Mr. Phillip-Interview
By KarinBR for CVN
[Thank you, Mr. Phillip once more for giving us this opportunity to chat and read. We can well imagine how busy your agenda is! KarinBR was certainly very eager to ask you a lot of things! :-) CVN thanks both participants KarinBR and Mr. Phillip for this excellent informative interview. Editing has been kept to a minimum- MrPhillip is a delightful gentleman, and an old friend who does many awesome projects in and around our fair city
~~.jdb_educator, Managing Editor, CVN]
City Architect MrPhillip has been around Cybertown a long time. Our Cybertown "Citizen's List" database shows the following for his current activity:
City Architect, Cybertown World Builder, Cybertown Templar, Cybertown Elder, Cybertown Suburbs Chief, Suburbs Wizard, Cybertown Club Assistant: WBG Storage Club, Owner Builder's Guild
CVN: When did you join Cybertown?
Saturday, June 27 1998. Although I was exposed to VRML much earlier, sometime in 1996. I used tutorials at Netscape and their plug-in called 3DLive to view my first world. I made it on UNIX with a text editor called vi, one bracket at a time. I still have a copy of that humble structure... http://philliphansel.com/shrine.wrl In the beginning, VRML was static and viewed by one person alone. When I discovered blaxxun's community server in 97 and VRML97 added animations I knew I was hooked. It was during interactions with others in PointWorlds that I learned about Colony City, (CoCi, we called it), so I really joined CoCi and the name was changed to Cybertown about a year or so later.
CVN : What was your first work there?
The first thing I had loaded to ColonyCity was my Haunted Castle, it was loaded to the Fun Park in time for Halloween (Oct 98). This demand for citizen participation evolved into the concept of the Suburbs. Clean was able to carve out some disk space and a secure ftp folder for us to load our own creations to. I was elated to have a much larger audience view my work than would have happened if I did this on my own. He was also gracious enough to lend his own personal web space to several of the early builders, from this address the World Builder's Guild grew into the organization that it is today.
CVN: How did you become a world builder?
http://philliphansel.com/buildersguild/01_02_99_chatlog.htm
This meeting has both my WB title and my appointment as City Architect. It is funny as I was away from the keyboard when it actually happened.
CVN: Which one of your works is more special to you?
lol, my latest one is always the most special for me.
http://philliphansel.com/gallery/coffin.wrl
This is what I worked on for several hours today. I am also working on collaboration with GORTz called PointWorld RaceTrack.
CVN: Do you still create avatars?
Yes, and I do enjoy it. Although I occasional take requests, I prefer to work on whatever suits my fancy or avatars that fit the theme of a particular project I am working on. I am making racecar avatars for the track project presently.
How many do you think you did until now? I don't think I can count that high, over 200 is a guess.
CVN: Your avatar site is terribly impressive!
Thank you. I have done considerable work on it, but always feel that I could do more. It has been an enjoyable learning experience.
CVN: How do you get inspiration to create such diversified things?
The odd thing is that I draw most of my stuff from daily life. I saw this wonderful Van Bickle vase on the Antiques Road Show, and I liked the form. So I made one.
http://philliphansel.com/gallery/van_brickle_vase.wrl
I saw these Calla Lilies as paper flowers in a Guatemalan Imports shop near where I work, so I made them...
http://philliphansel.com/gallery/calla_lilly.wrl
Oddly enough, I studied the fine craftsmanship on my mother-in-laws casket, and thought that I could model one of those (see above). So, I guess you could say that my inspiration does not come from very far away .
CVN: When you started to build your worlds, did you ever think that Cybertown would become so huge?
Back in the days when this all started, we had what was called a "pile-in". A real stress test of the system where we would get everyone we know to go to a particular world. I think we got up to 43 or 48 folks. These days if you go to Cybertown, there are typically 500 or more folks there in the different places. It used to be that you could hang out in the Plaza and see the same folks almost every night, get to know the names, their personalities, and their stories. The chat was generated slow enough that you could read and respond to individuals. Now, it seems like there is a whole different crowd there each time I go, and the chat is so fast paced that it is difficult to follow, much less make a specific remark about someone's comment. This is a good thing however, as it causes folks to branch out into other venues and see more of CT.
The Suburbs started out with me hounding Clean to up-load my simple Haunted Castle, and now we have over 68 high quality worlds built by creators from around the globe. Hundreds more have been submitted, and generally the Guild provides tips, hints, and feedback, on how to make them even better places to visit. Sadly, we can't accept them all, so some filtering process needs to take place.
CVN: What are you working in, now?
As mentioned above, I am collaborating with GORTz on the PointWorld RaceTrack. It is a work in progress, but can be accessed here...
http://philliphansel.com/suburbs/pointworld_racetrack/
I am also working on some annotated models for the humanoid animation working group. This will help people to use standard names for their avatar parts and joints, so that animations are interchangeable from one avatar to the next.
http://philliphansel.com/avatars/hanim/loa1_annotated.wrl
The next step in this project is to label the "segments" or parts (e.g. l_thigh, l_calf, etc...). So much to build, so little time!
CVN: Do you have a project in your head, a particular one you want to develop?
I would like to take another try at modeling my real life house again. I did one early on, but was not too happy with it, and I have learned a lot since then so I feel that I could make a much more convincing model of it now.
