iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Very catchy music after having played it so often, even if the loops were only a minute long. It was competing with lots of educational games (which I loved), Wonka and Neopets flash games, and the Harry Potter 2&3 PC games... Speaking of IPs that have soured since childhood...

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Other thoughts: The noise applied to the dust particles could probably be much more aggressive, clipped partially perhaps, to try and get more definition to them? The look of the arms is really natural and is my favourite part: smooth but not too smooth, probably because of that simulation?

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Maybe not the type of suggestion you were after, but to get the (realistically) bright cores of galaxies not to clip to white in Blender, I have to use a filmic (or similar, Agx / ACES) color transform. Are any tools available for your web renderer to do something similar?

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

I think the hat and 'alls convey a bit more personality / recognizability. But that's just me.

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Will need to tweak my model again! (Don't worry, I was going to do that anyway with other new findings and, soon, GDR4!)

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

The simulation (geometry nodes) setup, and the shaders for the particles and the Moon ended up quite complex. And the shot of ejecta flying from the Moon to the Earth used ~120 GB of cached simulation data!

A complicated web of three 'node trees', graphical representations of equations used in 3D simulation and rendering.

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Animations of the formation of Tycho Crater on the Moon ~108 million years ago that I created for the latest Astrum video. Full video is here: youtu.be/FwGKyTZT22g

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

Trying to make sense of these maps. In this map, there are gaps in the solar circle near the Sun, while in others, there seem to be strong arms there... any thoughts on which (if either) is reliable? Do I need to add a spur to the left of the Sun connecting the Local arm to the Perseus?

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Pose and exasperated expression in the bottom left is really nice :)

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Storms on Jupiter or a geologic formation were my first instincts, very nice

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Huh, wonder where you could find one of those. (I do want to experiment more with different interpretations, especially when GDR4 arrives)

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

Oh, guess I just learned it's not called that cause it's pink and looks like a chewed up wad of gum XD

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Woah, this really shows off Andromeda's warp better than any other image I've seen!

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

In more subtle ways such misinformation from such sources has already killed thousands (probably millions) But a specific high profile event, yes, seems likely.

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

Friendly reminder that Birds are Dinosaurs, and there are more known species of living Dinosaur than living Mammals! ^^ (Their populations are similar, at ~100 billion each)

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

I got it! (but forgot the M number ;p) youtu.be/kh6gSLInIXo?...

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

It's tradition, that makes it okay!

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

The centrifugal force from the spinning earth will launch any tall enough vehicle into space, though ;)

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

Looks like it's 4kpc in diameter, not radius, so not actually farther except the edges of the square. Might overlay it and see if it has any insights in the corners or major disagreements, but otherwise I think I'm sticking with Edenhofer.

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Aurora from last night, in Minnesota, USA.

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

I lured them all to one side of the map, covering the retreat with AoEs (Wall of flame, spike growth, fireball, explosive arrows). Only one character lost more than temp HP.

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Reposted by Stefan Payne-Wardenaar

ESA Space Science @science.esa.int · 30/09/2025

Stars in our galaxy make a stadium wave, Gaia finds 🙌 Our Milky Way galaxy never sits still: it rotates and wobbles 🌀 But #ESAGaia has just revealed that our galaxy also has a giant wave rippling outwards from its centre 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl... 🔭 🧪 ☄️

This image consists of two sides. Left side: A top-down view of a spiral galaxy is shown. It has a bright central bulge with several spiral arms radiating outward. Overlaid on the lower part of the galaxy is a data visualisation, with colours ranging from blue to red. A label reading ‘Sun’ marks a specific location within this overlay. Right side: An edge-on view of the same spiral galaxy is presented. It reveals the galaxy's thin disc and central bulge from the side. Coloured points are scattered along the disc, representing the same data as the overlay on the left side.

The image features a dark background with a thin, bright horizontal line running across the centre. This is our galaxy’s disc. Above and below this line, numerous white arrows point upward and downward. These arrows vary in length and are spread evenly along the line. Scattered among the arrows are small red and blue dots. The visual resembles an astronomical data visualisation, illustrating positions and motions of stars in our galaxy.

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

An update of this classic diagram, using a top-down view with the updated Hα from McCallum et. al. 2025, and a new side-view from a different angle than previous ones to show the Sun's location. From this angle the disk is warping "down" towards the camera! www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...

An artist’s impression of our Milky Way galaxy, a roughly 13 billon-year-old ‘barred spiral galaxy’ that is home to a few hundred billion stars.

