After being to Iceland twice – I can safely say that I’m completely fascinated and addicted to the gorgeous alien like landscapes & features that Iceland has to offer…. they are literally endless with vast white plains, huge mountain ranges and crazy shifts in weather …not to mention the amazing food they can cook up over there and of course, the aurora borealis 🙂

My last visit involved a hike up a glacier called Sólheimajökull, which in case you wondered – Translates to “Glacier of the sun”… but don’t ask me to try and pronounce it. The views it offered were absolutely stunning (see the photo I took in the cover photo) – This glacier just seemed to go on forever… and it was so BLUE! Simply put, it was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen.

For this reason, I’ll be basing the location for my cabin entry on a beautiful glacial lagoon known as Jökulsárlón, which is located in the southeastern area of Iceland. I have chosen this particular site as it has a wonderful mix of blue lagoony water, MASSIVE chunks of ice, black sand, grass lands, volcanic rock and great mountainous views – a perfect location for an Icey getaway… well I think so anyway.

As this will be a VR experience, if Yulio allows it, I will be showing several fixed point renders (not yet decided how many views i will do). Each view will be rendered in day and night, with the option in the interactive to switch between the two light settings using hotspots. I may also include the aurora borealis in the night time views 🙂

The sketch attached to this is a concept for the initial view with reference material i will be using. The experience will start a fair distance away, with hot spots that will allow the user to approach the cabin via a footpath.. eventually ending up inside.

I will do some more sketches with more detail on the Cabin design in another post – which i will post very soon.

Hope you like the idea (sorry for the essay) – and best of luck to all entrants!

3 replies
  1. Brendan A.G
    Brendan A.G says:

    Hey Christopher,
    Looks like a great idea. I too am going to try for the multiple fixed point renders. Never done them before, but have be keen to try them. Everything is awesome in my head, but finding the time to figure out how to make it look like that, is really the challenge!! 🙂

    Your sketch looks like it will feel epic & windswept. Can’t wait to see how you go with the glaciers & icebergs!

    Hope goes well.

    • Christopher James Lane
      Christopher James Lane says:

      Thanks mate – yehh it can be tricky. I’ve dabbled in it before, so i have a good idea how to tackle them. I think the only real difference between rendering for stills and vr is that you have to create the entire scene… and not just the view which takes a bit more thought and time… but its fun! 🙂

      Good luck with learning the process – its great fun when it all comes together… if you ever need any pointers drop me a line – happy to help.

      haha thanks – the sketch is just an initial concept at the moment for the first view. Need to apply some more thought and detail to the cabin next and actually start studying some height maps of Iceland.

      Good luck to you mate – Hope it all goes well.

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