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SIGGRAPH Friday |
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Sunday 17 August 2008 - 01:59AM
Renee Dunlop
Here on the final day of SIGGRAPH this year, unlike previous years, there is no trade show floor open. All the attention is on the full day of Technical papers and sessions. The ACM have intelligently selected some of the best and most high-end classes to tackle here on the last day. There were still some wonderful classes to attend. One I checked out was Science in 3D that covered three areas, visualizing ultra-scale data involving forces such as seismic data from earthquakes, surgical planning using 3D medical imaging that covered the separation of conjoined twins, and mapping out the underground view without disturbing the surface or surrounding landscape of the highly destructive Atta Texana Leafcutting Ant colonies, nests that are rumored to be large enough to swallow a truck.
All three lectures were fascinating. The ultra-scale data covered research in algorithm, interface design, and system and architectures for visualization. They work with application scientists in areas ranging from astrophysics, cosmology, turbulent combustions, fusion energy, ground water to climate. The third session on the Leafcutting Ant colonies were using systems originally designed to find smaller and more shallow ground cavities such as unmarked graves to map out large areas and enable scientists to learn about the colonies of this devastating pest who is gradually moving north with the climate change.
But it was the surgical imaging I found most interesting. Imaging was used to map out the shared and separate organs of conjoined twin infants in order to successfully plan out an extremely complicated surgery that took two teams totaling 33 surgeons and assistants. Robert Morreale, Director for Illustration and Design at the Mayo Clinic showed how they used CAT scan imaging, volume rendering, 3D CT, and medical illustrations in the operating room to map out the shared liver and billiary system and surrounding organs to within half a millimeter accuracy so that the teams of doctors could know exactly where to make incisions and how to separate the organs for optimal results.
On to Bend Me Break Me, the last session, covering the rope bridge animation and procedural fracturing in Kung-Fu Panda, and the fast 3D fragmentation in The Mummy 3. The rope bridge process started off with an animation pass including parenting that was passed to FX who applied secondary dynamics. Some of the difficulties they encountered was controlling the rotation and twisting of the bridge. The bridge geometry was substantial, and the sequence contained many shots, some longer and some as short as 12 frames, so they had to have a system that provided quick turnaround under those circumstances.
To handle the fracturing in Kung-Fu Panda but maintain procedural control and artistic directing, they used a 3D paint system combines with voxels to define the areas of fracture and the intersecting areas that would crumble and scatter.
Ken Museth and Michael Clive, FX TD from Digital Domain, led the talk on The Mummy 3. Museth, Senior Research Scientist at DD holds a terrifying number of degrees and successes including physics effects for a number of films, worked as an adjunct professor in computer graphics at two universities. He carries a PhD and was a visiting faculty member at Cal Tech while also working on mission design and visualization at NASA’s JPL. To handle the breakage in Mummy, they needed a system that was very, very fast, something that would preserve shaders, and so decided to go with level sets. They then used a modified algorithm that also worked with intersections. By implementing a series of time reduction methods, they were able to keep render times under control with fantastic results.
The session ended with a grand applause and a bolt for the door as everyone, exhausted and brains crammed with new information, headed out blinking into the setting sun, some already making promises to reunite again next year at Siggraph in New Orleans. We’ll see you there.
Related links:
Atta Texana Leafcutter Ant Colony Visualization
Discuss the SIGGRAPH Diary
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SIGGRAPH Wednesday |
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Thursday 14 August 2008 - 17:32PM
Paul Hellard
Second day out on the show floor and running through the many sessions and presentations I have on my schedule, I keep running into old friends I have never met before.
I ran into Seth Rosenthal and Jim Hourihan from Tweak Software. They told me about 'RV', their sequence viewer software recently taken up as playback tool of choice by Lucasfilm and LucasArts. They are understandably excited.
Not two minutes later, walking the meeting room halls, I sidled up to Shawn Kelly, Carlos Baena and Bobby Beck from Animation Mentor. They were about to go up to their Birds of a Feather session, to meet a huge room full of returning former students, so I went along to observe.
Emotions are high when groups like this gather and today was no exception. It was very cool.
