SPORE is an ongoing software/aesthetic development project that has grown out of a proprietary ultra-high speed particle renderer which runs on Irix, Linux, and OSX. All the images on page 1 and 2 are stills from animations, and some of these stills are constructed with over 1 billion particles.

Ultimately, the goal is to build a living system that will breed and evolve designs and animations that I would never have dreamed of, and could not produce by any other means.

I have assembled two galleries that illustrate the current state of these new "genetic" experiments. The renderings are fairly low-rezz and grainy, but I believe that you will be as fascinated by these pictures as I am. Examples of some of these new image classes can be found here:

SPORE Genera 1

SPORE Genera 2

Due to intense demand I have added a page of quicktime movies, I hope you enjoy them. I have been adding quicktimes to some of the other galleries too, when I can find time. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

The following people have made significant contributions of their time and programming skills to this project: Josh Aller, J.Walt Adamczyk, Steven Klevatt, and Dan Rosen.

SPORE was used exclusively to deliver over 60,000 frames of atmospheric planet animation to the production of the feature film Solaris last year, and about 15,000 frames were also created for The Core. It has also been used to animate a character for the TV miniseries Wrinkle in Time. The grand finale for Marc Forster's film STAY has been completed, and SPORE animation is layered heavily throughout the entire 3+ minute sequence. No release date has been set yet, but We expect that the film will be released this fall.

Much of my time for the next year is going to be spent on the new Superman movie that is beginning production, Bryan Singer, who directed the Xmen movies and The Usual Suspects, has been selected to direct this one. I was just hired onto it a couple of weeks ago. There is a lot of secrecy surrounding this project, so don't ask! I'll tell you what little I can in the months to come. I have been assigned some terrific design and animation to do for it and this is another chance to show what the SPORE can do. I think this new one is supposed to release in 2006, probably early summer.

Image Savant has a licensing and distribution deal with Artbeats for SPORE animation "loops and events" and the first two volumes were debuted at NAB in April 2003. There is a fourth title out now called Nightmare Light that has a few clips of mine on it too. You can now purchase approx. 80 video rezz "canned" SPORE animations to use on your projects. Here are links to all four currently available titles:

DreamLight 1

DreamLight 2

LightWaves

Nightmare Light

I have finally begun the assembly of the "chill" DVD of SPORE which will be scored by renowned trance music composer and longtime friend Steve Roach. The DVD will be released through this site and Steve's site as well as www.centerforvisualmusic.org and as many other cool places as we can find. Steve is beginning to project our first rough cut in his live concerts. I have also received numerous requests for high quality prints of SPORE images, and I am happy to say that I have a few available now. Please write me for details. Editions of these will begin publishing very soon. These are not going to be posters, but fairly large Giclee LightJet prints on Ilfoflex Media, in signed, limited editions. The images can also be produced on large-format transparent media which are displayed on top of a lightbox.

The stoner video is titled XTACISM and was recently screened at MOCA along with other short films as part of the Hirschorn exhibition "Visual Music". This was quite an honor, and my thanks to Cindy Keefer of the Center for Visual Music for including it in the show. The CVM has a website store where you can buy incredible videotapes and DVD's of many incredible short films, including work by Jordan Belson, Len Lye, and many other artists.

Speaking of XTACISM, I have placed a brief excerpt of it on my site for you to see. If you have a fast internet hookup you might be able to download it, it's made at full video rezz, motion jpeg A, and is over 50 Megs in size. John Buchanan did most of the work composing and assembling the piece, and it looks fantastic:

Xtacism Video (excerpt) - 51.2 megs

My good friend and associate Ashley Beck is working furiously on the layout for an art book of SPORE images. The cover has been designed and a graphic motif for the presentation of the pictures has been arrived at, and we should have a prototype of the book ready by the fall. We are considering printing some of the images on removable acetate sheets and selling a lightbox accessory to accompany the book. I am also working on a real-time display device that will compute spore images and present them as they are growing on a screen embedded in a residential interior. Currently this is my #1 priority side-project, especially that Apple has released the minimac and superb LCD screens. More on this exciting project as it develops.

Several of my images have been published in an Abrams book on CG by professor and author Peter Weishar. It's a fantastic coffee table book that focuses on the more artistic side of CG, and has a section devoted to independent artists like me. Go ahead and buy it, it only costs 25 bucks and you'll be blown away. You can take a look at it here:

CGI: The Art of the 3D Computer-Generated Image

Also... Mark Romanek asked me to collaborate with him on one of the images in Visionaire 42. If you can find a copy of this edition, look for picture and scent #11, entitled "Electricity".

RECENT PRESS:

CONTEMPORARY magazine is published in London and is generally regarded as the premiere fine art periodical in the world. An article on me appeared in last fall's Issue #57, the West Coast issue, and if you really want to know what this studio is all about, Rene has explained it better than anyone else has before. You can read the text of the article in this transcription:

Contemporary Magazine

SPORE was featured in a gorgeous spread in the Nov-Dec 2003 issue of Keyframe Magazine. There are some killer hi-rezz renderings very nicely printed in it and a rather candid article about the SPORE's development written by me. My thanks to Charles and Alice Edgin at DMG for putting that together. Btw... the two Millimeter articles linked to here don't seem to be archived at their website anymore. If someone can find them... somewhere... i would be in your debt. The other ones seem to be still active.

One Hour Photo

Solaris

The Core

SPORE Project

SPORE Project

There are some pretty good shots of my work in the SOLARIS trailer, and finally, after a long delay, the Solaris director's cut has been released on DVD. If you haven't seen it, I urge you to get a copy and check it out. The 40 or so comps that Rhythm and Hues and I put together are majestic, and I think that it's a well-made, thought-provoking movie. I am very proud to have been part of that production, and many thanks to Brooke Breton and Nancy St. John for their persistence and faith in me.

Solaris Trailer - 13.7 megs

Scott Draves (www.flam3.com) developed a renderer with some similarities to mine a few years ago, and has very generously published the source code. I have been experimenting with his system for awhile, and decided to assemble a gallery page displaying the spectacular results. The pictures are deceptive - even though they appear to show great depth, they are actually 2D. Here is some pure flame-1.6:

Flame Renderings

Flame Hybrid Renderings

We have been successful in applying similar transformations to SPORE, in true 3D space. Check them out, they are really cool.

SPORE Type 3 Renderings

Andy White borrowed some of the still images from the genetic pages and ran them through MetaSynth. He calls the technique sonographic synthesis and the setup is X = time, Y = frequency, Red = left, Yellow = center, Green = right, Brightness = amplitude.

SPORE -> MetaSynth

This link will take you to the IMDB, and a list of my film credits.

Film Credits

The paintings on page 4 are made with acrylic, enamel, and nitrocellulose applied to the reverse side of a clear sheet of plexiglas. They are miniatures, in the 8"-10" range. I made hundreds of them before I began to code the Spore.

Thank you for visiting here, and for all the wonderful e-mails I have received. The response to these galleries has been tremendous. Feel free to write to me anytime.

dr.

march 2005

p.s. I don't use any html tools here, I hacked this whole site together in "vi". It looks right with Safari on my macintosh powerbook...