(~ .... J h fake canyons. Nowadays there is J enough render power to walk through those canyons, and even look under a rock. Beforehand, those fake hills always looked too bad for me to suspend my disbelief. But, now I feel differently. A slow hike might make for an interesting trip. The physics are strong enough to let your guard down. A story can happen without the worry of something electronic creeping in. Consciousness flickers at the speed of a screen refreshing. False light refracts farther than my mind cares to verify it. The jittery joyride is no longer needed to blur me past polygon stand ins. I have used computers for creating artwork for quite a while now - - always static images - - always attention to form and color. No morphing in my background. And after observing the changes in computer generated animation from a safe distance, I feel for the first time that I would like to step off the bluff and down into the fake valley and render a few trees. I am comfortable with being consumed. J J. O t t o Seibold is a graphic designer and illustrator, and has worked on, among other things, a series of very successful childrens' books. Information on the books and work of J. Otto Seibold can be found on the Web site http:l/www, jotto, com. u g graphics were limited to fantastic, surreal or dreamlike imagery, whereas today, seamless CG realities are attainable. GC: Do you feel that CG continues to be a technology only available to high budget films, or is the situation changing? BS: Computer graphics effects are now available to almost any production, due to the drastic drop in cost of fast computer systems, and the proliferation of off-the-shelf graphics software for those systems. Beautiful effects are being produced by an increasing number of small "boutique" CG production houses, and even by individuals working out of their homes. As a result of this"CG boom" affordable digital effects and compositing are not at all hard to come by. GC: Do you feel that the advances in CG have in any way made for better films, or aided in the artistic process of filmmaking ? BS: I think that films "look" better now due to advances in technology, but I don't know if rd say they were of higher quality. One interesting side effect of the digital revolution, however, is that virtually any hare-brained idea can be perfectly and faithfully executed. Nevertheless, I don't think that slick effects will ever be able to fill the gap left by a weak story, poor dialogue, etc. We now have the capability to visualize almost anything imaginable. You can be sure that this technology will be used, just as television has been used, for sedation instead of enlightenment. Fortunately, there are always a few artists and visionaries out there to create beauty and beautiful content. Brian Samuels is a Digital Effects Supervisor with BOSS Film Studios. He can be reached at bcs@boss, com. The Evolving Art of Special Effects Brian Samuels BOSS Film Studios Editor's note: l asked Brian Samuels of BOSS Film Studios for his thoughts on a few questions relating to the special effects industry, and its current state. His responses to three of these questions are listed below. GC: How far have we come with CG effects since the pioneering early days of Star Trek II and Young Sherlock Holmes? BS: When these films were originally made, digital effects were prohibitively expensive, and still rather limited. It took very large systems and a lot of time to achieve effects that would be considered almost pedestrian by today's standards. CG spaceships, characters, particle and natural phenomena systems were but gleams in the eye of the software designer. Nowadays, even the video game systems readily available and in everyday use have much more computation power and animation capability than the refrigerator-sized systems of the past. The aesthetics of computer 16 February1997Computer Graohics The Fantastic Self-Organization in Cyberspace Yoichiro K a w a g u c h i Artist My desire to explore nature comes from the influence of my birthplace, the small island of Tanegashima off the southern coast of Kyushu. I wanted to express my ideas by using computer images to combine my scientific interest in the area of evolutional biology with my aesthetic interest as an artist. In the mid-1970s, I came to understand that shells follow similar principles, along with horns. I found it very interesting to use biological and scientific principles to create computer art. When I began research on the evolution of shells, I came to understand the principles of the self-similar which are a part of the rules hidden within forms of the natural world. For me, computer graphics became the rules of growth for producing images. This had a deep impression on me. This is, I think, where two seemingly opposing sides of art and science can meet. It was as though I was using self-growing art which is developed from thoroughly natural world phenomena. I find myself in the field of art, as much as I can be, in part because I am not a scientist. I am not trying to reproduce something that looks like a photorealistic world. I am creating something new which adapts to these principles: shells which may have existed only in ancient, bygone eras, or which may yet come about many millions of years after mankind's demise. Because the rules are the same, something which exists now will probably reappear in future discoveries. Even when thinking of the birth of life on planets beyond the MitkyWay, shouldn't the principles be similar? One can do all this using the computer. I love the fantastic ocean more than anything. The ocean is rich with variation. Sparkling tropical fish dart about the coral reefs, the gross outline of moray eels suddenly appear out of the darkness of the sea grass and sea slugs crawl alone. There is a universe in the fantastic ocean. Although it is a bright and cheerful world, I feel that there is something devilish about the ocean that cannot be put into words. The growth algorithm, which was developed in 1976, was based theoretically on the recursive development of simple geometric primitives. This was the mid-70s, when color had not yet been commonly produced by the computer, and I tried to work with just line drawing displays. At the start of the 1980s, I produced a short film which incorporated color with forms created using my recursive spiraling growth algorithm with branching structures. Some of the spiral growths have alternately colored segments, or brilliant colors which faded from one to another. These forms became the characteristic signature of my early works. In 1982, I had a chance to present a summation of my research at SIGGRAPH 82 in Boston, where many people wanted to know the process of the growth algorithm. The next piece, Growth: Mysterious Galaxy, was presented at SIGGRAPH 83 in Detroit. It was completely different from previous computer imagery in that the objects were comprised not of inorganic lines, but of living, curved surfaces. When the reaction to Growth was one of raised goose-pimples, as though reacting to a nightmare, I knew that Growth was a success! (The futuristic science fictiontype imagery may seem distant and untouch-

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