The NVIDIA crew was demonstrating the first fully interactive GPU-based ray tracer at their stand today. Based on their own GPU technology, the ray tracer shows linear scaling rendering of a highly complex, two-million polygon, anti-aliased automotive styling application. Bit of a mouthful, but take it from me that it very fast and powerful. NVIDIA also is showing its Quadro FX 3700M, a laptop that pushes workstation power. With 128 CUDA parallel cores, it has 1GB of graphics memory. Ouch!
Around the corner I found Takuma Sakamodo doing a totally stunning demo at the Softimage booth. Tak is director at Studio 4C and was proudly showing the steps his crew went through to create 'Tekkonkinreet', a breath taking study of alternative life in Japanese animatrix.
At the end of a huge day, I carried on into the night, which is my way. ;-) There were so many parties I thought I'd better share them round a little. I went to the very fun and sophisticated souré at J Restaurant for SIGGRAPH Asia, which is hitting Singapore in December, then the party at the Figueroa put on by the TurboSquid crew, up from New Orleans. I sent some guys of to the Blur party and I went to a more sedate but equally spectacular private pool party over looking the city of LA. With the strong breeze coming off the Pacific, the air was clean and the night sky was star-filled. Good to go.
Related links:
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SIGGRAPH Variety |
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Thursday 14 August 2008 - 08:44AM
Renee Dunlop
At the Palms Restaurant at noon today, industry officiano Jon Peddie was holding a panel that included a bunch of experts in rendering. I could get there by 11:30 with a half hour drive if there was no traffic.
Traffic wasn't too bad, plus I tend to drive like I am in a video game, so I made it to the luncheon by 12:30.
The Jon Peddie panel included industry experts Bill Mark, Senior Scientist of Research at Intel, Bill Roberts, Director of Project Management at Softimage, David Kirk, Chief Scientist at NVIDIA, Habib Zargarpour, Senior Art Director at EA, James McCombe, CTO at Caustic Graphics, John Hart, Professor CS at the University of Illinois, and Raja Koduri, CTO, Graphics, at AMD. They debated the future of rendering and the pros and cons of ray-tracing and rasterization rendering. We rather lucky invited guests dined on salad, steak or salmon, and cheesecake. It was a fine way to wake up.
On to the convention center to meet with iZ3D and Meant to Be Seen, two companies working together in the area of stereoscopic visualization in games and film. iZ3D has displays that ship with the appropriate plugin and 3 sets of glasses so that the viewer is able to see games or film in 3D, and Meant to Be Seen tests games with stereoscopic capabilities and certifies the quality of the image with a rating system. Both companies have a future, I'm sure, I was really thrilled with what I saw.
A quick stop by the Laika booth to check out more about the upcoming film, Coraline, then out to meet with Lori Petrini for Tippett Studios to see some samples of their latest projects.
I finally had some time to check out the floor, saying hi to friends at Digital Domain and scoping out projects from various companies. Then on to SIGGRAPH Asia introduction party for dinner and drinks, (Singapore Slings reigned supreme, of course) then over to another pool party.
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SIGGRAPH Tuesday |
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Thursday 14 August 2008 - 07:16AM
Paul Hellard
Up early for a breakfast meeting. Such is SIGGRAPH. Trade show floor opens. Excitement ensues.
Yes, today was totally crazy and not without reason. You don’t open a display of new technology and information like SIGGRAPH without some measure of frantic activity.
Doors opened onto the trade show floor. with the all new layout. With the addition of the Studio', 'Slow Art', SIGGRAPH Village and the 'New Tech Demo', the trade show floor is split down the middle and gives the impression of giving the crowds two bites at the same cherry. Actually, the Village looks a very cool place to hang out, ... if I had the time.
I first went over to see the LightWave guys, demonstrating the new version 9.5. I'd be very interested to follow up later. Admittedly I was there a little early and I headed out for another appointment away from the floor. There was a rather boisterous gathering over at the Rhythm & Hues booth which turned out to be a meet-and-greet do; everyone was invited.
