Before becoming disabled, I used to work full time at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) in the New Media department. The division that I was in charge of is the Extended Campus, which works with students learning online, and at over 130 learning centers throughout the world. I was at ERAU for five years. Prior to that I had my own business for 20 years. I've been in just about every aspect of the computer industry. I started back before there were even personal computers, and long before there was an Internet.
My introduction to using ray tracing professionally, was back in the days where the HTML language had just advanced enough to put a picture on a Web page. The newest version of GIF allowed rudimentary animation. I was one of the first people on the Web to start creating animations. Two of the other early adopters of GIF animation and I, created an online community called, "AGAG". That stood for the Animated GIF Artists Guild. We focused on creating online tutorials to teach people how to make them, and later worked with artists protecting the copyrights to their work.
My day job was creating and maintaining the Virtual Reality Mall. It was built on a language called VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language). All of the models for VR were 3D. I had used 3D modeling and ray tracing to make animated gifs, but the use of them in VRML required a much higher technical level of understanding. That was especially true when animating in 3D and using 3D sound. The VR-Mall got pretty popular and was getting over 5 million hits a month. Back in the old days, that was enough to get ranked about 65 on the top 100 business Web sites in the world.
Enough babbling about the past. Since I became disabled with diabetes and a neurological condition around three years ago, I've spent a lot of my time with ray tracing, and 3D modeling. I'm on heavy medication, and can't get a whole lot done each day, but I plug along like The Little Engine That Could.
My first project after becoming disabled was a combination of ray tracing and short stories. Since this project is a cross between words created by an author and images created by an artist, I feel a new term is in order. I hereby coin the term "authorist", to represent this merge of creative talent. There are twelve chapters with twelve pictures in each. If you would like to check it out, the URL is: http://www.technowomb.com. As I finished that project, and still being driven to create, I've continued with images, but not stories at: http://www.netbadger.com/cgi-bin/emAlbum.cgi.
One of the earliest visitors to the Technowomb project was a member here by the name of "doctorspot" a.k.a. Amy Dyson. The left a comment on the site, and I contacted her by email with some questions on how she came across the site. That was around a year ago. Now she has become one of my closest friends, and we are running a mutual appreciation society.
I said enough babbling before, didn't I? Well this time I really am going to shut up.
Comments (2)
allisonbender
Great work .... Very thought provoking!!!! Tom
DoctorSpot
This heartrending scene says so much to the viewer. If you "get it", then it becomes almost painful to experience the path it leads you down, which places this render in a special genre of art. Even when you know that passing is just a transition...one still gets a feeling of dread regarding the way in which these students passed. All of this is expressed so concisely in one still image--which makes the message powerful. The traditional dove symbolism is well-chosen and placed within the scene, and Jung would greatly approve. Digital Expressionism is alive...and you are a forerunner.