From the Archives: 3D Work From College

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I stumbled upon some files I thought were lost to time. These files are all twenty-six to twenty-eight years old and are from my time in college in the late 1990s. I was working nearly constantly and making a ton of art across multiple disciplines and mediums. From printmaking, photography, drawing, painting, fabricating, sculpting, and making full monster suits and masks to computer graphics and animation, I was super busy experimenting and exploring avenues for my creativity. It was an amazing time, and I so wish I had the freedom and time to pursue art like that again.

Today, I want to share some of the 3D models and animations that I worked on. Most of the files I found are inert. The software to access them has been gone for over twenty years, and I do not think there is much hope for them. That said, there were some still images, renders, and a handful of (VERY DARK) video files. It is not much, but it is something to show for my work and time.

I was creating a small spaceport on a barren planet that involved a series of environments, clues, and puzzles that you had to overcome to move through the complex. The most fleshed-out area was the starting room, where you have just entered. You could look around the room and interact with some of the items, like a holo display and two doors. To start things off, here is a look at that first room.

Inside the first of many rooms - which I have lightened up dramatically so that you can actually see some of the stuff in it. This render was turned into a 360-degree environment that you could look around and explore. The software to view it is defunct, but the internet provides.

 

And if everything worked as planned, you will see the above image displayed more or less how it was intended 26 years ago. At the time, 360 image display only included left and right movements, some zoom, and nearly no up and down movement. Times have changed, and the new standard is trying to do the best it can with this image, so zoom out and try not to look up or down.

In addition to multiple environments that included rooms, hallways, a landing field, and even the interior of a cargo freighter, I created spaceships, robots, and loads and loads of boxes, containers, and equipment. I truly and utterly loved every second of it. I had so much fun making all of these things. It felt like I was on the edge of a technological shift, and I was exploring the unknown. Here are all that is left of some of the robots. They are simple but fun to make. 

The purple one was aboard your ship - until the ship explodes and leaves you stranded at the spaceport. Your ship's destruction is one of the very first events you experience, and your ability to leave where you came in is unavailable.

I did mention that everything was very, very, very, very dark. At the time when these were made, they were not this dark. Well, likely they were, but all of our equipment at the time was extremely bright and thus gave a false impression of how these actually looked. To be honest, I was playing with light a lot with these, where the light, sound, and effects did a lot of the heavy lifting.

The message at the holo-display from the robot on your ship, the TickTock.

Yes, I named the spaceship TickTock. I thought it sounded fun, and looking back, I am extremely happy with myself for doing that. I couldn't do this today, as the name has been taken over by the social media app. Some of these effects were old-school hand drawn, edited, and then composited into the scene.

This is the main door that leads you into the rest of the spaceport. I still love everything about this, from the sounds to the light effects. I really go into the audio storytelling with this project. I found the sound work was as important, if not more.

If you attempted to leave back out of the door you entered, you would see this.

Again, light and sound do the majority of the work.

Lastly, here is a scanning sequence if you want to check your surroundings.

It is all a little (a lot) too much for me now. It needed to be more like a 4-5, and this is at a 9.

But it is still a fun idea, and I was trying out ideas and storytelling.

As I have said many times now, these are all very dark, but I hope you can look past that and see what I was working towards. I wish more of the files were recoverable; I did so much work on this. I was really happy with my cargo ship designs. It was like a massive frog and had a working cargo door, cargo bay with detail, working stabilizer legs, and more. It wasn't going to win any design awards, but it was the early stages of my design aesthetic taking form. And I think it looked cool. If I am ever able to access the inert files, I will be sure to share them here.

That's all for another exciting Wednesday on the blog. See you back here on Friday! Until then... 

 For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability, head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com