Another project might be to go back and make any of a dozen worlds that I have made better using newly learned techniques. I guess that as an artiste' I never feel satisfied with my work but usually publish it anyway just so I can move on to some other burning project.
But, to answer your question, I have not the faintest idea of what I will be inspired to build next (and that is fine with me, I am obsessive, but spontaneous). Oh, I do have photos I took of two unique buildings in New Orleans that I plan on building one of these days. I also want to work on smoother animations and a few more trick for my virtual juggler. Juggling is another passion of mine, and doing it in VRML is a natural choice.
http://members.cox.net/nojugglers/
CVN: How many hours you spend at your computer, usually?
Too many, lol again. Since I worked as a geologic applications support analyst, I would spend 9 hours a day dealing with computers, training earth scientists and technicians, resolving issues with how to use the applications, and how to get data into the applications, and resolve issues that would arise that would keep them from working. Then I would go home and log on and spend 4 or 5 hours with World Builder's Guild issues (dispensing advice and understanding), and then a little time working on my latest project. This is in addition to being a contributing member of the Spazz3D egroup, reading and responding to issues on the comp.lang.vrml newsgroup, reading the www-vrml mailing list, and trying to learn the next generation of VRML, X3D.
To answer the question, 13 to 15 hours a day. Oh yes, every now and then I stop in and just chat with folks too.
CVN: How do you choose the colors, the shades, and the details?
Another good question. Again, I typically try to draw on reality. I have a preference for strong primary colors, and I generally try to match the underlying material color with whatever texture I apply to it. In fact, I prefer to avoid textures when a carefully crafted color will do. Again, it is like the artist mixing up an infinite variety of paint colors from a set palette, you add a little of this and a little of that until you have something that you feel conveys the mood for the object you are trying to create. It is easy to experiment if you have tools that allow you to easily try something and see if it fits, or easily allow you to change your mind if it doesn't.
CVN: What was your intention, creating the Chapel? It is a rather inspiring place. Many people go there just to be alone and think (I do).
Wow, I am glad that you like it. That structure has a more interesting history that most. It started out as a simple model of a Church that I frequently drive by, a modest one-room affair. Later, it changed in to something that more closely resembles a painting of an Acadian Church that hung on the wall of my psychiatrist's office. As I was sitting in the waiting room, I would sketch the painting and note the other details, and eventually I built that model.
It started out with a simple stucco texture, but as Universal Media ( http://www.web3d.org/WorkingGroups/media/ ) came out, there was a "world re-texturing" contest that the group sponsored so I re-did the Church with Universal Media textures and won a book (Core Wed3D by Aaron Walsh) and a graphics card as the result. The 1st VRML church was shown as a part of the Universal Media demo at Siggraph 2000.
Another interesting aspect of the Church is that I wanted it to be non-denominational, so I avoided the typical iconography of western religion. Since Churches are about symbology, I chose our holy items: the Cone, the Cube, and the Sphere. These are the graphics primitives that are the cornerstone of our "faith". Since the CT citizens are from around the globe, I did not feel that I should impose a bias, and I felt that any faith is better than none at all; all are welcome if you just believe.
I have conducted several weddings there, and officiated at one funeral. This lends credence to the actual societal aspects of Cybertown, it is much more that a simple chatroom; it brings up the serious aspects of our virtual lives, our community.
CVN: Please, talk a little about the Cybertown you know, the fascinating and magic place where everything can happen and you are the magician who make them happen!
The Cybertown that I know is composed of the hopes, dreams, prayers, and sweat of many, many people. First of all, we would not be here if Tim Berners-Lee had not got frustrated trying to share information with his colleagues. Marc Andreson thesis was Mosaic. After graduation he created Netscape. The folks at SGI who turned their vision into an International specification for 3D on the Internet. Holger Grahn who created GLview which evolved into Contact, and Bob Rockwell, who turned Holger's talents into a full fledged business venture (blaxxun Interactive), and Tony (Hawk) who had the idea of using the software to start a real community, and Chris Raymond (Clean) whose coding skills and knowledge of the language is an inspiration to all... And Keith Victor who wrote the easiest to use, cheapest, and most comprehensive, VRML authoring tool that I know of...These are the giants on whose shoulders I stand.
I, humbly, was in the right place at the right time to take an active role in this synthesis of a community that was the product of these people's (and many, many others) vision. I feel that my main role was in growing the World Builder's Guild into an active group for information sharing among like-minded individuals. Another important facet of my role in Cybertown has been the Chief of the Suburbs and therefore in charge of the task of evaluating and gathering the dozens of excellent contributions that Cybertown has been good enough to host for us there.
Since I am a "user support guy" in real life, it was easy for me to carry over those mentoring, teaching, and documenting skills, and apply it to growing the skills of the Guild and a multitude of other builders. This has been my contribution to CT, and I am glad to have had the opportunity to give it.
Mr. Phillip, you are a delightful person. I am happy and greatly honored in making your acquaintance. I expect to see more and more wonders created by your magical fingers and brilliant intellect. My gratitude and a hug! Thank you! :-) -KarinBR
Thank you for your kind words, and for taking the time to formulate thought provoking questions.
PS, I am working on a longer story of "how I got to CT", but it is only about half way finished, and it has a lot to do with my computer experience in general that lead up to my interest in 3D. I will mail you a copy when I get done, if ever. (I am notorious for switching projects before I ever get them done).