Charles Machin - bio
Hi I'm Charles and I have been Encouraged to write about myself... Shudder the thought! But here we go! (Thanks Cat!)
I guess you could call me a technical art programmer. I've spent the last 22 years working in visual effects, modelling, rendering, game design and even a 2 year stint as a lead coder. I currently work as a developer on a VR medical training platform for Oxford Medical Simulation in London, an innovative company with lofty goals with life saving medical training.
So... I first became fascinated from a young age (13-14) after seeing an image in a magazine of a vase. Cathrin my sister will remember this, she was very young at the time and this was one of the first 3d rendered images I'd seen at all. By today's standards nothing special, but to me... back then. It was a marvel. Simulated light, shadows, reflections. It was mysterious, beautiful and I just had to know how it worked! So I did.
I convinced someone to help me get a "math-coprocessor" vital to run anything in that era. This was, pre-windows pre internet, super early PC days. It took a lot but I eventually had a setup and I fell in love with computer graphics, 3d art, raytracing, coding, all of it, I couldn't get enough! I'd sit in a field somewhere summoning ideas for new effects then go about making them sometimes taking months. I did this for years.
Then starting work at a studio at 19. Wow! What an amazing experience that was! The transition from working by myself, to working with a team of 3d art and code ninja warriors. Was literally the best thing ever! I'd found my tribe! This was a company called Charybdis located in a scenic countryside area on the border of Nottingham and it'll always hold a special place in my heart. With the guidance of Mark Hardisty, the wonderful colour blind lead Artist at that studio, I was put on a great career path.
I worked on many games in the coming years, Warhammer Online for 4 years and even spent about 7 years designing and building many games and interactive features for the PlayStation Home platform. Sodium one and Sodium two were my babies!... Probably nobody will have heard of them but I still love them both! And it was sad to see the PlayStation home platform taken down like it was and it haunts me that those games can never be played again.
Anyway.. where was I. Ah yeah, working in games studios can be a great learning experience and it's fun doing things that you're passionate about with a team of skilled engineers and artists. It really is the best and when you're working from that place, it's not work at all. Just another day of fun creative expression.
A lot of my time in the industry was spent developing visual effects, all kinds of them. From water features to fire demons and so much gore!.. Everyone wants gore! it's unbelievable!.. I'm trying to be subtle and craft everything then "up the gore by 50% Charles!" (I'm rolling my eyes) this happens, literally all the time!
Some of my more recent work can be found in Warhammer Regicide, a bloodless game of peace... and another game that's close to my heart because the team I worked with and that my sister (Cathrin Machin, another contemporary artist) was leading the art team in Australia. All while our team in England was providing the coding muscle and I was doing the visual effects.
When it comes to generative art I'm fascinated and thrilled by the possibilities here and I'll be using my long earned 3d, geometric, math, interaction and art skills to drive this space forward into new possibilities and bringing forth some of the art I have to express.
Some of the exciting things I have on my horizon. I love the sun, its rays... the flares and magnetic fields. I have several pieces already started on this theme to explore the patterns in the sun. Then also I find female form art beautiful and I have a generative study that I'm also working on for that too.
Also another exciting slightly different generative project I'm involved with is a collaboration with my sister in making a very large galactic chandelier using data from an ESA satellite.
I'm excited to be sharing my art again, thank you for reading!