Did you know that there are databases in the public domain with free 3D models of organic materials like DNA, enzymes and proteins? Accurate and highly detailed, these models can be downloaded from a number of sites and imported into most 3D packages, including my favorite – Cinema4D.

I have no idea what I’m looking at here, but every time I click the render button, I learn a lot. It’s fun and informative to render the structures with wacky materials, and I think the results are pretty cool. They seem a bit too busy for computer wallpaper, but they sure would look good printed and hung as a set in my office. Yes, I should do that.

In case you’re wondering, no, this isn’t work product. No one asked me to do this. It’s just that I have these 24 cores in front of me all day begging for some bits to do chew on. It takes just a few minutes to set up these scenes – the majority of the time is spent rendering the relatively hi-res images. I figure that if I push the render button enough times every day, I’ll eventually produce some interesting (and maybe even gorgeous) results, and in the process become more proficient in Cinema4D! Win-win!

To me, this is as much fun as you can possibly have with a computer.