When we first began creating the visuals for the world of Rachel’s Walk, we looked to stock photography.  I picked out literally hundreds of images for David to download.  But they all had varying “looks”, and we quickly realized we would have to do something to make them all match if the world was going to have a unified appearance.

Around this time I was starting a new role playing game campaign with some online friends and was looking to make a portrait of my character.  I was looking around for free 3D rendering programs to use for this purpose and stumbled across Daz 3D.  I was so pleased with my render of my character and the power of the program that it occurred to me that we could make the whole world of Rachel’s Walk in this fashion.  Instead of being confined to what I could find on stock photography sites, I could custom render each “scene” to our specifications.

I presented the idea to David and he loved the render of my character and the idea.  But we realized that we would need more than just the free DazStudio software and few free models.  So I made up a proposal of all we would need to complete the game world.  We devised a plan with phases of purchases and a budget.  And then I got to work.

Though the basics of the software were easy to master, some of the more advanced features had a higher learning curve.  Frankly my initial renders didn’t look like much.  But with practice I improved.  As I improved I realized the need for more advanced software to complete the game world.  So we purchased Bryce and most recently Carrara.

The process has been (and continues to be) extremely time consuming and extremely rewarding as I slowly piece the world of Rachel’s Walk together.  And today I am pleased to present you with a sneak peak of 3 “scenes” from the game world in the form of wallpapers for your desktop.  They can be found in various sizes in the new Media section.  I hope you enjoy viewing them as much as I’ve enjoyed making them.