Well, I was curious about how the BYOND atom would look in 3D, so I decided to model it and find out. 3D graphics are still pretty new to me, so it was hard getting the shaders right. I'm not completely satisfied with how it turned out, since I couldn't seem to get the "electrons" or the Earth to glow properly without them changing hue. At this resolution, it took over an hour to render on a dual-core CPU, but I guess that's to be expected with all the transparency and intense subsurface scattering I have going on there.

Here is the rendered image:
(click it for direct link)


Here is the actual reference image I used, taken from the front page background:



If you think that's cool, wait until I try animating it! Eventually I might turn this into some kind of professional looking BYOND intro animation, like those seen in many PC and console games. Feel free to use the image I made. I don't own the BYOND atom logo anyway. Also, I can upload the actual model if anyone wants it, although I'm not sure if the shaders will export properly.

Let me know what you think.