Getting Started with This Portal Idea
Alright, so this whole “portal dreams” thing kicked off kinda randomly. I was just messing around one evening, sketching some weird shapes, you know, letting the mind wander. Suddenly, this image of a doorway, but not quite a normal one, popped into my head. It felt… floaty, dreamlike. So, I thought, why not try and build that?
First thing I did was grab my trusty tablet and stylus. Started doodling properly, trying to pin down that feeling. Lots of swirly lines, weird colors. Most of it was junk, honestly. Just scribbles. But then one sketch started to look interesting. It had this sort of liquid energy vibe around the edges.
Okay, Let’s Make it Digital
So, I fired up the computer. Decided to use some 3D software I had lying around. Didn’t really have a solid plan, just started blocking out a basic archway shape. Kept it simple. Then came the tricky part – making it look like a portal, not just a fancy hole in the wall.
I spent ages playing with textures and lighting. Tried making it glow, tried making it ripple like water. Lots of failed attempts. At one point, it just looked like a badly rendered screensaver from the 90s. Frustrating stuff. Had to step away a few times, grab a coffee, stare out the window.
Hitting Walls and Finding Ways
Getting the “dreamy” effect was the real challenge. How do you make something look unreal but still sort of there? I messed with particle effects, trying to get little bits of light floating around it. That was a whole rabbit hole. Spent hours just tweaking speeds and colors of tiny digital dust motes.
- Tried making the inside of the portal show a different scene. That got complicated fast. Render times went through the roof.
- Attempted some weird distortion effects on the edges. Some looked okay, others just made my eyes hurt.
- Played with sound too, trying to imagine what a dream portal would sound like. Ended up with some low humming noise that was kinda eerie.
It wasn’t a smooth process at all. More like stumbling around in the dark. Sometimes I’d work on it for hours and feel like I’d gone backwards. You know that feeling? Like you’re just digging a deeper hole. Happened a lot here.
The Thing It Became
After a lot of tweaking, deleting, starting over, and more tweaking, I finally got something I didn’t totally hate. It’s this archway, right? But the opening isn’t solid. It shimmers, distorts what’s behind it slightly, and has these soft, pulsing light particles drifting off it. The colors shift subtly, blues, purples, a bit of gold.
It’s not exactly like the first vague idea I had, but it’s where the process led me. It’s more of a visual piece now, just this animated scene of the portal existing. Managed to render out a short loop of it.
Final Thoughts, Kinda
So yeah, that was the journey with this portal thing. A lot of trial and error. Mostly error, if I’m being honest. But pushing through and actually finishing something felt good. It’s not gonna change the world, it’s just a little visual experiment born from a random thought. But making stuff, even if it’s just for yourself, keeps things interesting. Better than just consuming all the time, right? Anyway, that’s the story of the portal dream experiment.
