work! I am a huge fan.

For some reason the version with blooms just seems to show more light and life to me. That makes it feel more like spring.

I do like the blooms, but I think it almost looks like bits of snow on the tree (like the snow in the rest of the image).



I like the version without the blooms more because it looks greener and more "springy".



Overall, great job! I like them both.

I love these both, don't get me wrong, but since you are looking for which to post in the main gallery and I can't post a comment on the picklejar version I'll post here. I personally think the version in the picklejar is better for the theme intended; the green in that version is much stronger than the green + white in this version. The power of the green in the former signifies a stronger sense of renewed life and hope in my opinion.

I've downloaded the update of without blooms, but saved it with another name "springpromise11280a.jpg". Now when I cycle through the images I get an interesting effect.



Without Blooms (dim)

Without Blooms (bright)

With Blooms (bright)



Cool!



Thanks ;-)

After seeing the two, I really think the blooms add a lot and that is the one that I'm keeping. The one without the blooms looks so much more plain than the one with blooms. As always, keep up the good work and I look forward to seeing your next project.

This is my first post and I love all of your art work and wish I had your talents and patience. While I like both version, I actually prefer the version with blooms for it adds some additional color.

Wow!

I must say you are a very patient person, everybody want his own version, too dark, too light, too much of everything.

This is my first comment, keep up this great work en looking forward to you're next project.

I love the fact that my first post here is going to be completely wishy-washy.



Firstly, I've been a fan of this site forever and finally got up the cash to afford to be a member, so I love this stuff. Irrelevant, probably, but I wanted it clear I wasn't bashing. ;)



I think the concept for this is awesome, and the execution is well done. I think the lighting is fine, and the darkness elsewhere, while not realistic, serves to highlight the concept. In my experience and locale, flowering trees usually get the flowers before the leaves... and probably it would be more filled in at the top, but really who cares?



Seems the reason I like this stuff is it's not really real. It's too beautiful and too perfect to be real... it's more like the ideal--what you wish the world looked like.



Keep on rocking, Ryan.

I love the cleaned up version without the blossoms. Both are very pretty, but the simplicity of the green leaves is the stronger of the two in my opinion. Thanking you for letting that be an option, and I'm looking forward to your next project!

Even though it is minor, as you have described in your post, for me, it is quite noticeable. It is a difference between a 6 and an 8. Love the updated version.

Onwards! Show us the next project.

Was feeling a bit down today, but seeing the dualscreen of this added has definitely made me smile. Very realistic looking but still magical - as is nature!



BTW I often wish we could comment separately on the duals etc, often the composition is quite different from the single images & I'd love to be able to hear what others think about them specifically.

Awesome x2 Ryan! Love the dual version!!!

the lighting is amazing, I didn't think you could improve from the original but this is wonderful.



BUT i feel that the blooms somehow make it too messy, and the focus isn't so much on the green leaves anymore. It's not as eye-catching as it was before.



I don't suppose you would do a new one with the current lighting and twigs, but without the flowers? *crosses fingers* However both versions are great and this one will stay on my desktop for a long time =)

Very well done! I like the realism of the twigs coming up through the snow. Also the light shining down seems to have been worth it, looks very real. The greens on the tree and promise of blooming flowers are also as close to real as it can get. I'm not really sure what I would want changed on this one, if anything. So for now I say good job!

This is really nice and its good to see you back on form with quite a "magical" scene for the desktop. I'll agree however that you might have overdone the flowers slightly but its not critical.



Love it.

This is an improvement from the first one, but...

it's too much details. I think this piece could have been better without any leaves, just the blooms.



Still, great work.

The rerender is very nice. I like the added touches

I really wish we could get a version that had the lovely green leaves without the blossoms on them, but also has the floating branches cleaned up like the new addition. I'm really torn over which one to use.

I don't care what the other people say about the update. I think it's perfect. I have it as my wallpaper now and my girlfriend agrees that it is a pretty picture. Good work.

Its nice... but not desktop material. I also preferred the first one, the second version, the light beam is sort of better, but the tree looks worse!. Otherwise the picture is too dark!...

but would prefer without the blossom. There is less of the green in the update which is what made the image for me.



re. 1 pixel shift, who cares...

