Cynthia Decker

55 Items in gallery

The images in this gallery are not photographs, nor did they begin as photographs. They are 2-dimensional still images that have been rendered from 3-dimensional digital environments that I created. The places and ideas depicted in my gallery exist only in my imagination, and hopefully now, in yours as well. he art of 3D rendering incorporates various traditional artistic techniques, but relies on pixels instead of paint, the computer mouse or a digitizing tablet instead of a brush, and digital geometry instead of clay. In my case, I almost always start with a sketch, where I nail down the composition and get a general idea of the color palette and texture needs. The next step involves using computer programs that allow the artist to create digital wireframe objects. The wireframes are created with points or curves, defined by geometry in 3D space. The objects include everything and anything you see when you look at these images —clouds, flowers, mountains, trees, people, animals—everything begins with a digital wireframe. Once completed, the wireframe objects are then wrapped or filled with color and texture created specifically for that object. The software allows the artist to specify exactly how and where the texture is applied to each object in a scene. Think of it as high tech papier-mâché. Once the individual objects that will be used in a rendered scene are created and assembled, the artist uses the software program to reach in and re-size, rotate, and move each object into position to create an environment; something like an infinite diorama. In the final step, the scene is rendered - The computer creates a high-resolution 2D image (essentially a snapshot) of the finished 3D environment. This final step is an intensive one for even a fast computer; Some of the images you see here in the gallery have taken days to render at a high enough resolution to print, and I have multiple CPUs at my disposal.