Tom finds some time to relax in a hammock

While I do spend much of my time programming, I also enjoy a bunch of other hobbies (strangely, most of them somehow also involve computers…). Read more below:

Graphic design

Over the last few years I’ve become somewhat adept at graphic design. I have no formal training, but (mainly because of my web design/development work) by now I’ve mastered many techniques. I don’t use Photoshop: it’s too expensive. Instead I use GIMP and Inkscape; these seem to be able to do just about anything Photoshop can.

As an example, I did all the graphics for this site (the banner, background, etc.). Another example of my work is below; it’s a logo for a social networking site I’m involved in.

3D Graphics

Another hobby is 3D graphics. I enjoy high-quality 3D games (Nexuiz and others), but I also like tinkering around with various 3D modeling and rendering programs. I’ve taken a few classes which talked about rotation and scaling in 3-space using matrix algebra, but I’d like to learn more.

I’ve been experimenting with various 3D packages since high school. I started on an animation suite called RayDream Studio. Eventually I upgraded to Eovia’s Carrara 3D Studio. It’s not cheap, but well worth it. I still use it today. In college (mostly during summers) I’ve learned a bit about K3D, an open-source modeler, and POV-Ray, an open-source renderer.

Maybe someday I’ll have time to learn more about 3D graphics, OpenGL, etc. See below for some images I’ve made over the years.

One of my first projects with Carrara 3D Studio: a bunch of roses. This was done on an older computer, so it took forever to render.

Another project in Carrara Studio, ducks landing in formation on a lake. The duck models I actually ripped from a content CD, but the land mass was hand-made and all the land/water shaders were tweaked for hours.

A representation of Christ's crown of thorns, made with Carrara Studio. Background is simply a bump map of gravel/stones, the nails are relatively simple models. The crown took a while to get right, as did positioning of the letters on the sign.

A V8 engine's pistons and crank shaft. Made for Randy Hessel of UW's ERC with Carrara Studio as part of an engine model that was published in EnSight's 2007 yearly calendar.

The previous image with added combustion renderings as generated by EnSight

Finally, you can see an animated image of combustion [800KB] in the piston cylinder of an engine: models created with EnSight, rendered in POV-Ray. This was part of a project with Randy Hessel.

Music

I love music, pretty much anything except grunge. I guess my favorites are electronic/techno, pop, alternative, smooth jazz, christian R&B/reggae. Probably in that order. iTunes radio is great because it has all of these…

Over the years I’ve done quite a bit of sound engineering, composing, recording, and post processing. A lot of the recording I’ve done was for my rock band (Oremus), and I learned post-processing at a summer volunteer job for a local Madison radio station, Relevant Radio, 1240AM. More recently, I’ve been recording, editing, and posting sermons at my church on a web app I developed.

Some sound editing software pakages I have experience with:

• Audacity, my #1 favorite, an open-source project comparable to SoundForge and CoolEdit, but FREE!
• Adobe’s CoolEdit, a sound editing program similar to SoundForge (often used in recording studios).
• Ardour, a highly technichal sound program mainly for real-time digital sound effect generation. Requires significant knowledge of Linux, you may find yourself tweaking the Linux kernel for lower latency. If this sounds scary maybe you shouldn’t try it.

You can listen to the Solid State Symphony, a techno piece I’ve composed, below:

• Solid State Symphony – Overture
  
• Solid State Symphony – Movement 1
  
• Solid State Symphony – Movement 2
  
• Solid State Symphony – Movement 3
  

Other

I guess my other hobbies include reading (I prefer non-fiction and classics), swimming, biking, basketball, footbag, and building domino towers (see video below). I used to be into bird watching and stamp collecting, but I haven’t done these in years.

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