‘Tis said of love that it sometimes goes, sometimes flies; runs with one, walks gravely with another; turns a third into ice, and sets a fourth in a flame: it wounds one, another it kills: like lightning it begins and ends in the same moment: it makes that fort yield at night which it besieged but in the morning; for there is no force able to resist it.”
I went in search of a ”thunder and lightning” quote to header this photopost and accidentally came back with a quote whose beauty and elegance stuck me dumb.
We’ve had amazingly fun weather for the past week: Sultry grey skies, rain, lightning, thunder and spectacularly grand cloud castles forming, breaking apart and forming anew in the air above the valley. The dawns have been gorgeous and the sunsets jaw-dropping, but my lone contributions from this are a lonely dawn panorama and some blurry lightning photographed from under the cover of my jacket.
I’ve tried to take a few panoramas within Northrend…in World of Warcraft, but the going has been very slow due to some very real technical hurdles – low (1024×600) screen resolution, and a processor that simply wasn’t intended for intensive graphics and photo post-processing needed to create them. Wrestling with 5 FPS and waiting for more than hour for the images to compile is tedious tedious tedious.
Tweaking after stitching is minimal – I boost saturation, contrast and brightness slightly, otherwise the images will tend to look a little dull on screen.
Send your donations for a Mac Pro to…
Gun’drak
From WoWWiki:
This is the Drakkari capital, the only large city in Zul’Drak and the home to the Drakkari Frost King. It is a massive place, with thick walls, tall guard towers and heavy gates. Inside, the buildings are tiered and covered in steps, and wind about one another like a nest of small animals, each fitting into the next.
Utgrade Pinnacle
From Wowhead:
Utgarde Keep is the first dungeon hub located on the shores of Lake Cauldros in the Howling Fjord of Northrend. Inhabited by the vrykul (led by King Ymiron), a half-giant Viking-like race bent on proving their strength to the Lich King, they are raising the most worthy of their warriors to serve him beyond the grave here at their main base of operations.
I was surprised to find that I had not posted this here yet! Nagrand in the Outland:
This panorama was tedious to stitch as I had to compile the components seperately and then merge them into the final vista in a process that took four hours, not including the time to post-process the image.
But once again, I’m happy. There are trees, there is grass and there is a fat full moon hanging low in a starry sky. What more could an Irishman want from a nighttime scene?
The views from the balcony, AKA the Heart of the Mountain. These are my last shots from Blackrock Mountain for the time being and (subjectively) the best of my attempts to this amazing view some justice.
Lets give this another try.
A while back I posted a series of screenshots under the title Vistas of Azeroth (you can download them here) and decided to rest on my laurels after churning out twenty-four pieces. And, you know, they went down very well with WoW players, to the point that I know even Blizzard saw them.
I was completely happy with this until I followed the other link to Nebdaar’s panoramas and was immediately blown out of the water at the first sight of his amazing compositions. He matches technical perfection and artistic talent in a way that puts me utterly to shame, I’m afraid to say.
And fair play to him for doing it. Nebdaar honestly sets a standard that (I feel) I have to match
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