TAG- tubes artists gallery TAG#2 Tubes Artists Gallery | Page 23

The 80’s were the exciting times for New Zealand
feature films and generous government tax breaks
meant the industry was booming.
Peter and Amanda first met on a film ‘Trespasses’
featuring Patrick McGoohan (Danger Man and
Prisoner) where they were employed as scenic
artists.
For the next few years whilst still working in Film
and Television Peter and Amanda began producing
some of the first computer generated title sequences
and commercials. It was in the mid eighties whilst
on a film called ‘Willow’ (Ron Howard) when they
accidentally set fire to a bunch of dried flowers
on their table at a restaurant, that they decided to
finally leave the film industry and start their own
computer graphics and animation company.
Before moving to Austria Amanda had gained a
diploma in Graphic Design and 2d animation.
So between them Peter and Amanda had some
knowledge of how to apply their skills to the new
digital technology available.
During the 90’s Peter and Amanda grew the
company to ten people, updated their hardware
and software and changed the name to 3D Ltd.
They went on to produce many animations for
film, Television and Corporate advertising in New
Zealand and Australia.
In 2001 the couple moved to Waiheke island where
spent years experimenting with the technology
available for creating online 3D environments.
Although high street gallery exhibitions are
traditionally the way for an artist to grow a
reputation, they were aware and how few spaces
were available for the thousands of gifted artists in
the world.
They felt there had to be a better
way for artists to exhibit and how they could help
to nurture an artists career to gain an audience for
their work or groups of artists and artist projects.
They soon realised that the current technology
infrastructure could not deliver the kind of
experience they had envisaged. They also needed to
create a system that enabled people to upload their
own artworks and to curate and manage their own
exhibitions. 
There was a lot more work to be done and it was
not until 2009 when they were finally ready to
launch their first own 3D on line software.
Since then the software has been through several
new releases, the most recent and major was a
complete rebuild of the VR side which took nearly 3
years to complete. 
left: painting “seaweed bouguet”
by Amanda Worral (©Worral)