Once I had the noise function, I started using it to try to create the artistic visions I had in my head. I wrote various texture programs in Fortran (that was the only language that ran on our computers at MAGI), and experimented with different combinations of textures and shading. I was like a kid with a shiny new toy.
There was only one problem — computers were very slow back then. Because of that, it took a long time to render a single image.
So I developed a plan. Instead of rendering the entire image, I would just render a little rectangular piece of the image. I discovered how big a rectangle I could render and still get a turnaround time of only 20 seconds. While I was waiting for the image to come up, I would make changes to try the next thing.
And that’s what led to the Aha moment.
More tomorrow.