September 2018 blog update: upcoming videos

By DAN ROBINSON
Editor/Photographer

This rare month-plus interval without a blog update is due to two things. First, the weather in the Midwest has been very quiet and non-eventful. Any storm events we've managed have failed to produce anything of major consequence. I have a few minor expedition logs from this period that I'll eventually post in a single-page roundup format. I also did not chase Hurricane Florence, mainly due to the anticipated nighttime landfall and the slow speed allowing for land interactions to weaken it considerably before coming ashore.

That being said, the primary reason for the silent blog is that I have been devoting near 100% of my production time since early July to a series of upcoming Youtube videos on lightning myths, facts and science that will employ detailed 3D modeling. This work is a fairly time-consuming and tedious endeavor thanks to today's photorealistic 3D modeling resolutions. For example, one of my scenes contains over 500 million blades of grass!

I'm finally getting to the point of running some intial test renders, each of which take in excess of an hour *per frame* to complete at 4K resolution. That is the only reason I have some time now to make this blog post while my computer churns away at those. As a sneak preview, here are a couple of test renders of the modeled scenes.

I have two of these videos on about an equal pace for completion soon, with about a dozen more on the drawing board. Stay tuned to either this blog or the Youtube channel for when these are released.