3DKiwi

I've been into computers since buying a Sinclair ZX Spectrum with the colossal memory of 48kb in 1982 (still got it and it still works). Games had to be loaded from a cassette recorder and took up to 5 minutes to load. Boy they used pack a lot in those 48kb!! Remember Jet Set Willy or the Ultimate games like Jetpac and Knight Lore? Anyway an Amiga 500 followed a few years later. On both the Spectrum and Amiga I used to type in Basic and machine code programs from magazines and learnt Basic programming. My first PC was a 386SX 25mhz and running Windows 3.0. Since then I've upgraded a few times and in recent years I've built my own PC's from parts. Before getting into 3D graphics I did quite a bit of Delphi programming and wrote a number of Solitaire card games for PC's. You can download these from the downloads section here.

I've been using C4D since December 2003 when I picked up a magazine with the free CE6 version on the cover. I was mighty impressed with it. At the same time I had entered an animation competition at 3DCommune to win Cinema 4D or a copy of Bodypaint. Well I didn't win but came in runner up with my midi driven animation. This scored me a copy of BodyPaint 2. However I was so impressed with CE6, MAXON kindly agreed to swap BodyPaint for C4D 8.5. In May 2004 I bought the 8.5 XL bundle as I wanted the modules. A few days before Christmas 2004, MAXON kindly provided me with a Release 9 Studio Bundle so that I could review it and produce tutorials. In 2007 I was invited to join the Beta testing team by MAXON.

My background in 3D is first Bryce 2 and 4 from about 1998 onwards then more recently trueSpace 5 and 6.6. I was a Beta tester for trueSpace for about 18 months. I'm really into animating machines and gadgets and I've been fortunate to win the Caligari monthly animation competition a few times. In 2003 I was blown away by the excellent midi driven animation by Animusic that I wanted to do the same thing. So far I've been able to come up with a prototype Visual C++ plugin for trueSpace to convert midi data into driving the animation and I'm looking forward to doing bigger and better in C4D with its more advanced animation tools. This is how I met up with another 3D artist and coder Crew Reynolds who had similar interests in midi music to drive animations.

The idea to begin C4D Cafe came after Crew and I were talking about how there wasn't a site that catered for Cinema 4D animators. Jokingly, we tossed around the idea of starting our own site. This soon turned into a plan to put a site together. It was never really my intention to get into the tutorials but the more I've been doing them, the more I've learnt about Cinema 4D and Bodypaint and now I really enjoy making them. In 2007 Crew stepped down from the day to day running and ownership of the Cafe. I took over as sole owner.

Update 2015: I have now sold the Cafe. I am now using Modo as my main modelling application. I've given up on waiting for MAXON to upgrade parts of C4D that I want to see upgraded. I also want to spend more time cycling.

I had an interesting youth and went to school and was friends with LOTR director Peter Jackson for quite a few years until we parted our ways as teenagers. Both of us were into model making, toy soldiers and going to the movies a lot. From going to see the James Bond movies with Peter, I developed an interest in collecting James Bond memorabilia and now I have quite an extensive collection.

When I'm not glued to my PC I'm a full time Photographer doing School and School Sports team photos. In 2019 following the retirement of the manager I reported to for the last 17 years I've now taken over his responsibilities for the bottom half of the North Island of New Zealand but I'm not photographing as much these days. Previously I had been a Department Store Manager for Farmers Trading Co. I'm into road cycling and I'm a member of my local road cycling club and compete in Age Group Time Trials at a National level. I also ride my mountain bike occasionally.

I live in Feilding New Zealand. Married to Janet with an adult son and daughter.