Brian Bleeker - September Featured Artist
MADE IN IRAY FOR 3DS MAX
'My first encounter with CGI blew me away. I was around 14 years old and was trying to draw with autoCAD and found out that I could make those drawings in 3d. A friend of mine had a version of 3ds4. This was on 10 x 3.5 floppy discs, this was when I found out I could render. Since then my computer had been on day and night, rendering a 640x380 image – rushing back from school in the afternoon to see the finished result. I’d even finish the model in the afternoon, hit the render button and wake in the middle of the night to see how far the rendering was coming along. I was passionate.
Far later in my life I started to work for a large architect firm as a draftsman, where I got the chance to make visualizations for some of their projects. I got in touch with Iray and found this was better performing rendering engine than MentalRay, which I was using back then. Lighting was impressive, easier to setup and the feel of the images were closer to reality. I persuaded my boss to let me buy a new computer with two GTX660 cards. I was off! Iray was my new thing.
During the financial crisis years, I got myself a new job with an interior architect and my main job was to create artist impressions. I had a free hand in choosing a computer and had one with two 780Ti cards. I was able to handle most interiors and loved it. Years later, I now run my own company, Helder3d, and create images for architects, designers and product engineers. I bought myself a computer with 3x GTX1080 cards. The capability of Iray is immense, there is nothing I can’t render. Minutes after thinking about an image, the image is there - no more overnight rendering. That’s the beauty of Iray.
Nowadays I get a lot of reactions from people who believe the images I create are real. I made one for a property investment company, where they then had a potential buyer enquire to come over and visit the property…..which doesn’t even exist yet; that was a great compliment!'