matt.west.co.tt

There just aren’t enough songs about computer graphics pioneers. Here’s one about Bui Tuong Phong, of phong shading and phong illumination fame. I decided to record this one entirely without keyboards, so brace yourselves for a gloriously shoddy guitar solo and a gloriously glorious bottle solo. (Forgetting to take out the recycling can be a good thing, you know.)

In a world of imperfections
we all need a change of scene
three dimensional projections
look into the bitmap screen

University of Utah
Bushnell, Clark and Sutherland
Eddie Catmull, head of Pixar
there’s a dark horse in their band

Mr Phong

The ancient art of scan conversion
He’s the guy who holds the truth
rubber ducks and chequered doughnuts
never looked so silky smooth

Eliminate those jagged edges
cutting corners is our game
Interpolate those surface normals
that’s the way he made his name

Mr Phong

I = I_aK_a + I_p[K_d(N·L)+K_s(R·V)ⁿ]

How about those specular highlights
They’re all looking mighty fine
In a blaze of math and magic
he’s gonna make your teapot shine

If it looks unrealistic
the professor, he’s your man
He’s a master of illusions
from the depths of Vietnam

Mr Phong

Download Mr Phong (MP3, 2.0Mb)
Mr Phong on FAWM

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 10:03 pm and is filed under Demoscene, FAWM, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.