Everything Is So Simulated
June 2nd, 2008More About Virtual Stuff
I remember when I first got a 3D art program, for a birthday (one of mine, actually), from my mother, who is interested in art. At first, I wasn’t that excited. I never really wanted one. It’s not that I didn’t like them. I was just not ever thinking about them. I wasn’t that into art, per say, and I took it, to some small extent, to be my mother thrusting her point of view on me. I never said this, but that thought crossed my mind. Music was more interesting to me at the time. I also somewhat more appreciated science and engineering, but not 3D “art”. I was surprised to eventually learn that the 3D art programs somewhat blurred the distinction between art and engineering.
When I was a kid, my dad bought me a model airplane kit. He actually made the plane for me. It was a simple one, made out of six or seven flat pieces of balsa. It had a gas engine. It was to be flown by control lines, like those Cox planes sold at toy stores. This turned me on. I didn’t get taught how to fly it by my dad (thanks, dad), but I really wanted to learn. I built more models. This was a tough thing to do. I often had two or three such models, made of balsa, on my toy chest under construction. It wasn’t until I was 12 that I learned how to fly the planes, thanks to a junior-high friend of mine (thanks, Todd). As a teenager, I built more planes, and gliders. I bought a radio-control transmitter (a huge economic setback for a kid), and I learned how to fly the gliders with it. I remember the building being a means to an end, mostly, but an enjoyable process. Being out in the garage building those planes was a joy. Seeing them come together after all that cutting, sanding, and gluing was a joy too. I would think of how impressed the ladies would be, if they ever saw (and they never did, nor did I know at the time how little they would care). I built model rockets for the same purpose. They gave me all kinds of ishy squishy gooey aerospace warm fuzzy thoughts. Tra la la. Happy happy joy.
(Ironically, since we’re more or less de facto on an aerospace topic, I never liked Star Trek in the past. I always found it kinda boring. Sometimes I would watch it to try to see those wonderful actualizations of what is currently futuristic. Then these all too hierarchy-aware characters–”That is an order, Mr. Zulu…” “Yes, captain.”–would get bogged down in some silly battle with some enemy creatures after that alert siren would go off. It was only after watching an episode recently and after flipping through a book diagramming the way they sectored the galaxy that I somewhat appreciated it. I enjoyed Star Wars more. It was more fast-paced and full of gadgety-goodness. Yet, it is rather lacking in the science. I suppose I’m not consistent in what I like across disciplines.)
So what does all this have to do with 3D art? Well, as you might guess, one of my first projects was making aircraft with my 3D software. At first, I wasn’t motivated. I did it out of duty, since my mother bought this expensive thing. Couldn’t let it go to waste. After some time, I started to see that it was much like building those wooden plane models and cardboard rockets: it took time, thought, careful measurement, and careful alignment. I think, when I was a kid, putting paint and decals on the finished model was at least as awesome as the rest of the process. It was like putting icing on a cake. It made it pretty, if pulled off right (and this wasn’t always the case). Well, putting “paint”, or a finish on the virtual models had immediate spectacular results. And I didn’t even have to give it a coat of primer or fuel-proof varnish (dope). No wood grains would show due to a poor application. Well, actually, putting a finish on a virtual model has its own set of problems to solve, but at least there’s no mess to clean after, though you gotta put those files you made away if you don’t want things to get all messy on the ol’ hard drive. Furthermore, the program allowed these things you made to be animated. My goodness. These things I made can even fly. All too easily.
There’s nothing like cutting with real X-Acto knives and sanding. Yet, there’s nothing like the beautiful creations that are possible with good modeling software. Or, they are much alike. It depends on how you care to look at them. I used to want to start a business selling model planes I made. Well, that is being done by all the major kit manufacturers today. They sell their planes as ARF’s (Almost Ready to Fly). The major components are pre-built. The buyer just has to assemble these major components and add radio gear. That’s great. There are a lot of people that don’t want to fuss with building. They prefer flying. They don’t get the thrill of taking weeks or even months or (in the extreme of detailed scale replicas) years sometimes to build a good model–perhaps to see it crash first flight. That’s cool. And, you know, there are modelers using 3D software that don’t have the time to model all the things they need to put in their scene. They would rather buy them. That’s cool too. Which reminds me. I put up a 3D triplane I made, recently. If you care to look, its towards the bottom of the Pictures page of this Web site. A movie of it is on the Movies page. Click the link below.
The main Web site:
www.conductusproductions.com
Sight and Sonic Entertainment