Walt Disney Animation had a very cool, rustic room that looked like the coolest studio to be in. Some of their illustrators came along to doodle, which was fantastic to watch. There was so much MoCap again this year. Not without reason. The technology come ahead leaps and bounds and real life markerless is close to online.
I ventured across in the heat, to the Nokia Theater. After coming in out of the bright sunshine, I walked straight through into the bowels of the cinema. Couldn't see a thing! The psychodelic works on the screen weren't quite bright enough to guide me and in looking for the best, closest seat, I sat down on someone in the dark. Had to laugh.
After the show closed, the Softimage crew took a bunch of press and friends to dinner at the Cicada restaurant. Afterwards, though I really wanted to check out their club party, starring Vanilla Ice and other special guests, and the BOXX party, I accepted an invite to go over to Hollywood. Wow, the RabbitHoles guys, and Alex Alvarez and the Gnomon Workshop crew threw the best casual party and I found myself in so many groups of old artist friends most of them I was actually meeting face to face for the first time. Felt I knew so many of them when I left at 2am. Quickly back to my hotel to try and write. I could only sleep with sweet dreams.
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3D and CAF Special |
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Wednesday 13 August 2008 - 15:34PM
Renee Dunlop
There was action in the Nokia Theater today bringing debate, innovation, panels and nostalgia.
This morning trip was a little less successful at avoiding the traffic than yesterday, today I was thrilled to hit 20 miles per hour on my drive in, but it turned out to be a stroke of luck because I ran into good friend Ethan Summers, FX artist extraordinaire, as we were parking our cars. We had two blocks to catch up on lots of news before parting ways to opposite ends of the convention center. Headed straight to the second and last day of the 3D seminars organized by Rob Engle. I arrived just in time to see Laikas’ presentation that included 12 minutes of never-before-seen footage of their upcoming film, Coraline, a stop motion/CG hybrid that looks fantastic and will be high on my list of films to see.
Took a quick break for lunch before sitting in on today’s keynote speaker, Catherine Owens, director of U2 3D, also returning for the last session of the 3D seminar on the future of stereoscopic entertainment to hear the panel discuss what problems need to be solved. There’s a lot of opportunity for those who what to solve some problems involving the stereoscopic process in games. There are many hurdles to solve there. Another is rotoscoping, a process magnified many times over what is needed in a single camera project. There are problems begging to be solved, if anyone is looking for their claim to fame.
From there I wandered over to the Computer Animation Festival at the Nokia Theater where I caught the tail, then foolishly wandered out of the Nokia with intentions of checking the schedule on my laptop in the warm night air. Pretty soon I concluded it was the Pixar Studio Night in, hmmmm, the Nokia Theater. After going back through a security check I joined the concessions line for sustenance, a line that took a full half hour to get through. The wait was rewarded just before I dropped with two all beef hotdogs which I believe tasted better than any gourmet meal I’ve ever had.
The Nokia Theater was huge and there was still plenty of room. There are layers upon layers of balconies. They were screening The Man Who Planted Trees by two time Academy Award winner Frederic Back, the sweetest gentleman one could ever hope to meet. The hand drawn animated short is a tale written in 1953 by French writer Jean Giono (1895-1970) and tells the story of a man who lost his wife and child. To fill his days of loneliness and help heal the land he loved, he began to plant acorns with the desire to grow a forest. The forest actually grew until the hills were covered and the animals returned, and streams that had run dry were filling with snow melt, people came and enjoyed the peace and beauty. They built their homes and raised their children, and it became a village of happiness and joy. Year after year the man planted until the sorrow of losing everything that land had to offer was forgotten and only the beauty of this man’s effort remained.
An advocate of the environment, Back felt compelled to tell the story through animation after stumbling on it in the magazine, Le Sauvage. It was an absolutely beautiful and moving short film that left me blinking back tears. A standing ovation erupted as Lasseter emerged escorting Frederic Back, who shared how he stumbled on this story and how grateful he was to people like Lasseter and Pixar for giving him the opportunity to share this with people in the audience.
Lasseter then introduced the next film’s creator, writer/director/producer Leslie Iwerks, who was there on behalf of her documentary on Pixar’s history, filled with interviews with many artists including Lucas and Catmull and Brad Bird. It was an informative and humorous account of how they all met and developed the culture and technology and gained funding for one of the most successful studios today.
