renderings

This site was designed and rendered in Specular/MetaCreations Infini-D 3.5 and Infini-D 4.5 (we're just getting started with the new upgrade, but there is probably just as much to recommend about 4.5 as its predecessor). The computers are a Macintosh PowerBook 3400c named Big Kip with 48 MB of RAM (the successor to the Macintosh Powerbook Duo 2300c named Kip with a humble 24 MB of RAM) and Christopher Robin, a PowerMac 7100 with a G3 accelerator. Textures and wall frescoes were created in Adobe Photoshop (with one or two textures created using Specular's TextureScape) and are reproductions of patterns and paintings discovered in Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the city of Rome.

The programmer and graphic designer of things 3D and 2D has worked in CD-ROM programming, web and web-game design, and children's book publishing; the writer and researcher is known to have delusions of being a retired Roman legionnaire but is otherwise mysterious and taciturn.

The actual work of getting the first two segments created, rendered, and online took a couple of weeks, but we've been mulling over blueprints and storylines for about a year and a half, thinking about this house in particular for about three years, and obsessing over ancient Rome since birth. Expanding the city to the limits of what is known archaeologically and adding layers of detail is an ongoing process. We'll clean up our mistakes behind us as we go. . . .

Many thanks to Robin for putting up with prolonged bouts of wailing and screaming at the computer in the middle of the night and for providing the tamales.

Back to the city gates

C. Burrell / C. Scavella / June 1997