Martin Bowman
Martin Bowman has worked in computer graphics for five years. He has a BA (Hons) degree in Imagemaking from West Herts College. During his time there he changed from creating traditional art to creating digital art. He soon discovered that PCs were more fun than pencils, but also less reliable!
His first position was as an architectural visualizer, which taught him never to trust an architect. He has also taught 3D computer graphics at various colleges, a job he enjoyed as nothing is more fun than teaching students who want to learn.
After teaching, he moved into the field of computer games, assuming that making games all day would be much easier than teaching. He worked as an artist on Edgar Torronteras’ Extreme Biker for the PC, as well as Galaga, Destination: Earth for the PlayStation and PC. He was promoted to Lead Artist in 2000 and managed a team of artists in two countries working on the PlayStation2/Xbox/PC game Groove Rider, which is due sometime in 2002. He is now Lead Artist on Lord of the Rings at Pocket Studios for the Nintendo Gameboy Advance Console.
In his small fragments of spare time he is a fanatical photographer with an obsession about Belgian bands, is attempting to learn Dutch, and spends much of his life trying to persuade everyone to eat more chocolate. It’s good for you, you know.
Rob Manton
Rob Manton has spent the last eleven years both creating and teaching computer graphics and new media.
An Engineering degree from the University of Cambridge and a passion for creating images provided a starting point for a career that has encompassed video, multimedia and web development and more recently, computer game design. A career that has spanned the creative disciplines required to design and animate, with scientific and mathematic skills ranging from matrix manipulation to object orientated programming.
When he started work in 1990 producing artwork and animations for corporate video, the equipment required cost as much as a modest flat and would have filled most of the kitchen. In the space of a decade, hardware and software have developed to such an extent that stunning real time 3D computer graphics are now available on the games console in the bedroom of the average teenager. During this period the core of computer graphics theory has remained largely consistent, though the tools used to deliver it have improved beyond belief. This set of core ideas, which provide the key to understanding the significance of developments in the field, are the substance of Rob’s chapter.
Rob is a part time teacher on degree and post graduate courses in digital media production at West Herts College.
Alan Peacock
Alan is a teacher, practitioner and theorist working with interactive media and narrative forms. He has been involved with computers in the art and design field since the early 1980s. He is familiar with a broad range of digital technologies and processes and has a particular interest in the use of sound and the spoken word in interactive artworks.
Recently, his work has been included in exhibitions in the UK and in Germany.
His creative output includes sound installations and constructed interactive objects that use generated and manipulated sounds alongside samples of voices from other sources. These works are often about making sense by forming narratives from apparently random fragments, and the act of listening.
He leads an MA programme in Digital Practice at the University of Hertfordshire, teaching on the Hyperfictions strand and contributing to several undergraduate programmes that include interactive hypermedia in their curriculum.
He says that without Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud his contribution to this book would not have been possible.