Related links:
Frederick Back
Laika, Coraline
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SIGGRAPH Monday |
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Tuesday 12 August 2008 - 11:28AM
Paul Hellard
My Monday began with a trip in a fast car through the city. It was a classic LA adventure, or was it a dream.
I was actually being whisked away in a ride down on one of those bright concrete freeways, (gotta love those white concrete freeways), to VICON House of Moves' new motion capture studio in the district of Culver City.
Welcomed casually by CEO Scott Gagin in the sharp morning sunlight, standing in the carpark, our little group was shown round the facility with the help of some of the best technologists and directors in the game. These guys, like Brian Rausch (ex-Sony Pictures Imageworks) have cut their teeth on so many different projects at House of Moves, both TVC and motion picture blockbusters, as well as games like Assassins Creed, Gears of War and others.
Their twin sound and vision stages work non-stop in their facilities as well as venturing outdoors with a mobile studio, which they once installed at the LA Equestrian Center for horse MoCap. The stage and camera rig was designed by HOM's Head of Stage Production, Sean Stanek, formerly the motion capture producer on Monster House and Beowulf at Sony Pictures Imageworks.
Onwards and into the throng at the LACC, just in time for the opening address by 2008 Conference Chair Jacquelyn Martino, the handing out of the SIGGRAPH awards and the long awaited keynote by the president of PIXAR, Ed Catmull. The recipient of the Computer Graphics Achievement Award was Ken Perlin, whose speech was full of superb quotable quotes. "CG is important. CG is limited only by your imagination"; "The beauty of science is the science of beauty" and "We are the music makers, the dreamers of dreams."
Ed Catmull described his career as being so long, the industry had become a part of him. After his time at NYIT, the momentum had begun to roll and he described realising that Art, Technology and Education could create and nurture the SIGGRAPH community. "When PIXAR started there was no CG industry, so we were in manufacturing," he said. Toy Story gave them the chance to make that fully CG animated feature he once thought would take ten years to flourish. It took 20.
His Keynote covered the work flow patterns of a place like PIXAR and the many ways of management that did work, and others that didn't. His confessions of the Brains Trust were enlightening and the importance of open criticism of a creative band of artists. His advice to managers was to not so much prevent risk, but to always be ready to lead, support and protect the team of artists.
Incidentally, Pixar has announced RenderMan Pro Server 14.0 with a solid bunch of new features. More details on the RenderMan site. Please don't forget to click the Slide Show button just below here to check out the images taken each day at SIGGRAPH!
Related links:
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Monday Mayhem |
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Tuesday 12 August 2008 - 10:06AM
Renee Dunlop
SIGGRAPH began in earnest today with deep, technical sessions bringing the technology of Stereoscopy into startling perspective. Renee Dunlop takes up the story.
Mornings are not my favorite, but I surprised myself by waking on time after only three hours of sleep. After a fairly decent ride down the parking lot known as Interstate 405 and a few turns around construction, I parked and headed to Petree Hall C where Rob Engle had pulled together two days of industry leaders for his Stereoscopic 3D: Research, Applications, and Entertainment extravaganza. I must say, Engle did a mighty impressive job coordinating a fantastic lineup of presenters, starting with a full session to explain the basics before building on a variety of applications and wrapping with a two hour stereoscopic animation compilation.
Some of the sessions were humorous, others carried a serious wow factor, and all were informative. One was perhaps a bit too realistic for those with a weaker stomach, or so the fellow behind me discovered when a theater screen sized surgical procedure caused him to grow faint. As always, the FX community stepped up to help him out, stopping the screening, bringing the house lights up, and passing him bottles of water. He was fine and I think some of the audience appreciated the distraction, though my slightly twisted self was enthralled with watching a two-foot suture needle pierce the surface of a giant cornea. Just don’t try this at home.
To see the evolution and how far this field has come is truly remarkable. This is no longer the trendy archaic red-blue glasses that did little but make the audience look comically strange. Stereoscopic animation has efficiently crossed over and now is not only a viable form of entertainment but helps to save lives, increase comfort, and expand research.
