Congratulations Ricky on your retirement and thank you for your 20+ years of service! We asked Ricky to share some of his favorite memories from his time with Renderosity......

I’ll be retiring as managing editor here at Renderosity at the end of December. I’ve worked virtually for approximately 22 years and have really enjoyed the job. I thought I’d share a few thoughts and memories from those two decades with you all.

Getting the job was an interesting experience. I was involved with the machinima movement (films made inside of game engines) at the time (2001) and attended an awards event in Queens, NY, where I met John and James Martin who were promoting the brand-new application called iClone. I liked them a lot and bought the program. Eventually, after many interactions with John, he told me of a job opening at Renderosity for a computer graphics reporter. I contacted Nick Corbin who was the managing editor at the time (and a damn good one) who hired me after I sent him a writing sample. It was off to the races!

One of the most enjoyable parts of being a writer here at Renderosity is that I got to attend Siggraph as a reporter. Siggraph is the big graphics technology conference that takes place each year. I attended about a dozen of the events, and they were so much fun! Often, it’s the unplanned events at the conference that are the most impactful. I remember meeting XX who founded Blender and having a long conversation on a bench in Vancouver Harbor next to the convention center. I’ve been so tickled to watch Blender grow over the years into a fully professional open-source application. The New Orleans conference was also a stand-out for me. I became friends with Paul Babb, who was a big part of the Maxon Cinema 4D team.

Steve Cooper, who headed up Poser development was my mentor in computer graphics. In several meetings, he explained the behind-the-scenes process of software development and taught me the basics of 3D technology.

But the best part of being a writer and eventual managing editor at Renderosity was meeting so many different and unique artists. I’ve conducted over 500 interviews with the amazing artists here. I particularly enjoyed talking with Sveva, DM and ladylike, but all of the interviews were interesting and informative. M.D. McCallum was one of my primary writers for over 10 years and he was so enjoyable to work with. We often would go way beyond just work talk in our Zoom meetings. He taught me how to be more natural in my writing voice and to develop a sense of humor.

Finally, I have enjoyed working with Tim Choate who is the consummate professional. I’m so glad we actually got to meet face-to-face at a Siggraph conference along with Tommy Lemon. If you work virtually, it’s very important to actually meet the people you work with in real life.

My future plans are to deep dive into podcasting, develop my photography skills (which I’ll share here in the Renderosity forum), do a lot of gardening and enjoy spending more time with my wife, writer Lisa Morton, and our two cats, Pinky and Henrietta.

Thanks, Renderosity, for listening to me and sharing your work and thoughts. I have enjoyed working here immensely.

Ricky's site: http://www.rgrove.com/