Siggraph

This year’s Slow Art gallery features a nice mix of traditional artwork, sculpture, and interactive technology. It’s definitely worth a stop if you’re in Hall H.

Neurosymphonic Self Reflection Kevin Mack (USA) more…

Creaform, developer and manufacturer of the well-known Handyscan 3D line-up of handheld and self-positioning laser scanners, once again pushes the limits of portable 3D scanning and introduces its newest and most innovative product: the VIUscan, a self-positioning handheld and high resolution portable 3D color scanner. Read on at The Briefing Room

More Siggraph 2008 news from The Briefing Room

Over at the animationmentor.com booth the company’s CEO Bobby Beck provided some fantastic insight into their online training methods. With over 700 current students from more than 50 countries worldwide, Beck has secured Teachers, a.k.a. “Mentors” from some of the best respected animation companies in the world–Dreamworks, Pixar, etc.

Students learn very specific animation techniques over an 18 month curriculum (Beck says a new, updated curriculum is launching in 2009) in which students can learn at their computer via live video webcasts where students get more individual exposure and training to their Mentors than can be found in traditional classrooms. more…

The only thing more popular than laptops and Starbucks at Siggraph this year is the double-feature panel featuring the visual-effects wizards behind Cloverfield and Iron Man . Tippett Studio and Industrial Light & Magic split the bill to reveal some of the secrets behind two of 2008’s biggest FX-heavy blockbusters.

The Tippett team, headed by Eric Leven, gave the impression that the best kind of movie to work on is one with a limited budget and nothing to lose. Such a project was pitched to them as a kind of “Blair Witch meets Godzilla.” Originally Cloverfield was budgeted at $25 million when they got the call from J.J. Abrams’ team to work up the monster, known affectionately as “Clover.” Once the filmmakers got the original tests back from Tippett, the excitement they generated resulted in more money. more…

It is day 3 for me here in LA; and I have barely slept there has been so much to see. My first day was the setup day, which as far as the actual conference go, was pretty uneventful. Afterwards however, I attended the Autodesk user’s group party. In short, it was amazing. It was held at the Shrine Theater (not a shabby establishment), and was host to an amazing after party that included free food and an open bar (if you actually got up to it). During the presentation Autodesk gave us some in depth looks at things like the new version of mudbox; which was incredible to say the least. There was a plethora of great information, and up-close looks at things not many people have seen. I would say the most interesting part of the entire show was the stereo film presentation. It was was 3D that on more then 1 occasion I actually ducked when something flew at me. This is definitely a great advancement of the film industry. more…

Massive Software announced Massive 3.5, a new upgrade to Massive, the artificial intelligence (AI) driven animation system. Massive 3.5 follows up on Massive 3.0 with new features, including Agent Fields and improved integration and hair and fur dynamics. Read on at The Briefing Room

More Siggraph 2008 news from The Briefing Room

Having covered the motion capture beat for years, I have found in recent years the most interesting stories for our magazine(s) have always been application-specific stories–how it was used on a particular project like Beowulf , Polar Express , etc. In terms of the technology specific stories, I’ve felt we havent’ received earth-shattering news from the industry in a long while–either the technology was optical or it was tethered or it was some kind of wireless gyroscopic transmission system. Either it was high end or it was low end, and either it was put to good use or it wasn’t.

While it’s still not earth-shattering given the rapid pace of today’s IP-based developments, I did see today something on the technology side I had not seen before, and something that I think has some interesting applications. That something was Animazoo’s IGS-190 system, which the company dubbs “live Internet animation.” By that, they mean that they have come up with a pretty seamless approach for live streaming of motion-capture data in real time, creating all sorts of interesting possibilities on the remote collaboration front. more…

Today is my third day at Siggraph 08 and overall its been a wonderful experience thus far. I was very surprised at just how massive this event is. Four days is barely enough to cover even a third of it. If you are interested in any part of the computer graphics world then this is the place to be. the only low part for me so far was that Natural Motion was a no show. Other than that its been spectacular!

Allegorithmic, an emerging technology company developing advanced procedural texturing tools for real-time 3D content, today announced that game development studio Ready At Dawn Studios has chosen ProFX to create its very first title for new-generation platforms. Ready At Dawn, acclaimed for its famous PSP game titles God of War: Chains of Olympus and Daxter, selected ProFX for its ability to quickly produce extremely small texture files while keeping the highest visual quality intact. Read on at The Briefing Room

More Siggraph 2008 news from The Briefing Room

I didn’t get what was new and useful about HP’s DreamColor technology when it debuted for monitors at NAB 2008. (DreamColor was introduced in 2007, but aimed initially at color printing solutions.) There seemed to be a lot of noise being made for better color rendition, but what was exciting or new about that?

I think I’m starting to get it. Attending a talk by HP and a group of DreamWorks artists and technicians–their partners in developing the technology–the differences in the crisp colors and black blacks of the new 24-inch HP DreamColor LP2480zx display and a standard LCD at its side were remarkable.

The new display is described as “true 30-bit”, which means it can choose from a range of over 1 billion colors to display. The result? No banding, and rendering of colors subtle enough to best reflect what the artists want to see on the big screen. more…