Sunshine

Once the angle on the sun surface became more oblique, some 3D elements had to be introduced. This was my first foray in Maya. I needed to give the painting some relief, as all of the direct reference I was using of the sun was by nature very flat (photographed at such a distance). Using a Soho satellite image, I created a greyscale image and accentuated both the light and dark areas. I brought the image into Maya and used it as an extrusion map, pulling the whites out into small peaks (mouse over the image below-left) and then projected the colour image back onto itself to create the second image below. This gave me the freedom to take a snapshot of any angle I needed.

I also applied this technique to other hero dmps

Original dmp size: 4096 x 4096.  Nodal pan.