Summer 1993. Jurassic Park is about to be unleashed in theatres. Meanwhile, at the Rice School of Architecture in Houston, Texas, a young student named Chris Nichols is learning how to use AutoCAD, 3dstudio v2, and Wavefront. Overseeing Chris is Shisha van Horn, a paleontologist turned architecture student, then lecturer.
Chris and Shisha are reunited for this trip down memory lane. Shisha talks about how she set up the school’s first computer network, and cajoled Chris into creating 3dstudio online manuals using nothing more than notepad and HTML tags.
It’s a reminder of how much has changed. Most of Chris’ portfolio from the time now fits on a single SD card, but in 1993 it would have filled a hard drive. The arch viz industry didn’t exist. The department used a dye-sublimation printer which cost $6,300, Gopher and Mosaic were the only ways to look at web content, and Chris even built his own render farms so he could get his thesis done in time.
It’s also testament to the talent and energy Chris brought to the university, then the architecture and VFX industries, and now to Chaos Group. And it’s nice to hear from Shisha, who was an instrumental and influential part of Chris’ life and career.
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