I wish I could use this version, but I like the first one better. The blossoms on the tree just look a bit too busy for me.

This piece sends a shiver down my spine, much like the feeling you might get if you listen to some really good music. Beautiful.



Regards

Scheffmann

What a great wallpaper . I find it so relaxing to see it.



Great Job



Sincerely,

Marco

I think the small changes make it look a lot better. It's a very intricate image which I think makes that little bit more interesting.



I look forward to the next one.

I like the brighter sunshine, but the bloom make it too busy.

... after all. Couple of days ago i wrote not to change it, but the new version definitely looks better. I especially like the blossom.



But not that much improvement to raise from 8* to 9*.



8*

I really think this looks much better.



What a beautiful image.

Sorry, but I think there is a (small, 1px-shift) glitch:



http://img254.imageshack.us/my.php?image=glitchwq7.jpg



Just compare the old version (left) to the new version (right).

I think you rerendered only a part of the image and didn't paste the new part 100% correctly into the old image :)



Apart from that it is a very, very nice image!

the "unrealism" of this piece, which some have criticized, is precisely why i like it. I love some of the impossible situations you depict in your art. the world is dull many times, thanks for lending us your world from time to time, its much more interesting.

Another great piece Ryan!!



Thanks for all the hard work!!!

The updates look great, the blooms are a nice touch and adds to it! Well done! If I had a multi-monitor setup, I'd be all over those wallpapers too. ;)

Yup, it's good dude! Call it a DONE and move on.

Hey, nice work once again!



I love the piece - it's a ray of hope in the cold, which is so cool (figuratively). I like the cleanup on this updated version - looks good.



One thing that I would say, though, is that I liked the original lighting. I'm not quite sure why, but it looked better with the fewer rays of light.



Can you put another version up with less light, but still cleaned up?

Both are so beautiful. It makes me realize that Spring will be here soon. We may not have much snow in the Minneapolis area, but it is so cold that I sometimes forget it will end. Thank you for this beautiful reminder of what will come.

Ryan,



Thanks for the updated version! Keep up the great work!



Greg in KC

Another great image, I like it.

Spring is ALMOST here! Of all the seasons, Spring is my favorite. THIS really captures the spirit. Winter time can really bear down hard on a person who enjoys fishing. Spring time usually brings a plethora of fish to the dinner table :)

Are people not getting this picture at all? The light is not there to show that one tree out of thousands is green. No, the tree is green because it is receiving light.



Great work, Ryan. Some of your best foliage ever.

It's not that it's too dark; the issue here is that light should diffuse a little more evenly through the trees. It's unlikely that the forest canopy, especially in winter, is so dense that light only reaches the forest floor in one location. I would suggest more light throughout the image, but not so much as to remove the contrast between the darkness of winter and the brightness of spring. You could leave the intensity of the light on the tree in the center as it is, and then add much dimmer light diffusion elsewhere. Other than that, this post was excellent.

I do agree with the others; yes, it is worth the wait. Very nice, just a little surreal, and great detail. I am curious to see the "cleaned up" render. Even with a few errors [hard to spot] this one is pretty good. It is this sort of quality that keeps me subscribing. Thank you

I honestly don't see how you'll be able to replace the volumetric lighting with the soft shadows. It seems so important to the piece. The whole thing needs to be a bit soft, except for the dead trees. The snow, and the light.



I'd definitely wait another couple weeks for an updated render.

beautiful as usual! Dreamlike yet photorealistic at the same time, along with that distinct digital feel to it. The leaves on the tree are awesome! I have to admit your plants weren't always my favourite subject, but this one changes my mind. Lovely theme, wonderful rendition, great idea!!



One of your top ten of all time. Worth the agonizing wait =)



20/10

I really like the feel this one and the "Indian Summer" has where to me looks more like a painting than a computer generated graphic, or a simulated photograph.

interesting...it kind of reminds of your wallpaper called "The Gardner", the way that the picture is mostly in shadow with a shaft of light falling on a solitary tree. The Garder is actually one of my personal favorites :)

Thanks for that. I hate winter!!!

It reminds me of 'Of all places,' but that's not a negative criticism. Are you exploring the idea of hope springing eternal even in the darkest of times?



