I first used a tool to fragment a 3d object. A 2d version of the fragmentation tool was developed for my Hummingbird film in 1967. Then I made copies of the fragmented object and created groups. The animation has several groups which move independent of one another.
Instead of using a scanned image as a texture map, I generated the texture map with a relatively simple technique. I first generated the ribbon like structure with a set of random numbers. A bspline through the points provides the curvature. Then with a standard wrap texture shader mapped the first image onto the head and the background. Although the idea is simple enough I tried many variations before the texture worked especially around the eyes.
When I learned about the painting of Paul Cezanne, I was impressed by the way he seemed to think of the relationship between objects and space. Objects were not isolated from each other as he established a relationship between them by what he called “the passage shape”. The passage shape being an abstract shape which combine elements of two adjacent objects. The contours of the objects are varied by this abstract shape creating transitions from one to the other. (Even empty space is an object.) This idea is most noticeable in his unfinished paintings. The painting became a two dimensional abstract visual field. As visual structure his paintings have a truly remarkable clarity and stability.
As a former painter I try to use aspects of the concept of transition between space and object in my animation. Generally in all of my work. However, within the domain of three dimensional computer graphics and especially with time it is indeed a challenge. Sometimes I succeed.
I try not to think of isolated objects existing in a 3d world space. Animation in particular is not a matter of arranging objects in space over time. The issues are more complex.
I’m inclined to think of space as having energy and a material substance. Space has density and as a substance , perhaps particles, it is comprised of layers of transparency. This notion helps me to establish a relationship between objects and what we call space. Transparency in particular helps me to achieve a transition between 3d objects and space. For me, such a concept of space as a material with
layers of density helps to establish the transitions required for a unified visual field.
Chuck Csuri, Painter/Animator
Detail from Venus in the Garden Frame 73
One of the most difficult things for me as an artist was to think of nature as symbols and numbers. Nature becomes a list of points, as polygons and the visual representations of external surfaces as procedures and algorithms. That a list of points representing a figure is inside of something called a bounding box of space. Each object has its own bounding box, set of light sources, colors, even behaviors living inside of that space. The abstraction continued as I learned more of the mathematics of b-splines for curves and spaces defined by conformal mapping. Now my lines in three dimensional spaces are made with bi-cubic patches. The journey into the underworld of science went deeper and became even more complex.
What took time for me to grasp is how the logic of computer languages and mathematics are procedures which become tools. That tools gave me the control to create my vision of reality.
I think the challenge in computer graphics has always been to use mathematics to describe or represent the external reality of nature. Instead of drawing or painting my object, I use data generation software. For me code functions like a translation between two realities. One is derived from mathematical analysis represented as tools which makes it possible to reach the external world which we see or imagine.
