I’m dipping my toe into Blender and Cycles. I’ve been snobby in the past about Blender, as it didn’t always measure up to more expensive professional tools like Maya. However, as Maya has become bloated and unwieldy and poorly serviced by Autodesk, the passion of the Blender community and the surprising polish of 2.9 makes it pretty fun to get into.

For this one, I’m just exploring with path-traced participating media. This is slow, this render took 13 hours. I absolutely love the painterly look on the reflective rectangle on the right.

• blender
• cycles