I like this image since it has a magical quality to it but doesn't make me think impossible. (Unlike the gargantuan moon/s that are present in many images. :-) I know other people like them a lot though.)



Anyway, to return to this particular image, is a subliminal comment about you battling your way through your illness?

I absolutely love it, and I think it's well worth the wait. I have a hard time envisioning how it could be made any better.

That picture is amazing, i'm actually a new member, but i've been following all of your work and this one is on one simple word...



AMAZING!!!!

Was it worth it? In one word:

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is so beautiful, and the detail is amazing!!!

it is already the wallpaper on my laptop.

Thank you so much for such a beautiful piece^^

Very nice & well worth the wait. :)



Strait onto the desktop of the big monitor.

Overall I do like it (not my favorite) but a job well done.



I know I am new here and know nothing about your art or the programs you use, but if I may be sold bold as to make a suggestion. Is there anyway you can turn down the light that is on the tree? Or maybe have it come from below and create a glow, like the growth of life in a dead/dormant forest. Something like that. I know the light is needed to see the color, but I is almost too much.



Just my 2 cents. Thank you for all your hard work and for creating such a great site!

Ryan,



I would encourage you to re-visit more of that cartoon-y look and feel that I find in this piece. Pixar gets away with it in their movies:



The characters may not look real, but when it's done right, they make you believe they are real.



To me, this wallpaper shines in that same way.



Regards,

Stéphane

Definitely worth the wait, just like Spring itself. Thanks Ryan!

Sure you were going for abstract in content, but surely not in effect? The leaves do not look right. It looks like it's only a minor tweak to make them look more correct.



Apart from that great image and brilliant idea.

A lot of people are saying this is too much like "Of All Places," but why is that a problem? "Of All Places" is a great picture and I'm glad you've experimented some more with the tree-in-a-ray-of-light theme.

-Dan, I think the fact that only one tree is in spring bloom is the whole point of this picture, no matter how 'remote' the possibility seems.

-Shannon, if you don't have anything nice to say, keep your trap shut!

Don't change this fascinating piece of art by making it 'more realistic'. I subscribed to DB for the beautiful surrealistic images you make, and I think this one is a pretty nice one.



If i wanted realistic images, I would download ordinary nature scenes from anywhere on the internet.



So... i agree, it was worth the wait, and please... leave it like it is!



8*

I'm one of those who enjoys this picture as it is and I'm sure I'll like any newer versions. I don't have any issues with shadows or darkness as contrasting winter with spring seems to be the point. As for the comments saying "it's not very realistic"...hello, this is computer rendered wallpaper? If you want "realistic" there are plenty of photographs out there!



Regardless, fascinating image and enjoying the contrast of both light and color.

Maybe I don't have a critical enough eye ... I love this though. I couldn't find any "errors" serious enough to mark this down very much. The feeling from this ... the promise, the hope ... all I could say was "WOW". Thanks

I like it a lot.



It reminds me of when we lived in NH. For whatever reason one area of our house received enough light and enough reflected off the house to create a higher zone. The snow would always melt there and we would have flowers in February sometimes. It was wonderful. :)

I really don't see why this took so long. it doesn't look that great, its too dark and it needs to be cleaned up a lot. and frankly it looks a lot like "of allplaces".

It looks very nice. I can't wait for the cleaned up version!



Oh, and I really like soft looking shadows even if they take long to render...

... though mostly because I don't mind waiting so much. :)



The life in the center is very nicely done, and, artistically speaking, provides a good contrast with the surrounding. But the surrounding is taking too much space (and is too dark and depressing) for an actual desktop background, for my tastes. Also, the foreground branches in the trees and on the ground don't have that realistic feel.



A suggestion for the sunbeams -- though this might apply better to pics such as "Indian Summer": I wonder if you could do a low-quality, quick render that only gives you the sunbeams, so you can have good idea of what they're going to look like. Then use that as a guide to create some hi-res, 2-D "sunbeam" images, maybe in PhotoShop. Then you'd stick those images as simple bitmaps on some 2D planes, positioned appropriately within the image to replicate the original "real" sunbeams. Then do your final, hi-res render with hopefully enough of the volumetric features diabled to give you a reasonable runtime.



