11–20 of 35 posts
Of topic, but reading the headline and the intro about Alvy Ray Smith I was half convinced this was going to be a satirical article about how he invented raytracing and that it is actually named after him; in similar vein as the “Running was invented in 1784 by Thomas Running when he tried to walk twice the same time” meme [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=who+invented+running
I don’t have much to say about the article, I’m just glad it wasn’t a headline joke about Steve Jobs.
This classic of his taught me much about rendering: http://alvyray.com/Memos/CG/Microsoft/6_pixel.pdf However, if we're going to talk about actual genius, no one even comes close to Eric Veach; he's like the von Neumann of rendering. Fun bit of trivia: after he finished completely revolutionising all of rendering with his PhD thesis[0], he went on to develop a little thing called AdWords. [0] Robust Monte Carlo Metho…
So he really is like the von Neumann of rendering!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Nuclear_weapo...
Texan here. That is just beyond the pale. What a complete and absolute jerk.
This classic of his taught me much about rendering: http://alvyray.com/Memos/CG/Microsoft/6_pixel.pdf However, if we're going to talk about actual genius, no one even comes close to Eric Veach; he's like the von Neumann of rendering. Fun bit of trivia: after he finished completely revolutionising all of rendering with his PhD thesis[0], he went on to develop a little thing called AdWords. [0] Robust Monte Carlo Metho…
So he is an evil genius.
Edit: I was wrong, read mistrial9 and chubots comments.
I must have watched it 30+ times via my parents’ wheezy old VHS player and would dearly love to see it again but never managed to find it.
Being so enthralled and exhilarated by the magical things they were doing seems like it should have led me into the same industry but I was never clever enough to do so. I still get a thrill when their names come up in articles like this though. Thanks for sharing.
This classic of his taught me much about rendering: http://alvyray.com/Memos/CG/Microsoft/6_pixel.pdf However, if we're going to talk about actual genius, no one even comes close to Eric Veach; he's like the von Neumann of rendering. Fun bit of trivia: after he finished completely revolutionising all of rendering with his PhD thesis[0], he went on to develop a little thing called AdWords. [0] Robust Monte Carlo Metho…
> he went on to develop a little thing called AdWords. So he really is like the von Neumann of rendering! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Nuclear_weapo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Pixar&di...
Thankfully someone else seems to have added him back in and it has stuck now.
It must be approaching 40 years ago now, but I remember watching a BBC TV weekly documentary called Horizon that was all about the fledgling computer graphics industry - I think the episode was called Painting by Numbers. Alvy Ray Smith was interviewed along with other luminaries like Ed Catmull, Loren Carpenter, Jim Blinn & Nelson Max. I must have watched it 30+ times via my parents’ wheezy old VHS player and would…