editorial: 1 year of visual magic magazine

Wow! It's been a whole year since the first issue of Visual Magic Magazine went online in a small corner of cyberspace. In a mere 12 months of existence we've gone through around 100 articles contributed by over 50 individual authors. We've reviewed over 20 individual products and written about 10 different feature films. In just 365 busy days we've gone through 3 different URL's and around 5 major design changes. Content has improved as has quality - we're quite proud of how far we've come in the last eight thousand seven hundred and sixty hours, quite proud indeed. Allow me tell you a little about how we got where we are today…

a radical idea
Back in May `97, I came up with a crazy idea. I was in the process of learning HTML, and when pondering as to what sort of site to create I decided that a site devoted to visual effects would be right up my street. After some thought, I settled on the idea of creating an online magazine, which would cover every aspect of visual effects - live through digital. I wrote to a few people who I thought might be able to help me out, and by July 1997 we were ready to rock.

The first issue of Visual Magic Magazine (called Visual Magic at the time) contained only around 6 articles, and was hosted on a free homepage provider. The articles came from Todd Vaziri (the producer of the VFX HQ), Caesar Dacol Jr. (president of Toronto-based animatronics company), Brain K. Drescher (director of 3D4Color - an Amsterdam-based 3D company), Jonathon Billingsley (a PhotoShop expert), and myself. The HTML and graphics design was basic, to say the least!

big changes
After another month I decided that the magazine needed a makeover. I redesigned the site, another issue was produced, and interest in Visual Magic was growing. An UK magazine called Internet World wrote an article on the magazine - things were looking up.

As things got better and better, I decided that we needed to create a more professional look. We acquired the domain visualmagic.co.uk and a company called Engram Digital [www.engramdigital.com] kindly agreed to host our site for free. I also redesigned the site once again to create a much more professional look and feel.

In November 1997 a company called Animation World Network approached me asking if we would like to join them, if we would like to become a part of their huge network of animation related sites. After some consideration, Visual Magic Magazine went through another dramatic change - which brings us to the current day. Since February 1998 Visual Magic Magazine has been a part of the Animation World Network, and has continued to grow in popularity, size, and quality.

After the move to AWN, I decided that the scope of our coverage was so wide we were having difficulty producing articles of high-quality relating to both live and digital effects. Since digital effects is what I love most, I decided, after a lot of consideration, that it would be in the best interests of the magazine to drop all coverage of live special effects. We were trying to cover too many areas of a huge industry that continued to grow on a daily basis. Strange that this unfortunate event in our history seemed to change it for the better.

new faces
Over the last 12 months Visual Magic Magazine has welcomed some new faces. Obviously a site this size would be difficult, almost impossible to create, maintain, and regularly update single handedly. It is very much a team effort, and our team contains different people each month - we never know who we can expect work from next.

But amongst the people who come and go, the Visual Magic Magazine team is run and coordinated by three people who never seem to go anywhere but beyond the call of duty.

Chris Lambright came to Visual Magic Magazine late in '97 with some impressive and powerful graphics which would turn the publication into the visually beautiful web site it is today. Still to this date Chris creates all of Visual Magic's graphics, everything from the logo on our front page to the gray navigation bar at the top of each article, everything from the promotional banners to the example images used in our virtual galleries. As well as this, Chris takes an active role in decision-making and is always prepared to try something-new (look out for his up-and-coming review of Auto F/X). Chris is the guy who puts the magic into Visual Magic Magazine.

In January 1998 Linda Ewing joined with us to help with proofreading. Linda ended up playing an important role in decision-making processes, as well as dealing with many editorial issues and contributing articles to the magazine. Many of our most informative articles come courtesy of Linda and her contacts, articles such as our series on QuickTime Virtual Reality, and many tutorials and reviews focusing on and around products like Bryce and Strata StudioPro. Without Linda, Visual Magic Magazine would certainly not contain the high-quality articles and tutorials that it does today.

Personally, I take care of the publishing side. I write the HTML, design the pages, and handle other things such as finding writers and trying to publicize the magazine. I also write the occasional review or special feature.

Then we need to look at the tens of people who write the articles that appear on our pages. They are artists. This is what we can offer that is completely unique to any other magazine like our own (except the new Serious 3D magazine). All of our writers are from the same background as our readers - they are not journalists (although many are writers) - they are artists. People know that when they visit Visual Magic Magazine they are reading articles that are written by people who know what they are talking about. The same people who would use the products out there in the real world write the reviews. People like world renowned 3D artist Bill Fleming (author of 3D-photorealism toolkit and president of Komodo Studio), people like Jeremy Hubbell (contributor to Inside 3D Studio MAX and senior Kinetix instructor), and freelance 3D animators like Bill Boyce. These are the people who have the experience and the know-how to intelligently and informatively write about digital art and 3D.

Believe it or not, but nobody who works behind-the-scenes producing Visual Magic Magazine gets paid - we do it because we want to better ourselves and the resources available to digital artists and 3D animators.

the future of visual magic magazine
So, where are we going? Who knows! What we do know is that we will continue to provide a high-quality and free service to the digital effects and 3D industry. We have no set plans as to where we are heading in the distant future, but in the near future we do want to make sure that our presence in the media and computer graphics industry is noted.

We are heading up stream, that is for sure, and in the words of the old cliché, you ain't seen nothin' yet! I'll leave you with those words, and I hope that we can continue to provide a service to you. Don't forget that you can tell us what you want to see in our pages by visiting our mail bag. We'll see you all in sunny Orlando for Siggraph 98. I hope you enjoy this issue of Visual Magic Magazine and will continue to enjoy many more.

Paul Younghusband
Editor-in-chief

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