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Description
We believed in our gods of steel and concrete, alas, they could not save us from our own delusion and our own greed. We tried to redefine our very own species using our vast knowledge of the laws of nature or merely the laws of what we called science, like physics, biology or chemistry. Yet, we failed horribly...

After the incident at Bay 7, long years ago, we did not consider the warnings that were so obvious. We continued to move on and little did we realize that our path was leading to destruction and ends tonight in that monstrous explosion. This cataclysmic fire will hopefully show us that we're not ready yet to continue, that our gods do not possess the strength and power of nature...

...not yet...

//

Well, it's been a while since my last deviation. And I guess I really needed that break to relax a little and "reload" my creativity. I didn't have and still don't have that much time either, so these were the reasons why you didn't hear from me for a little while.

//

If you actually want to know a little bit more about the "history" of that scene, please read on:

First I have to say that it is some kind of sequel to one of my earlier works, Machinae , which is mentioned as the incident at Bay 7. This is not meant to make up a dramatic story or something, it's just that the themes of the images are similar. Both show a world of Machines and human (?) technology and both end with disastrous events. In Machinae it was a rather invisible danger that threatened the people there. But now, there is a huge explosion, that is not only a threat to the people, but also to their "gods", the machines. Even they are destroyed by the fire, hence the title Götterdämmerung, which means "Twilight of the gods" in german. I just felt that the german word in this case is much more "powerful" (probably because it is shorter) than the english translation, that's why I used it as the title.

I have tried to capture the beginning of the explosion, or let's say how it looks like from above. I've tried to show the power of the explosion with the clouds that are visible in the upper right corner, showing how they burst off after breaking the walls of the building. But still, as I tried to visualize, seen from above, the whole scene looks rather calm, all the beatiful lights are still shining but the fire is coming...
Bear with me if that doesn't make any sense but it's actually the first time I tested myself on making something like that...both Machinae as well as Aengrod were merely scenes without a special "theme" that I wanted to visualize. Now I really had some moment in my mind and tried to achieve that - so, (almost) every feedback is more than welcome.

//

Technically speaking this image is far more advanced than the aforementioned scenes. It might not be visible but almost every aspect of my workflow has been improved. The scene consists of like 15,000 objects (I didn't count them exactly this time) yet it has only like 1,000,000 vertices (which means the meshes are far more efficient). Renderings weren't as critical as they were for Machinae and that's a good thing. Also, even though my texturing sucks, I improved a lot on applying and on using textures for many objects. So, my workflow was a lot faster.
Lighting was also improved using various passes that made it easier to make adjustments. I used the same method for the glow of the little lights and it did work out much smoother than it did before.

Wow, I applaude you if you actually read through all that...although it would make me happy if you did

Now I'd like to get some feedback - as stated above, (almost) everything is welcome! It took me a lot of time to make this, now you could spend a minute or so to let me know what you think, no?
Thanks in advance!

//

Credits for the textures and pictures used go to Mayang's free Textures and sxc.hu

Description
We believed in our gods of steel and concrete, alas, they could not save us from our own delusion and our own greed. We tried to redefine our very own species using our vast knowledge of the laws of nature or merely the laws of what we called science, like physics, biology or chemistry. Yet, we failed horribly...

After the incident at Bay 7, long years ago, we did not consider the warnings that were so obvious. We continued to move on and little did we realize that our path was leading to destruction and ends tonight in that monstrous explosion. This cataclysmic fire will hopefully show us that we're not ready yet to continue, that our gods do not possess the strength and power of nature...

...not yet...

//

Well, it's been a while since my last deviation. And I guess I really needed that break to relax a little and "reload" my creativity. I didn't have and still don't have that much time either, so these were the reasons why you didn't hear from me for a little while.

//

If you actually want to know a little bit more about the "history" of that scene, please read on:

First I have to say that it is some kind of sequel to one of my earlier works, Machinae , which is mentioned as the incident at Bay 7. This is not meant to make up a dramatic story or something, it's just that the themes of the images are similar. Both show a world of Machines and human (?) technology and both end with disastrous events. In Machinae it was a rather invisible danger that threatened the people there. But now, there is a huge explosion, that is not only a threat to the people, but also to their "gods", the machines. Even they are destroyed by the fire, hence the title Götterdämmerung, which means "Twilight of the gods" in german. I just felt that the german word in this case is much more "powerful" (probably because it is shorter) than the english translation, that's why I used it as the title.

I have tried to capture the beginning of the explosion, or let's say how it looks like from above. I've tried to show the power of the explosion with the clouds that are visible in the upper right corner, showing how they burst off after breaking the walls of the building. But still, as I tried to visualize, seen from above, the whole scene looks rather calm, all the beatiful lights are still shining but the fire is coming...
Bear with me if that doesn't make any sense but it's actually the first time I tested myself on making something like that...both Machinae as well as Aengrod were merely scenes without a special "theme" that I wanted to visualize. Now I really had some moment in my mind and tried to achieve that - so, (almost) every feedback is more than welcome.

//

Technically speaking this image is far more advanced than the aforementioned scenes. It might not be visible but almost every aspect of my workflow has been improved. The scene consists of like 15,000 objects (I didn't count them exactly this time) yet it has only like 1,000,000 vertices (which means the meshes are far more efficient). Renderings weren't as critical as they were for Machinae and that's a good thing. Also, even though my texturing sucks, I improved a lot on applying and on using textures for many objects. So, my workflow was a lot faster.
Lighting was also improved using various passes that made it easier to make adjustments. I used the same method for the glow of the little lights and it did work out much smoother than it did before.

Wow, I applaude you if you actually read through all that...although it would make me happy if you did

Now I'd like to get some feedback - as stated above, (almost) everything is welcome! It took me a lot of time to make this, now you could spend a minute or so to let me know what you think, no?
Thanks in advance!

//

Credits for the textures and pictures used go to Mayang's free Textures and sxc.hu