Pulling off tricks such as global illumination or
ground tessellation is a headache, although
admittedly rewarding. With the future in mind,
I’d look for more up-to-date alternatives.
DAL: Thanks, that advice will be very useful for
some of our readers I’m sure. Now, let’s turn to
your pictures. You've had much acclaim for your
“Server Dust” series of pictures. Could you
explain to our readers what this is, please?
Vioxtar: Yes. The Server Dust universe is
encapsulated in its entirety within a single server
box left to gather dust. Instead of simulating an
online game server, it simulates an entire living,
breathing world.
This world of Server Dust is roamed by Players
equipped with unprecedented power — that of
the Toolgun. The Toolgun is armed with raw
functionality, and serves as a weapon as much
as a tool. It is able to materialize matter from
thin air with a pull of the trigger, and despawn it
with another. It deforms, warps, manipulates,
and creates. The Toolgun bridges one's
imagination to the physical world. It has the
power to make an idea into reality — so much as
to make reality, into an idea.
This world is covered with remnants, ruins
affected by the liquidating force of the gun. Parts
of this world may reach the form of pure
abstraction, while others remain untouched.
This world is also spanned by huge masses of
land, with relatively little population to make use
of it all. While the world is mostly bare of
wanderers, it is permeated by the remnants of
the creations of its visitors — products of
unregulated minds, senseless imaginations.
Products of limitless construction, reproductions
of the mind, ideas materialized with no
boundaries. Huge super-structures that scrape
the sky, constructs that connect mountains, and
bridges that span across the oceans.
Like ageing toys, these structures serve no
functional purpose and with time lose the
attention of their creators. They are
consequently replaced by new ones, and with
the seasons they decay, eternally unmanned.
DAL: Right, and you shows us that world.
Vioxtar: Yes, the Server Dust series is a
collection of ‘captures’ from that universe, which
is my reinterpretation of the Garry’s Mod
Sandbox experience. It’s an exaggerated,
cinematic version of what would be a Sandbox
game world, simulated entirely on some old
abandoned server machine left to dust.
This world is roamed by living human ‘Players’,
able to materialize objects out of thin air, and
build any construction they desire. Such a
universe is the perfect canvas for the ideas I
want to explore. From it, I constantly try to
extract that same sense of wonder I experienced
as a kid every time I launched Garry’s Mod.
DAL: Great. And you hope to also develop a
comic or wider story around this scenario? Or
perhaps a ‘storytelling artbook’ — have you see
what was done recently with the book Above the
Timberline?
Vioxtar: Yes! I feel as if a story telling artbook is
the direction I’ve been subconsciously heading
for this whole time. It’s probably one of the most
heart-warming ways of building worlds and
bringing life to them.
I envy others with the power to realize their
ideas like that. There’s some good distance
between what I do and a storytelling artbook
though — I never had a well defined story that
lived in the scope of several of my pictures.
Maybe one day!
DAL: Who else should our readers be looking at,
to see the best of the still pictures that are being
made with Garry’s Mod? From your ‘Favorites’
on DeviantArt I picked out Redm4ki,
Scotchlover, and TheNebeskyMuz to 'Watch', for
instance.
Vioxtar: The immediate name that comes to
mind is Crazy Knife. He’s a great person, and
crazy talented. He also managed to extend the
reach of Garry’s Mod artwork even further by
creating his own models and incorporating them
into his scenes. Other notable names are
Joazzz, Olmate Ubafest, and NOGA14.
DAL: Thanks. If some new to it did take to
Garry’s Mod, how much time would you say an
artist would have to spend with G’Mod, to be