A by-product of another image I was trying to make, and the end of a long series of experiments. This wasn't what I was trying to create at all; it happened because I did my usual trick of making a dozen scene files, each one with slightly different camera angles and Sky/Fog settings, plus occasional other adjustments, then leaving them to render while I'm at work. Even though I'm getting rather tired of all these 'spaceship against colourful sky' images I keep turning out, this one is strangely beautiful. The slightly unnatural sky adds to the appeal of the image.

The hull of the spaceship, its wings and motor(?) pods were built using Ray Dream Studio 5. I imported the result into Bryce, and added some pods underneath the hull (originally intended to hold landing gear), lights, and the cockpit. I could probably have done all this in RDS, but the modeller still intimidates me. The spaceship was actually intended for use in a different scene, but as that was progressing rather slowly, I decided to re-use it.

Some minor touching up was needed to remove visual artifacts.

Early drafts of this image showed the ship in low flight over a mountainous landscape, hence the filename; 'TFR' is an acronym for 'terrain-following radar', a system which allows aircraft to follow the contours of a landscape closely and automatically. (When I was a child, we had a cottage in the far north of Scotland, in an area that the air force used for training. I used to watch the Jaguars fly along the line of the headland and out over Dunnet Bay. The headland drops a couple of hundred feet sheer down to the sea; with terrain-following radar engaged, so did the jets. It was rather impressive ...)

Most of the renders leading up to the final image were fairly forgettable. This one isn't too bad, although the ship lacks a little definition.

Green sea cruise [17K]