Basically, this would be a "cheat" to get good sunbeams without the render-time penalty. That sort of thing is done all the time in cinematic animation (though I don't know if it'd be too labor-intensive for someone working on their own!). At least in the Indian Summer case, it would have been a way to lick the graininess problem.



Oh well, just a thought.

It's beautiful, as I find all your work, Ryan. I tend to agree the shadows are a bit dark.



Just a personal reaction, but I find the image to be a little sad, wistful, and lonely. As if that beam of sunlight could be the first in a long, long winter... or the last hale glimmering of a sun about to be obscured forever in a wasteland of frigid night.



Bears contemplation, it does. And will probably become my latest desktop wallpaper when you have the finished version up. Thank you again.

This is going to become my new wallpaper on my iPhone and my desktop as soon as you get a Dual Screen posted

I find this scene to be unnatural. Those trees without leaves seem to generate a lot of shadow. Also the chances of only one tree in spring-bloom is very remote.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and mood is in the mind of the beholder. My mind's eye sees an enchanted forest where the warmth and light of a single sunbeam magically transforms the dead of winter into the life of spring...Great work of art - just as it is!

Awesome Ryan! Well worth the wait!



Looking forward to a dual screen version :)

When I look at this picture, I feel so much! It feels impressionist the way the colors and lighting work is amazing!



Ryan, Please put this one up for purchase as a poster! I want to hang it in my livingroom!!



Great work!

In fact, when I first came to the page yesterday and saw it in thumbnail form, I thought it was a repost.

Hi Ryan, I know it's taken 3+ days to render but the area surrounding the trees is just too dark :(



The image is lovely as is the composition, but the light is wrong.



I'm a skier at heart and I've spent a lot of time in snowy areas under lots of different conditions and even on the darkest nights or under the thickest tree cover the snow reflects huge amounts of light.



I know you're aiming for a strong contrast between the dark and light; but the darkness is too severe and ends up looking unnatural.



Sorry about that



T.

Gorgeous but you've done this..."Of All Places". I do like this one much better than that one though.

I'm happy to see that you haven't tired of the theme. Satori (2003) and Springwood (2005) are still among my favorites, and this ranks right up there -- though, for me, nothing has ever topped Satori.



Keep it up!

Ryan,



I think you did a great job - I'm looking forward to the refined version, though if the differences are subtle I doubt I'd notice them. :) I understand the software problems - but I think it is a pretty good render, and my laptop gives it two thumbs up! I had to look at it a little bit to get the feel - and it's very creative and a little humbling - reminds me of the Chronicles of Narnia actually. One might guess that it's a magic tree that defies the harshness of winter. ;)



Keep up the good work!



- Gabriel

Too similar to a recent piece of work - Of All Places.

The harshness of Winter peels back to reveal life and beauty...



Je t'aime!

I'd agree with your decision not to explain this one. For me one of the truly magical aspects of art is its ability to tell different stories to different people. This one speaks volumes to me. Please add this to the group available in poster form.



Thank you.

Ryan, this image is fantastic! It can be very powerful depending on how you look at the image (hence, i guess, why you don't want to tell everyone what you made it for).

Although it uses very 'real' objects it's fairly obvious that the picture isn't your typical scenery - I like! :), just what my desktop needed!

It looks nice, and is just the thing I needed right now, a reminder that Winter doesn't last forever :)

I like it. It is very neat, and I get the message very well...but outside the light part, it's a bit TOO dark...just a bit lighter would be able to see the night detail better. And yes, I tried changing my monitor settings...no matter what I do, it still is almost too dark to see the night detail. Otherwise, it's great.

Let me tell you Ryan that this wallpaper is simply WONDERFUL. One of my favourite here, excellent job.



If I could suggest something, I would ask for more details in the snow but, really, this is a very good wallpaper!

Ryan,



I have two thoughts:



First, can the volumetric lighting be constrained to the area where we can actually *see* the light? (If the light is falling in a circular area, it would help to cut it down to a semicircle, since that's all we can see.)



