Douglass Turner Portfolio | 3D Graphics

Douglass Turner
21 Walnut St.
Lexington, MA 02421
USA

email: douglass.turner@gmail.com
mobile: +1 781 775 3708
skype: dduuggllaa
Second Life: Douglas Douglas

I was invited by Eric Chen, the inventor of QuickTimeVR to conceive of and implement a website for next generation panoramic technology he was developing. Eric had left Apple and founded a startup funded in part by John Sculley to productize this new technology called RealSpace (later acquired by Roxio).

I came up with the idea of a village populated by thematic pavillions based around their intended content and functionality.

These are early examples (I created these in the dark ages of 1998) of visual f/x techniques common today that combine real-world footage with 3D computer graphic imagery to create a synthesis of the two.

All location photography, post-production, 3D graphics production, and final composites were done by myself.

Interactive Panoramas
(NOTE: A Java-capable web-browser is required)

Ferrari Testarossa | Mercedes Gullwing | Ferrari F348 | Playground| ToolTown

Unwrapped Panoramas
Flickr Slideshow >>

I’ve written a 3D visual f/x rendering system with a powerful shading language allowing simple design of elaborate visual appearences.

This Flickr Slideshow shows a selection of digital “busts” created by laser scanning the subjects and then importing the resultant data into my rendering system. In this example the subjects heads have been turned to clay.

Here is a sample of the range of shading looks achievable using the proprietary 3D rendering and shading language environment I’ve built.

These videos and this slideshow show artwork created by imaging software I’ve written. They are algorithmic simulations of various styles of 3D color mixture.

Conceptually, think of dipping a blank rectangular card into a bucket of partially mixed paint of different colors.

My software has a very generalized notion of mixture. I’ve designed an interpreted object-based mixing language that allows easy creation of an infinite of still and animated imagery.

The goal of this work is to use software to automatically create imagery that does not look “computer-ish” (regular patterns, pixelated, etc.). This is achieved using techniques of self-similarity, smooth randomness, and patterns that are not “quite” regular. Ideas from natural forms (tree branching, clouds, leaves, etc.) are simulated
algorithmically.

A key feature of this approach is that the “card in a bucket” can me dragged in any cyclical path resulting in a seamless yet
random animation loop.