Josh.Parnell

I'm Josh Parnell, a passionate game programmer with a particular affinity for graphics. Currently, I'm studying computer science as a sophomore at Stanford University, and plan to focus on the graphics track.

Almost all of my interests stem from one idea: procedural content. It's the idea that computers can learn and simulate the art of creation. One usually thinks of computers as machines that perform deterministic computations. But what if a computer could be taught to write music? What if a computer could generate masterful works of art? What if a computer could design an entire city layout?

For years I've been obsessed with the idea of computer creativity. It underlies everything I do - from roaming simple noise-based terrains to exploring the depths of fractally generated music. I'm particularly interested in how procedural content can be leveraged to substantially alleviate the process of creating assets for digital media (primarily games and movies).

The age of meticulous hand-creation is coming to a close. There's no doubt in my mind that procedural content is the future - a future in which artists will design concepts at a high level rather than express finite, limited manifestations of a single idea.