49(^) I also took a week-long photography course, in which I was
introduced to Adobe Photoshop, and the awesome world of
image manipulation, which I loved!
DAL: Yes, it’s difficult to imagine now, that layers in Photoshop
only arrived about 20 years ago — circa 1996, I think it was, in
Photoshop 3.x. Were there any other influences?
Vioxtar: Oh yes, I’ve been playing videogames all my life – so,
eventually those two hobbies became one, and I found creative
outlets in 3D graphics, through the games I loved.
DAL: Great. And you use Garry’s Mod to make your pictures.
Could you explain what that is, for readers who are unfamiliar
with it, please?
Vioxtar: Sure! At its core, Garry’s Mod is ‘a game to fool around
in’, with no defined objective. In it, with a press of a button, you
can spawn anything; boxes, cars, explosive barrels, zombies,
animals, weapons. Everything is physics based, and everything
is free. You’re also given tools to mess around with the things
you spawn, such as welders, thrusters, and motorized wheels.
Beyond constructing a base and fighting off waves of enemies,
or building a catapult that launches you to oblivion, you can also
get more ‘visually’ creative: with the camera and the lamp tool,
you can set up any scene to your liking and take a picture as a
screenshot.
DAL: Right, so it’s all in real-time, running on a game-engine.
Vioxtar: Yes. So that’s Garry’s Mod, or at least, just the default
‘Sandbox’ gamemode. Garry’s Mod is first-most a modding
game, and is fuelled by a large community of developers who
create many other gamemodes, scripts, and assets which
anyone else can download and play with. It’s what makes
Garry’s Mod an endless experience.
DAL: Super. And how does it differ from the forthcoming
Sandbox (S&box) for the Unreal Engine? Which some are calling
Garry’s Mod 2?
Vioxtar: S&box is meant to be the technological successor of
Garry’s Mod, it’s currently in development by Facepunch
Studios, which also created Garry’s Mod. The thing is, Garry’s
Mod is based on the — now quite old —Source Engine. That’s
the same game engine which powered the popular Half-Life 2
game, ‘back in the day’. Even though it’s quite capable, it is
significantly outmatched by today’s modern game engines. To
keep things going smoothly, looking into the future for both
developers and players alike, Facepunch has set a course that
will give their promising game a technological face-lift. So... it’s
the same game concept, only more graphics, more performance,
and more everything, really!
DAL: We’ll look forward to that. Picture makers could always do
with more genuine WYSIWYG real-time 3D rendering choices.