On the left, a face-on view shows the spiral structure of the Galactic Disc, where the majority of stars are located, interspersed with a diffuse mixture of gas and cosmic dust. The disc measures about 100 000 light-years across, and the Sun sits about half way between its centre and periphery.

On the right, an edge-on view reveals the flattened and warped shape of the disc. In this orientation, the disc warps 'down' towards our point-of-view: the dust lanes in the foreground are coming down from the galactic plane.

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

Jumping into the grit of Owl House finales/climaxes but right away :) Frankie! <3 Aww that's cute, she's missing some teeth, must have gotten into some scrapes! (Later) ... Oh ...

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Reposted by Stefan Payne-Wardenaar

ESA Space Science @science.esa.int · 16/09/2025

🐦 Fly through a 3D map of stellar nurseries ✨ Scientists have created the most accurate 3D map of star-formation regions in our Milky Way galaxy, based on data from #ESAGaia. The map extends to a distance of 4000 light-years from us, with the Sun at the centre 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl... 🔭 🧪

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Reposted by Stefan Payne-Wardenaar

Space Telescope Science Institute @stsci.edu · 02/09/2025

Watch as the familiar pattern of the Scorpius constellation distorts into a whole new perspective. The opening of the sequence pans up to Scorpius in the night sky. The brightest star in the constellation, Antares, is a red supergiant known as the "heart of the Scorpion." 🔭 🧪

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

You made me rethink assumptions about my own OCs... Enhancing my tomboy's early frustration, maybe they were not fast friends, but after learning more and standing up for each other they became friends. That's probably more narratively satisfying and engaging, highlighting her struggles and flaws.

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

Technically incorrect: while 46.5 bly is the current radius of the observable universe, unless expansion slows light will be too slow to ever reach objects at that proper distance.

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Thanks for the correction: I misremembered the timeframe of PMS stars. Which reminds me of an anecdote from a geo prof: Many people once thought the Sun shone from gravitational collapse alone, until radiometric dating showed the earth was much older than the ~20my that would last!

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

That two independent teams predicted it last year has my hopes up. That it's supposedly a way younger pre-MS star is crazy (if true). Urge to animate it... But I've got plenty of other work to get through first ;p

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Iggy is down by the student camp / basement entrance.

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

Nice looking Milky Way at 1:55, atleast ;)

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

That closeup shot with the egg is by far my favorite shot from ep 1

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Here's the paper. arxiv.org/abs/2309.07209 Tilted ~30 degrees they suggest, and probably not quite that thin (but still 'triaxial': different x, y, z lengths). Hmm, I might be underestimating the flare in my model...

arxiv.org

A Tilted Dark Halo Origin of the Galactic Disk Warp and Flare

The outer disk of the Milky Way Galaxy is warped and flared. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain these phenomena, but none have quantitatively reproduced both features. Recent work has de...

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Our supermassive black hole (Sag A*) is 4.3 million solar masses... but the Milky Way is about 1.5 trillion. Several thousand stars directly orbit the central black hole, but unlike in the solar system, things orbit the center of mass of the whole galaxy (icl dark matter whch dominates further out)

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

All spiral galaxies are rather flat like this, the up and down motion of gas tends to cancel out, making the thin disk of newer stars pretty thin. We can measure this directly now with GAIA, along with just the visual clue Galileo figured out that the Milky Way appears as a band.

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

It uses data on real stars and dust near the sun, then transitions to procedural details further out, informed by H. It's made in Blender, using a number of base-textures constructed from data and Hubble images,then used to inform procedural volumetrics and star particles! (it's stupid complicated)

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

This is my rendering. It incorporates some new data where possible (on the structure of dust near the sun, a new angle of the bar, etc), but is a best-guess for areas further out.

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

The two main proposals to explain the warp are that it's caused by a colliding dwarf galaxy (probably Sag dSph, seen faintly bottom left of center), or from a non-spherical dark matter halo.

youtu.be

The Galaxy Song

YouTube video by StefanPW

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

I made a version of that song with my old galaxy model and some updated lyrics. Need to make an updated one with my new model... and better singing / music ;p youtu.be/hFGXmO5GqeQ?...

youtu.be

The Galaxy Song

YouTube video by StefanPW

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

We are close to the axis of warpage, and close enough to the center that the warpage mostly doesn't affect us :)

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

The two main proposals are that it's caused by a colliding dwarf galaxy (probably Sag dSph, seen faintly bottom left of center), or from a non-spherical dark matter halo.

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Stefan Payne-Wardenaar @stefanpw.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

The two main proposals are that it's caused by a colliding dwarf galaxy (probably Sag dSph, seen faintly to the bottom left of center), or from a non-spherical dark matter halo stirring them up.

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