But first, lunch, in the form of grabbing the first sandwich in the cafeteria display case, a bottle of water to replace the one I gave to the fellow behind me, some rapid networking in the cashiers line, and a short sprint to Hall B to see keynote speaker Ed Catmull, President of Pixar and Disney Feature Animation. I was only mildly surprised when he showed up in faded jeans and a solid blue Hawaiian shirt, but what I didn’t expect was how personable he was. He spoke for roughly an hour about the history of Pixar and its union with Disney, how they have preserved a culture that embraces creative empowerment, and the importance of the individual as well as the team. Casual, simple, soft spoken, and kind, it was easy to forget the status of the man that spoke to an audience of thousands. After listening to an hour of stories with a full belly and toasty warm under the heat of my laptop, it was more like the perfect evening with some old friends.
But it was time to move on to a more exclusive setting upstairs where Catmull was joined by Dana Batali to discuss the 20th anniversary of RenderMan and the upcoming release of RenderMan Pro Server 14.0. Then it was straight back to the Stereoscopic seminar followed by a two hour animation festival that included screenings of Disney’s upcoming Bolt, DreamWorks Monsters vs. Aliens, and Laika’s Coraline, all of which look fantastic, more pulsating organs and giant needles pulling the thread right towards the audience, and a live video game demonstration. The night ended with a screening of U2 3D. It was a great start to the week.
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SIGGRAPH: Ready to go |
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Monday 11 August 2008 - 07:32AM
Paul Hellard
After the long flight from Australia, the CGSociety and Ballistic crew have touched down and are ready to catch up with friends, meet new ones and learn as much as possible about what they have been up to in the past year. A fresh breeze in Los Angeles has kept the hot sun from being damaging to pale winter skins, although it must be said that even on my first day here, there hasn't been too much time spent outside. The undercurrent pinning the discussions at the CGTalk Meet up last night at the Westin Bonventura was that everyone was either incredibly busy, or had completed fresh courses recently and were ready to jump into the industry we celebrate in LA this week. For most of us, Sunday was a day for adjusting our body clocks and getting our bearings in the streets around the convention halls. Aiming to catch up with several CGTalkers I've never met, I missed a few by a measure of a few metres, got eye contact on others and finally met them after years of email. Just about 80 or so poured in to the CGTalk Meet and it was great to spend time with these enthusiastic artists in the community. Thanks to Jason Porath, Jeremy Birn and Rebecca Kimmel for setting this one up. The waitress who brought the food and drinks to the scrum, on her first night on the job thanks you also. ;-)
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SIGGRAPH Volunteers |
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Wednesday 06 August 2008 - 03:00AM
Paul Hellard
Today, the CGSociety turns the spotlight round briefly to the people behind the scenes of SIGGRAPH.
These are the volunteer guides putting their hand up to assist the attendees throughout the conference, each one vying for a chance to work in the industry at large. Trinidadian animator Darvin K. Manwah has been selected to attend SIGGRAPH as a Student Volunteer. Among 1,200 students worldwide, he was picked out to attend the LA conference as the sole Caribbean Islander selected to participate this year. He says that he is looking forward to the ‘I can’t believe I’m really here’ moments as the festival kicks off. Studying Visual Arts at San Juan Government Secondary in Trinidad & Tobago for five years has paid off in honing Darvin's creativity. Moving from traditional to CG, he has worked in LightWave and other applications, creating landscapes, cityscapes to human characters.
“I hope the SIGGRAPH experience will help me better propel myself into the industry and hopefully help me be fully employed,” says Darvin. “I had a scholarship to VFS last year but couldn’t make it up to Canada. This year, SIGGRAPH is a great step forward for me.” With the completion of his short film closely approaching, a teaser and cinematic trailer is set to be released soon.
Carphology Entertainment
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Clone Wars at SIGGRAPH |
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Tuesday 05 August 2008 - 21:27PM
SIGGRAPH
Lucasfilm will present an exclusive advance screening of their highly-anticipated animated film "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" as part of the new Production Studio Nights at the SIGGRAPH 2008 Computer Animation Festival.
