Shifted Reality - Juergen Eilts

Fact File Name Juergen Eilts Product Vue 6 Infinite "I started with Vue in 2001 with the version 3.1. I haven't used any other 3D landscaping software ever since."

Juergen Eilts is a 40 years old married man living in a small town in Germany, very close to the Netherlands. His passion for 3D started when he was 14 years old. Above all, he loves creating 3D landscapes with Vue.

Wallpaper Creation

"This project was done for my personal wallpaper website www.shiftedreality.com. I didn't really have a plan when I started this project. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to do an image with a lot of sky in it."

"So I started Vue and began to experiment with the atmosphere settings until I was satisfied. I always do a lot of cropped test renders to get an idea of the final image quality. When the sky was finished, I added the terrain and began to work on the EcoSystem texture."

"I spent most of the time creating the multi-layered material for the terrain and adjusting the atmosphere settings. The material consists of 5 layered EcoSystems, so most of the work was to adjust the population and dependency of the single layers."

"Regarding the composition, it's a quite simple picture, but you always have to work on the details to get convincing results. All my images get some final touches in Photoshop. I mostly use it for some slight color correction, not for painting. Sometimes I also add some depth of field. To do that, I always render and save the depth channel of my Vue projects, so I can use it as a mask in Photoshop." It took me two night sessions to create the scene and another one to render it.

A Bond with Vue

"I began to create computer graphics when I was 14. I bought an Amiga 500 and used 2D painting programs. A few years later, when computers got faster and 3D software products became affordable, I started to do my first 3D work. I tried a lot of programs, but it was still almost impossible to create convincing landscapes at that time. That changed completely when I discovered Vue! I started with Vue in 2001 with the version 3.1. I haven't use any other 3D landscaping software ever since."

"Right from the beginning I loved the SolidGrowth plants. There's nothing like it in other landscape software packages. Also, EcoSystems are extremely useful, and with Vue 6 and its capability to paint EcoSystems interactively, it got so much easier to create realistic looking landscapes in no time. Another great feature is the Atmosphere Engine, especially the new Spectral Atmospheres."

"My inspiration comes from the paintings of Albert Bierstadt and Caspar David Friedrich. When I work on projects, I like to listen to music from Rush, Queen and Pink Floyd. And when it comes to movies, my favorites are fantasy and science fiction. My favorite movie is Brazil by Terry Gilliam. The Lord of the Rings was also a great source of inspiration."

What's Next

"I would like to improve my skills with the material editor. It's a great tool, and I think it's very important to create your own textures, because they are one of the keys to convincing images."

"I'm working on new wallpapers for my website. I like to run my wallpaper site, because it allows me to share my work with the net community and to get some feedback. All my new pictures are rendered with a 2560x1600 pixel resolution, because a lot of people asked my for widescreen wallpapers. It takes longer to render, but it's worth it. On a big widescreen display my renders look very impressive."

"I just love to create new worlds on my computer. The only limits are your imagination and creativity."