I decided to do a re-render of last year's Easter scene. Initially I was going to make something crazy for April Fools instead, but unfortunately I didn't find any more time for that. And don't worry: The normal Easter render for this year is on its way, this is an unrelated project.

The reason I rendered this again is that a lot of new features have been added to Blender 2.79, such as the denoiser and Filmic filter; Since this is one of my best renders to date, I wanted to see how it would look like with some of the new options enabled. Additionally I wanted to improve on things like the color correction, to make the scene look sunnier and more colorful. Changes include the following:

• Rendered with the denoise filter enabled. Even at 1000 samples, this visibly improves the quality of the image especially on smooth surfaces!
• Enabled the Filmic color space. This provides improved color mapping thus more realistic results.
• Added a few extra composite nodes, such as sun beams and lens distorsion.
• Tweaked the lighting to make the scene appears brighter, making sure the result looks more like a warm summer day.

Lastly I used this opportunity to test something I've been meaning to try out for some time now: Someone recently posted a Blender addon for a new render farm on Blendswap, which is currently free to use as long as your blend file doesn't exceed 500 MB. I understand it does ray tracing on a quantum processor which was recently released by Intel... this is a domain I've been more than interested in, and mixing it with Blender made the idea all the more tempting to try out! I belive the farm is partly a test to see how much quantum processors can improve CGI rendering, with some artists claiming their renders are cut from 8 hours to only 42 minutes! This will definitely help me a lot with my future animations, granted they decide to keep it open to the public.

Unfortunately people have also reported some odd issues with rendering on a quantum CPU. I understand it has to do with the image looking different based on the type of monitor you have. In some cases, people claim to see entirely different results even on the same monitor. This led to quite a few weird arguments on the forums, with some people actually freaking out. I find this pretty funny since the end result is still an OpenEXR image, there's no way the computer could be storing different versions of an image and personalizing it!

To me this image always ap̀p̕ears the same way, which I tested both on my desktop and laptop: It's similar to the original render, just a bit cleaner and brighter and more sunny. I asked my mother to take a look at it too out of sheer curiosity... oddly enough, she told me that I made the scene too cloudy instead. I later sent it to a friend on Discord, but he told me that he's only seeing a blac̸k͏ image with green stripes. WTF?

None the less, I have noticed some odd things myself: The more I sta̴re͜ at the image, the more I get an odd feeling of drèaḑ that I can't easily explain. The weirdest thing is that after I looked at it, I found a few projects on my drive which were clearly created by me but Í do ̵not remember working on, whereas a few of the things I did work on seem to be d͢iff͟eren̶t from what I clearly re̴mem̧b͏e͟r do̵i̛ng̀!

I'd like to know how t͘hi̴͡s͘͠ i̕m̨̨a̴g̴̕e҉̡ ̛͟aṕ͝p҉̷͢e̶͟a̶r̢͝s̢͘ to you. You a͡re̵ seein͏g̕ the same thing as me, right? If not, s̢̨͘͝o̵̶͠͝m̸͠e̷͜͡t̕h̸̢́̕͏i̷̶̸̕͡n̸̴ǵ̷̕ isn't right... you may be in danger if y͏́͡o͏̨ų̷ ̀s͡a͞w̶̧̨ ̛́í̴t̨̡. Listen: I'm still look̡ing̵ ̷a̸t ̢t͢he͞ ̷i̵ma̧g͜e̡ as I'm ty͠ṕin̡g̛ th̷is in the d͏e̢s͘c͏ri̷p̶t҉i̵on̸ box, an͢d i̡t̵'̀s s҉h̛ów͝įng different things... 1 don't t͜hin͝k..̢.̛ ̧..́.̨ .͜..̀

Çl̢0̸͡s̴͞͝e̛͠ ͏̵͘ý0u͟r ͠8͘r̨҉o̧̡͡w̸s͡er̛ Ņ̛͜0W̸̨͠!̵̡! Do N0T sc̀rolĺ u͟p a̶͟n̶̡ḑ҉ whatever you do Ḑ0͜Ń'̷͟T ̡͢l͝͞o̧͢ò̢k̕͡ at h̕e̕̕r͜͝ facè! S̕he ̷wil͞l̀ e͟r͜asȩ ̸yòu and 4B21̵ G҉GH͞Q͡ASZ͠X <̧e͏n̢d_̷of̴_l̵og> E̷͞R̡͠R̨͘͞O̡͟R̵͠ ̸̧͞4̧͘͟0̸͞4͘͡:̧́͏̶ ́͜N̸̸̵̨͠Ò̴̡̡T̛͢ ̨̧͘F̸̨̛͘O̵͜Ų̴́́̀N̴̨͟D̶҉̷͏̨͟