Last update: October 12, 2026
Time Lines II (the making of)
I hadn't made any new images for several months and felt it was time to get back to creating more box sculptures. (Yeah, I know. Get a life! Who needs more boxes?)
I decided to view these new box sculpture images from "ground-level", to re-capture how those high-rise buildings going up in Vancouver's West End during the 50's & 60's made such a lasting impression on me.
March 2, 2024
I browsed the web looking for inspiration and came up with several images similar to this...
... and started building simple geometry to match the composition.
I didn't like where this was going and decided to start over and build the composition and towers from scratch.
March 3, 2024
Early tests of "full floor" cubes instanced to create the block towers.
A short animated test of the block towers from ground level...
I rebuilt each "full floor" block so it was made from multiple, smaller cubes.
The view from ground level with a texture map of sky and clouds above.
March 5, 2024
More tests of instanced cubes, (with random greys and colors), to create the block towers.
Was thinking some camera angles might even include a view of the "streets" below.
Another ground level test of the towers with a better sky and cloud texture above.
March 8, 2024
Yet more tests of the block towers, but now using the Houdini Solaris "Physical Sky" node for lighting.
Still frame from a "Physical Sky" test animation set to use 34°44'50.1N 135°21'08.1E, (my location in Japan), on March 6 between 4:45am and 7:45pm.
March 11, 2024
Wasn't happy with 2D cloud textures for the sky background, so starting building VDB clouds for volume rendering and better integration with other elements in the scene.
Looking down on a single VDB cloud over the towers.
And, looking up at the single cloud against the physical sky background.
A 300 frame cycle of the source geometry (left) was passed through several VDB nodes in Houdini to generate a single, animated VDB cloud (right).
March 15, 2024
The single cloud was instanced with random translate & scale values, and random offsets into the 300 frame animated cycle.
VDB clouds with physical sky background.
The array of clouds were then animated as a single unit. Eventually the clouds would be divided into 3 separate units, each moving at a slightly different speed.
March 21, 2024
With plans to include night scenes, I downloaded 8k and 16k star maps, in celestial coordinates, from NASA's "Deep Star Maps 2020" site.
Check out the NASA Scientific Visualization Studio
The combination of constellation figures with the star map simplified setting the time, date and location values.
March 22, 2024
Animated test with locked-off camera. The audio, "Industrial Drone", by jovica was downloaded from freesound.org. I love the atmosphere this audio adds to the animation.
Short snippets from several 900 frame animations with simple camera moves.
March 24, 2024
Five 900 frame test animations edited together as a test with John S. Gray's original Time Lines soundtrack. Trying to determine if the animation and music work well together.
Am cautiously optimistic.
March 27, 2024
No progress since March 23rd. Am now planning to redo all the camera moves and rebuild the towers and clouds to generate a 2½ minute video that takes place over 24 hours, rather than the five separate "days" as in the previous test. Many other elements will likely be added.
This project has become much more ambitious than the "few stills" I was planning to make earlier in the month. Not sure how far I'll be going with this, or how long it will take.
August 3, 2024
After a break of several months, I'm finally able to spend time on this project again and have put together a rough, low-res test with John Gray's Time Lines music track and place-holders for most elements.
Have added the updated wireframe animation to the opening, a rotating star field based on specific date and location, and, (troubled by America's continued descent into insanity), multiple bodies falling from the towers.
The motion, lighting, geometry, timing, etc. are still works in progress.
March 22, 2025
Have spent very little time on this project since last August, but had the "brilliant" idea to add several elements to the opening that indicate time, date, and location.
These elements will be used to emphasize the "transition" from Simon Fraser University on December 3rd, 1981 to my studio location in Nishinomiya, Japan on December 3rd, 2026, (45 years later).
New elements:
- A text field listing the current time and date.
- A text field listing the current latitude and longitude location.
- Star field rotation to match time, date, and lat/long locations, (facing North).
- Mountain topography visible from the lat/long locations, (facing North).
To create the mountains, DSM (Digital Surface Model) files of the topography north of SFU in Canada and my studio location in Japan were downloaded from JAXA's ALOS site, (Advanced Land Observing Satellite).
The DSM files were then converted to .bgeo geometry files using Houdini.
April 4, 2025
Shots 2 & 3 falling bodies (stand-ins) test, with colored, trailing "streaks".
Streaks look too much like bungee cords. Will remove them on future versions.
February 18, 2026
Finally back on this project after a break of almost 9 months.
Sometime between March of 2025 and February of 2026 I downloaded eight characters and several motion files from the Mixamo 3D animated character library.
Multiple USD motion paths, (standing, falling, flailing), were edited, blended, and applied to the characters dropping from the towers, along with 32 updated texture maps to create some colorful variety.
"Final" Animation
Below is a low-rez rough-cut of the "final" animation with updated wireframe opening, time/date/location text, star field synced to time/date/location, mountain topography with animated blend, glass planks, falling bodies, and closing credits.
I didn't like it.
For one thing, there's too much unnecessary clutter in the opening shot.
Will remove the star field from the first half of the opening, along with the transforming mountains and animated "time" text.
These were all part of my "brilliant idea to add several elements to the opening that indicate time, date, and location", back in March of 2025.
Removing these elements will leave the wireframe animation over a mostly black background for the opening.
The other thing bothering me is the falling bodies.
They look too cartoon-ish, and too much alike. It's almost impossible to see any difference between the characters, their motion, or their textures.
But more seriously, the falling bodies were always a dark and negative idea, and a response to my feelings of outrage and futility stemming from America's continuing descent into insanity.
In addition, seeing "bodies falling from towers" had the unintended consequence of constantly reminding me of when I was living with my family in Manhattan during the horrors of 9-11.
It was a painful time, and life in the city was never the same after that.
So, the falling bodies are OUT!
August 1, 2026
Shot five of the animation will go from people falling, hitting the ground, and illuminating the towers with their multi-colored inner spirits, (Oooo, sounds deep)...
... to spheres falling, hitting the ground, and illuminating the towers with their multi-colored inner... uh... stuff.
I kind of missed that "inner spirits" concept and tried coming up with something meaningful being released or "seeded" from the spheres.
I experimented with generic male and female shapes, fetuses, strands of DNA, and even various trees emerging from the spheres.
But really, I was just grasping at straws, and in the end I preferred the simplicity of colored light being emitted from the split spheres after they hit the ground.
In early October of 2026, with all the full resolution elements rendered, composited, and edited together, Time Lines II was finally finished.
I never imagined it would take over two and a half years to complete, and I'm happy to finally be done with it.
Go back to "Time Lines" to view the final 2½ minute Time Lines II animation.