Hosted by John Knoll, Visual Effects Supervisor from Industrial Light & Magic, the evening will begin with a behind-the-scenes discussion about the film's design and style with the film's Director, Dave Filoni. The advance screening of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" will follow the discussion on Thursday, 14 August at the Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, California.
"SIGGRAPH is honored to host this special advance screening at the Festival," stated Jill Smolin, SIGGRAPH 2008 Entertainment Director. "The Star Wars films have always been stellar examples of visionary visual effects. Seeing these effects paired with computer animation, and the behind-the-scenes knowledge from Dave Filoni will be an incredible experience for fans and film professionals alike."
In addition to the Production Studio Nights, this year's Festival will also feature talks and screenings dedicated to stereoscopic 3D research, applications, and programming. In a series of talks, experts will teach the foundations of 3D, from acquisition to projection and from history to the future. Screenings of 3D shorts and clips from 3D features will be shown in a montage of creations from the past, and previews of tomorrow's achievements. In addition, the popular "U2 3D" will be screened in its entirety.
Related links:
Stereo 3D
Studio Nights
Registration
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SIGGRAPH Electric Sheep |
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Monday 04 August 2008 - 06:00AM
Paul Hellard
While the timeless SIGGRAPH emblem is golden this year for LA, and Meats Meier’s ‘Animation Mother’ will surprise people as well, I have ventured into the story of the background banner.
The image above is a still frame taken from the artwork Dreams in High Fidelity, by Scott Draves. It is a digital painting that evolves, and was designed and rendered with the Electric Sheep, a cyborg mind composed of 60,000 computers and people mediated by a genetic algorithm.
Scott ‘Spot’ Draves is a visual and software artist living in New York City and San Francisco. His most recent work for sale is Dreams in High Fidelity a limited edition infinite animation. Draves is best known as the creator of the Electric Sheep, a continually evolving abstract animation with over 60,000 daily participants.
He created the original Flame algorithm in 1991, the Bomb visual-musical instrument in 1995, and the Electric Sheep in 1999. Draves’ software artworks are released as open source and distributed via the internet.
Draves’ award-winning work is permanently hosted on MoMA.org, and has appeared in Wired and Discover magazines, the Prix Ars Electronica, the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, and on the main dance-floor at the Sonar festival in Barcelona.
Before becoming a full-time artist Draves worked for a series of technology start-ups. First was the fabless microprocessor design company Transmeta, made famous by Linus Torvalds. Later came FastForward Networks, which was acquired by Inktomi. His last regular job was with PDI/Dreamworks R&D Department, which earned him a feature film credit for ‘Shrek 2’.
In 1990 he received a BS in Mathematics from Brown University and in 1997 a PhD from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University for a thesis on metaprogramming for media processing.
Spot started VJing at underground parties in the early 90s and still performs live. In 2004 he published SPOTWORKS a DVD of visual music which has sold more than 4000 copies.
Besides teaching at Parsons School of Design, his current project is Dreams in High Fidelity, a painting that evolves. The HiFiDreams is limited edition fine art that is installed in the lobby of Google's headquarters, and has been acquired by corporate and residential collections nationally.
Every year, the SIGGRAPH Conference Committee convenes at an initial strategy meeting to discuss the state of the computer graphics and interactive techniques community. These discussions by this interdisciplinary group of volunteers and contractors result in a collection of information that helps to shape the character and color of the coming SIGGRAPH conference.
For SIGGRAPH 2008, the conference committee saw the need to craft the conference experience to mimic the natural fission and fusion of ideas as reflected not only in their planning process, but also in the trends and changes of the computer graphics and interactive techniques industry as a whole. Much like a virtual network, content and ideas next to each other would passively or actively inform one another. The conference needed to grow. This breaking free from many a past construct gave rise to a simple and eloquent expression which became the theme for SIGGRAPH 2008: "Evolve."
Scott Draves' artwork was thought to encapsulate perfectly this spirit - a piece born from man and machine; from one and from many; singularly and all at once. Even in its static form, its vibrant complexity exudes the richness and energy that speaks to the evolution of the SIGGRAPH conferences.
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