“Timbury” the demo was created by NVIDIA engineers Curtis Beeson (manager of Demotech at NVIDIA) and Ryan Geiss, artist Steve Burke and animator Anders Beer (who crafted the “rigging”¹), and with some help from a few outside parties. Timbury the character, however, existed as a creation of Burke’s fertile imagination and creative talents, long before the demo’s construction.

“He’s got a whole backstory that’s kind of funny,” Burke said. “Basically, the idea came about from a sketch that I did many years ago. I did a full-color sketch of the concept—we didn’t have any real story around him—but it was always this old-fashioned, 1920s type of setting of this explorer who was, in one sense, maybe more strange looking than the bug he was examining.”

Indeed, the character description goes well beyond the needs of the one-minute demo clip, but probably went a long way to help the team flesh out Timbury’s appearance and mannerisms. For example, Burke’s backstory includes the character’s full name—Timbury Entonin Mudgett; that he was born in Cleveland, England, in 1896; and that he was schooled at Oxford University where he studied entomology. It further established the segment’s setting:

“When we meet up with Timbury, he is searching for exotic bug specimens. He rather enjoys climbing and exploring as much as his diligence to the scientific chores of documenting and classifying of rare and exotic insect life. His eyesight has improved tremendously with the purchase of new spectacles, but he still has very little visual function. He remains quite fascinated by bugs, but isn’t quite as comfortable touching them. They are pretty gross, after all. Looking at a bug is one thing, but touching bugs is quite another, isn’t it? Anyway, he is off to do science.”