Lawrence D'Oliveiro
2024-08-23 03:20:22 UTC
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Permalinkgraphics imagery. On the one hand, the technology was still a bit short of
full photorealism, but on the other hand, the novelty of the effects
hadn’t worn off. You knew CGI when you saw it. And it was cool. (Well,
some of us thought it was cool...)
There is a brightness and clarity to the scanline-based renderings of the
time, with their high-contrast, inky-black shadows (Diffuse bounces? What
are those?) and overuse of elaborate patterning to try to distract from
the smoothness of their surfaces (were bump maps that difficult to
compute?). Things looked just a little too clean, of course; later,
artists learned how to grunge things up, and break up perfect, geometric
shapes with rougher geometry, to make them look more real and used and
dirty and worn. But in the meantime, we had this view of a synthetic world
with its own “hyperreal” beauty.
While the pros used RISC-based Unix workstations, the humble consumer-
level PCs were getting powerful enough to do some useful work, too--if you
were patient enough. Though relying on a whole swarm of Commodore Amigas
to render out the graphics for “Babylon 5” was perhaps just a bit
extreme ... (I understand they did see sense and switch to DEC Alphas
later).
One app that I think sums up this era (others might disagree) is KPT
Bryce. It came from the same whimsical, yet stylish UI tradition as the
earlier Kai’s Power Tools (see where the “KPT” came from?). Just start up
the app, open a dialog box or two and you are already looking at a work of
art. Why don’t we see apps designed like this any more?
There are quite a few YouTube videos showing Bryce in action. Here
is a nice little walkthrough
of how to use the app, and the kinds of results it would typically
produce.