I stumbled upon an interesting blog today while searching for an image of the Silicon Graphics 3D cube logo. Named "Abort Retry Fail" by Bradford Morgan White, the blog's articles document computer history. I eventually wound up reading three of them.
#1 "The Rise and Fall of Silicon Graphics"
https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-silicon-graphics
I continuously update the database at https://api.physicallybased.info and the website at https://physicallybased.info
Some of the recent updates include:
- New materials
- New cameras (now also with resolutions)
- New light sources
- More accurate complex IOR values for metals
- Nicer display of references, with more info
- Started work on API v2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9iYcuJe9fc
OK I was wrong. It was Windows ME, so even more infamous than 95. Everything between NT and Windows 7 is a muddle mess in my mind.
Lookat those dumb flying boxes! This *looped* while it installed apparently. God knows I never put ME on any of my machines.
(4/3)
We did what we needed, over delivered and made it look good, probably taught them all kinds of basics on how to get CG projects done and everyone was happy.
We never heard from them again after that project. I dunno, they probably became big CG commercial producers or something afterwards. :)
(3/3)
It quickly was determined they had *no* idea what they were talking about or doing, and further discovered they had gotten this project through a contact at Microsoft, intended on doing it themselves, but didn't know how and then came to us. And didn't want Microsoft to know it was us executing and not them
One was frat boyish and the other explained all things with sound effects and gestures. so we called them "Sparky and Sonic Boy" behind their backs.
(2/3)
One of the strangest CGI project I've worked on was footage that played during the installation of Windows 95 on you computer. Animating and moving Windows logo elements. I assume it played millions of times, but probably watched by no one as they walked away and waited for the OS to install.
Two "producers" approached Rhythm and Hues with the project, as if it was a very prestigious thing and asked us all kinds of questions like "what format would you make it in?"
(1/3)
I began my love affair with #CG in the early 1980s, and with #GUI not much later. By the early 2000s, I had worked with X/Xt/Xaw, SunView, OpenLook, Motif, NeXTSTEP, Win32, OS/7, Carbon, Cocoa, Tk, Gtk, Qt, WxWidgets, AWT, Swing, and many others that I no longer care to recall.
Suffice it to say, I had fallen out of love with GUIs, after 20 years, mainly because of the industry's inability to standardise on what constitutes a "good" UI.
Today, more than 40 years hence, I am ever more disillusioned with this rampant, uncontrolled, cat-herding attitude of our #IT industry:
• Do we really need 10 new web UI frameworks per day?
• Are we unhappy with WPF, Cocoa, Material, ..., ..., ...?
• Does every application we implement need a "novel" UI?
• Are we really pushing the state-of-the-art, when we just tweaked a tiny bit in an existing UI framework?
We in IT, who work for "businesses", need to focus on business needs. We need to stop viewing ourselves as "artistic innovators" and "tech boundary pushers". We must focus on usability, consistency, simplicity, maintainability, and cost effectiveness for the benefit of our users and our employers.
Of course, we in tech mustn't shun innovation. But there's a place for innovation: it's called peer-reviewed academic articles. And we must recognise that forking a repo out of resentment isn't innovation.
Nur wenn das Security Armageddon ausbricht, wird die IT security wirklich besser. Sagt #evawolfangel #zeit Also brauchen wir die Aufgabe der it-security #paradoxeintervention #winterkongress #digiges #cg
@flaki To answer your question about when 3D apps were available: as a youngster I made my first 3D steps in an editor for the Commodore Amiga in 1987. 
It was called Sculpt 3D, and it was revolutionary at the time, being one of the first 3D editors for consumer-grade computers, and featuring a real ray-tracing render engine.
2,400 CG artists were each given the same base animation and challenged to make something unique out of it.
Here are just some of the clips from the top 100.
C: pwnisher on YouTube
Fellow Amiga nostalgics, give @amigagraphics a follow. He has been maintaining the Amiga Graphics Archive site for many years now, a great repository of Amiga graphics history…
Converting assets between render engines is aging me. Crazy that Vray doesn't have easier conversions of materials into their engine.
Bom dia!
Acordei antes da hora e estava aqui lendo Ceramic Form do Peter Lane enquanto a academia não abre.
Ano passado eu estava procurando uma forma de renda extra e curiosamente, quando fui acessar uma conta de email antiga encontrei um aviso de que tinha vendido um modelo 3d em uma loja de assets, tipo turbosquid.
Fiquei curioso, será que consigo denovo?
Ou é só uma desculpa para brincar com 3d denovo?
Foto: Family of Bottles - Ingeborg e Bruno Asshoff, um conjunto de vasos que parecem uma família de pessoas.