Second, I see on the E-on Software site that Vue 6 Infinite/Xtreme supports an unlimited number of processors. How many cores does your workstation have? I'd be happy to chip in for a workstation upgrade.

Love the picture and idea. It's cool to see something that looks real but is also abstract. Messes with the mind and makes you stop and think.



One thing that bothers me is the branch from the left tree. It sticks out too far and just makes the image uncomfortable to look at.

This picture is pretty nice. I am getting tired of the winter and how cold it is so this is something nice to remind me of what will come later. I like the idea a lot. It makes me think of the summer/spring and warm weather where it is nice to be outside. Good work.

You are forgiven!!



I have looked at the picture both in small/large, and to me it seems to be that much OK, that if you use it as wallpaper it's good enough.



Thank you for at great work of art. I'm a poet myself - from the Faroe Islands - and I use to be a painter and had some exhebitions in Copenhagen, where there was sold out in the first exh. and in the next - during a labourstrike - I sold allmost all the works.



Many of your works could be pictures of my country, but the last weeks with a very rough snowblizzard, some hurricanes and some huge waves, there is no simularity.



It would like to send you some pictures from the blizzard, or the day after. How can I send them?

Have you got an email adress or ...?



greatings, N-Jon

This one is right up my alley! I love the combination of desolation and hope.

*Really* nice!



I hardly dare ask, due to the problems you've had, but will you be making a triple-monitor version?

It just amazes me on how fast you could create an image in just 2-3 days. You must of been at your desk almost 24/7 to make these awesome images for us, thanks again Ryan, keep at it!



one more question, what exactly is rendering?

(sorry I'm not too much of an artist!)

This reminds me of another one of your wallpapers, but cannot place my finger on the name of it. The one it reminds me of is the one where theres a tree at the bottom of a cave and a light coming through...If I'm wrong please correct me. The light in this wallpaper is off. Where is it coming from when everything else is dark?

Beautiful! Definetly worth the wait

I like the tree and the green underneath it a lot; and I also like how this pic isn't necessarily realistic. I always like your creative stuff better. I just can't stop wondering where those rays are coming from. It IS night time, right? Unless that's supposed to be some kind of divine light it just kinda bothers me. Like previous comments, I also agree that the light should fan out more, but I see how you wanted it only to hit the tree.



I think everything might look a little more believable if it was just kind of a gloomy day around the tree instead of total darkness. Anyway, that's just me. I'm looking forward to the next render. Maybe it'll make your vision a little more obvious to me. Still a sweet image though. Definitely earns a spot on the desktop!

Never! You have more talent in your little finger than I could ever hope to have, so I would never presume to critique anything you present. I think it is wonderful, and not SUPPOSED to be real, only a whisper of what real might look like if we let our imaginations go where they will. I would like to see it in reverse, a late summer version titled "Winter Soon"

Worth the wait!! I hoped it would be something like this!

This is a great wallpaper!



You said the first "forever" render was finished, but not as good as you'd hoped. Is it something you could put in the pickle jar? It would be interesting to see the culprit responsible for the long wait. :)

I like it! It's my current desktop. For some reason it makes me think of Shadow of The Colossus. I guess it's the shadowy forests in that game.

I really like this one, Ryan! It gives hope that Spring is just around the corner in the midst of the Winter doldrums. Keep up the good work!

Reminds me of "Of All Places" and of "Springwood", with sthe un beaming down from the upper left.

I think this has a lot of potential. I really look forward to seeing the cleaned up version!

Don't get me wrong, I like it, it's a great render. I guess I was just thinking, with all the time it was taking that when I first saw it I'd think "WOW, BEST PIC EVAR!!!" or something to that effect, LOL...

I will agree with the previous poster that the light should fan out more. Also it seems that maybe there is a little too much foliage considering everything else is completely bare.



I do like the dark forest surrounding though feels kinda spooky.

I like the image but I'm not to sure about the bits around the base of the tree, the very top of the 'dead' trees has a few floating twigs I'm not sure about, and I think it might look better if the contrast between the light and the dark was greater, I also wonder if it might look good if the light 'fanned' out from a smaller entrance point to larger covering area.



Apart from that it's a good image, If I hadn't bothered to go in for a close inspection I'd say it was perfect at first glance.