Playground · tests and studies
Things that didn’t make the cut
Dust in a sunbeam
2026
Blender · volumes
A principled volume at 0.02 density, lit by one sun through a slot. Forty minutes a frame, worth it.
Thirty-two frames of a ball
2026
Blender · animation
The bounce from the top of this site, frame by frame, with the spacing chart it came from.
Chrome sphere study
2026
Cycles · shading
A sphere that reflects a room you never see. The oldest test in 3D, still the best.
UV checker stretch
2025
Blender · modelling
If the squares stretch, the UVs lie. A tumbling checker cube as a reminder.
Velvet torus
2025
Cycles · sheen
Sheen tint, not base colour, is where velvet lives. Twelve renders to learn that.
Clouds as matte planes
2025
Blender · compositing
Two noise-textured planes behind the cypresses. Cheaper than volumes and nobody can tell.
Terrazzo in forty nodes
2024
Blender · shading
Voronoi chips over a noise-driven roughness, four colours, one floor.
Mullion shadows as a gobo
2024
Cycles · lighting
Invisible window bars between the sun and the set, so every product sits in the same room.
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