About, what?

Okay, you see I have an ‘about page’ and you actually clicked it? Wow! So, I guess I should put something here so as to satisfy your curiosity.

My name is Thomas and I am a Trek / Sci-Fi CG modeling nerd. A long time ago, in another life (but this galaxy), I was a Star Wars nerd. I really got interested in CG modeling as a result of work. I was once a storage engineer (disk drives, solid state storage, etc.) for a now defunct (Quantum) storage manufacturer.

Now I’m a web geek for a large web retailer in the Seattle area (no, not that one).

At Quantum, I was in their commercial (consumer) division and helped spec in products for small OEM’s and distributors. A perk was we tested drive features with software that put demands on disk drives. We used to get our hands on all kinds of fun stuff but one day we got a call from NewTek that wanted to certify drives for their video toasters. We swapped drives for software – they tested us and we figured out how to optimize for them. I got to play with Lightwave as my first video program. Later we tested TrueSpace, Blender and Autodesk 3D Studio. Of all of them I personally got hooked on Autodesk.

Babylon 5 was a big inspiration for me to actually start modeling Sci-Fi stuff. I was a big plastic scale modeler as well but have long since given that up (computer models are cheap after the software investment).

After I left Quantum I used my ‘evaluation’ copy until technology, skills, and desire to do more made me consider upgrading. Oh the sorrow to find out how much this crap really costs! So I’ve upgraded twice, from 3D Studio to Max version 3 and then 3D Max version 4.2. I just cannot justify the latest versions as I am just a hobbyist. I have old copies of other tools but never really do anything with them. Too many interface approaches to keep track of. Of the various ‘free’ tools out there I really like Wings 3D which I do a lot of modeling in as well.

Well I hope that did the trick! Thanks for taking the time to read this, really 😀