Check out what might be a new machine from SGI:

DreamWeaver WebSite Template sites

Povray Raytracer Home

Povray as a benchmark

The GIMP - Unix Photoshop clone

KAI's Power Tips -> The GIMP

The Gnome Project & Tools

Since junior high I've been into art and design. I've worked with pencils, chalk, paints and ink. Taking an image from your mind's eye and bringing it to life on paper has always been alot of fun and alot of work. In 1983-84 I was introduced to an Apple Plus and basic programming. I was really getting into computer graphics and animations, rudely created with basic programs. Then I lost access to the Apple but in 1986 I started working with an IBM PC compatible and a program called Dr. Halo. This was my first experience with a real graphics program. But it took so long to create things since I had to use a keyboard to draw with. I had seen Macintoshs of course and tried them for awhile at the university but I couldn't afford one. Who could afford them back then, not me. I worked with Dr. Halo for a short time but finally lost interest and went on to learn more about programming and operating systems. As computers have gotten better and more affordable I've gotten back into graphics and animation. Above are a few things I've worked on recently. I'm still learning to use these new tools and there are alot of tools now.

The last couple of years I've been playing with raytracing and animation. One program in particular that I've really come to like is called Povray (Persistence Of Vision Raytracer). Another program is Raydream Designer and Studio.

Povray is by far my favorite program. It is available for Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Linux, MAC OS (68000 and Power PC) and probably all unix's and even DOS! So far I've compiled it for IBM's AIX, Sun's System V R 4.0, and Digital Unix. The fact that it runs on so many different OS's is what makes it invaluable to me. I've created some animations consisting of more then 400 frames at 640x480. To render all these on one of my 486's at home would have taken more then a year for sure. Well maybe not a year but a heck of a long time. But using the machines at work my first one took a week to completely render on vision.nodak.edu and my second animation took only 20 hours on grassland.nodak.edu which has dual 233 MHZ Alpha processors in it. Of course my version of povray only uses one of those processors.

Raydream Studio is a modeler and raytracer for Mac and Windows machines. It has built in animation also. It's alot of fun to use and sometimes I create objects in it to be used in Povray. But to use it to create very long animations would require alot more horse power then I have at home. Above you'll find other links to sights dealing with graphics and animation, check them out, there's something for everyone.

Eventually I plan on putting links to some scaled down versions of my animations. This page is on a new web server that has more space available to be used for large files. My animations are in FLC format for output to TV but the scaled down ones will be FLI and zipped up. Look for them after the beginning of 97 sometime. (Well 97 has come and gone and I've still to find the time to re-create my two animations to a suitable size, I must be experiencing a Y2K problem, the date above will probably be 2097 at this rate).

Thanks for visiting!!!! ---

Clark W. Coffman

Below find a link to an excellant site for backgrounds for Web pages or just for your computer screen.

Sick Kitten's CatHouse (Great Backgrounds Selection and a very cool site)

Ace of Space no longer has free backgrounds but they do sell
a nice set of graphics for web designers and are now a Web Design and Hosting
company. Nice web site if you are looking for hosting or design help.