All About... Emma Alvarez And Jordi R Cardona [EmmaAndJordi]

Out in the real world, we all have hobbies and interests in addition to the work we may be most known for. Here at Renderosity, our vendors have their own stories to tell. Things they do away from their products... special projects, awards, citations, or things of interest that most may not know about.

In an effort to better introduce our vendors to the rest of the community, we've asked them to tell us more about themselves, and share their stories. Rather than a straightforward interview, these are their stories, in their own words.

This week, we find out all about artist and vendor, Emma Alvarez And Jordi R Cardona, better known to the community as EmmaAndJordi.

Because of circumstances in life, we married very young. We had to quit our studies at the University, and employment was very low. So, we had to work in whatever job was available, just to have money to pay the rent and food.

But, we dreamed of working at something artistic, as both Emma and I had always been attracted to art in different ways. So, we started to learn things in the little free time we had.

We got our first used computer, and with a 10 hour internet bonus, we discovered a big world of art on the internet, and that encouraged us to discover amazing possibilities of what we wanted to do. So, we started to design video games, but as we had no idea on how, we had to learn everything from scratch, just by going to the local public library and reading the books that were there.

One day, tired and after working all day, we found a book about virtual reality. We had that 10 hour internet bonus. With it, we developed interactive virtual worlds in 3D: I did the modeling and programming job, and Emma the texturing, design, concept and avatars. We found Blaxxun, and the group of artists that roamed the open servers and their welcoming community that was a small family for us. Our goal was then aiming to the creation of virtual reality, and there was where we first heard about Poser and Victoria. There was a French girl that created her avatars using Victoria Millennium, and that year was 1998. But, as we just had a few internet hours, and the pages were in another language that was hard for us to understand at that moment, we didn't understand what all that was about. Many times we pulled our hair out for not being able to take to the way of Poser/DAZ Studio in those times, and we will never repent enough.

After 3 years of hard work and self-teaching, we built 17 worlds of virtual reality, 58 avatars, and a home server programmed from scratch in Java by ourselves, which sent the messages to share the status of the virtual world to all the people connected, so when a user clicked on an object, the others would see what he was doing, or see their avatars move. We even created a bot with artificial intelligence, and many people thought he was actually a person :) But, when we were going to start our business, Second Life appeared and most of the virtual worlds businesses closed down, and Hiperia, our project, died before being born, because it was too expensive and risky to compete with them.

Emma got a grant to study graphics design, and at the same time she started to work in the Cinema City of Alicante as a production assistant at filmmaking, and as a FX makeup artist. I did some work from time to time doing user documentation for 3D applications and reviewing books at my site. Years later, Emma started to do illustrations. She created her own brushes, so she decided to try and upload one of her packs to Renderosity, and after one year, encouraged me to upload my own product, that passed the limit of $300 in 15 days. I already knew how to model for the virtual worlds, but not for DAZ or Poser, or the internal particularities of these applications.

My first product, Ace Of The Skies, appeared in an illustration by Emma, that was picked by the ex-Marvel UK editor John Freeman, for the book "Sci-Fi Art Now," which was a very good impulse for other publications, conferences about digital art, and art licensing for her. I also became a regular reviewer for books of 3D and computing, did documentation works for 3D applications, and became a sponsor for 3D and 2D magazines.

We were not happy doing a single kind of product, because we dreamed of building a world of our own imagination, that may come to life when render artists put it all together. So, we learned how to do sceneries, clothing, hair, poses, characters, and any kind of 3D work. So it was a huge task to learn everything on how the different kinds of products were made, always trying to learn how to do them with all the features that will give the biggest freedom to the artists when they use them.

It is very satisfying, because when you are doing 3D, you finally understand why you were always amazed by shapes and colors, and all the books you have read, and all the moments you dreamed of a fantasy world, can now become real by your hand. And even more, become alive in the fantasies of lots of people that use these pieces to build their own worlds :)

It took us 3 years of learning, and then Emma reached Top Seller here at Renderosity. Some time later we joined our stores and became what we are now: EmmaAndJordi. We always had worked together, and together we get the best of each of us :)

We want to thank all our customers for their appreaciation, and the very beautiful artworks they do with our products. It is very encouraging to see you really appreciate all the effort we put into our products! You have made our dreams come true, and the most satisfying moment of content creation comes when we see the images that you do :)

What we longed for as a dream, turned into our profession and part of our lives, and we want to thank you all!

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