Michael "Viewmaster" Morlan was Video & Live-stream Producer, Director, Editor at Cloud Imperium Games.[1]
Works at CIG
He joined in Decamber 2012 to be a project manager and help Eric Peterson with Wingman’s Hangar.[1][2]
Since there wasn’t much to do in the first few months of building the team and ramping up design and production, Michael spent all his time improving the quality of the show, taking it from two dorks in front of a web-cam with barely a couple chairs and a file cabinet between them to a fully-produced talk-show format with motion graphics, music, interviews, news, and the most favorite segment, F-F-F-Forum Feedback! Producing Wingman’s Hangar became his full-time job. He also wrote all the scripted elements, and directed, shot, and edited everything. He streamed the show most Friday mornings.[2]
When Wingman’s Hangar got cancelled and replaced by Around the Verse from Santa Monica, there wasn't enough work to justify his working full-time.[3] Upon his departure in 2014 he had written, directed, shot, and edited over 200 projects, including 72 episodes of Wingman’s Hangar, measuring over 100 hours of programming.[1]
Other Works
In the late 80’s, he was working as a programmer/analyst for CRSS, a large architecture and engineering firm in Houston and, on the side, playing with the crude 3D animation tools that came through the IT department. He would create spinning logos and play with materials and lighting. [2]
In 1990, as he was wrapping up a pre-Internet, phone-line-networked, Macintosh-based sales forecasting system, his director of IT handed him a folder about the Texas A&M School of Architecture’s Advanced Visualization master’s program. CRSS was teaming with the school as a corporate partner. They were creating a sister visualization lab and Michael got asked to lead it. Within a couple weeks he was arms deep in Wavefront Advanced Visualizer training and helping specify a variety of Silicon Graphics workstations and a full video editing suite. The job of the visualization team was to help architects and engineers examine and communicate their designs to clients. They were trying everything – photo composites, sunlight studies, massing studies, and fully-detailed fly-throughs of finished designs. In 1992, when the construction market shifted from new construction to re-use projects, CRSS got caught cash short and went down hard. Since Michael's department was essentially an R&D and non-revenue effort, he was laid off. [2]
He set out on his own as a freelance animator. He bought an SGI Indigo and Macintosh IIe, scored a gratis copy of Wavefront, and started spinning logos for money.[2]
In 1995, he was reconsidering his direction when he ran across a job offer for animators at Origin Systems. and on Febuary 25, 1995, he began his career in the video game industry. There he worked on Ultima IX, Ultima Online, Ultima Online: Third Dawn, Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorn’s Revenge, Ultima Online: Age of Shadows, as well as Tony Zurovec Crusader: No Remorse, but he didn't work with Chris Roberts yet. He stayed at Origin until 2001.[4][2]
After CRSS went poof, he joined Eric Peterson at Fever Pitch, which got bought out by Warthog, then Gizmondo, before it imploded in 2006. Having worked on the side as freelance cinematographer and having a fairly strong demo reel he made moving pictures his full-time profession.[2]
Six years later, Eric peterson was working with Chris Roberts on a fundraiser for Star Citizen and when the game raised six millions bucks and Michael congratulated Eric, Eric told him he was needed.[2]
Early Life
In 1982 he took a college course in hand drafting, pencil, straight edges, French curves, and paper. That led him, later, to latch onto a casually-acquired copy of AutoCAD – back when it was 2D – and later 2.5D.[2]
Trivia
- He's a huge fan of space novels and short stories –stories writ large over the span of the universe and eons of time. Some of his favorite works include Stephen Baxter’s Xeelee Sequence and Manifold trilogy, and Poul Anderson’s Harvest of Stars series. He watched Star Trek TOS voraciously as a kid, and fell in love with Firefly. [2]
- After CIG, he created the show Galactic Enquiry.[5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Michael Morlan, Linkedin
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9
- ↑ RSI Forum post by Michael Morlan clarifying his departure, forums.robertsspaceindustries.com, May 19 2014, archived
- ↑ Michael Morlan, nobygames
- ↑ Galactic Inquiry ep001 . The Premiere!, Galactic Inquiry, Youtube, 27 june 2014
