IPOD TO: Celso Pina "El rebelde del acordeon"
WEB TO: Chris Cunningham's "Rubber Johnny" ( Ultra Creepy!! )
Just got back from L.A. where Siggraph 2005 was held. I went out there for Janimation to research the latest and greatest in technologies across the board. While I was out there I managed to snap a few photo's off of the floor. See the fun here.
Spent alot of time getting to know the Softimage XSI group. It was the first time I got to put names to the faces. Really amazing stuff was announced for XSI. Most notabably: Face Robot.
Now I normally, don't geek-out on features, but this one has me pretty excited. It is a facial solver, that allows the animator to have controls for the face that behave correctly. The face keeps it's form and knows how the wrinkles should be, how the lips roll over the teeth. All automatically. So then the animator only has to animate, without fear. You can still make your blendshapes for your targets. But now, they behave organically, and don't solve lineraly. ( a problem with traditional blendshapes. ) Check out the videos to see what I mean.
Other things of note. The 32 bit display. Oh it's beautiful! HDR displays are here! ( well for $50k )
During the event, I was lucky enough to attend the Studio Ghimbli demonstration where Mitsunori Kataama, CGI Director at Studio Ghibli spoke on how they utilize the toon renderer on thier projects. These are the artists who did "Spirited Away", and "Howl's Moving Castle" to name just two. Here is a brief of what was discussed. Oh it's awesome!
Overall the conference was great. Got to see a lot of friends I hadn't seen in awhile. Made alot of new friends, and got inspired about new techniques and ideas. One thing I can say for Siggraph, it's nice to get out of the office, surround yourself with thousands of other like minded artists, and to generally think outside of the box. I would like to think I live outside the box, but if that's the case, then Siggraph, allows you to think outside the room the box is in. Very inspirational, forward thinking stuff.
WEB TO: Chris Cunningham's "Rubber Johnny" ( Ultra Creepy!! )
Just got back from L.A. where Siggraph 2005 was held. I went out there for Janimation to research the latest and greatest in technologies across the board. While I was out there I managed to snap a few photo's off of the floor. See the fun here.
Spent alot of time getting to know the Softimage XSI group. It was the first time I got to put names to the faces. Really amazing stuff was announced for XSI. Most notabably: Face Robot.
Now I normally, don't geek-out on features, but this one has me pretty excited. It is a facial solver, that allows the animator to have controls for the face that behave correctly. The face keeps it's form and knows how the wrinkles should be, how the lips roll over the teeth. All automatically. So then the animator only has to animate, without fear. You can still make your blendshapes for your targets. But now, they behave organically, and don't solve lineraly. ( a problem with traditional blendshapes. ) Check out the videos to see what I mean.
Other things of note. The 32 bit display. Oh it's beautiful! HDR displays are here! ( well for $50k )
During the event, I was lucky enough to attend the Studio Ghimbli demonstration where Mitsunori Kataama, CGI Director at Studio Ghibli spoke on how they utilize the toon renderer on thier projects. These are the artists who did "Spirited Away", and "Howl's Moving Castle" to name just two. Here is a brief of what was discussed. Oh it's awesome!
Overall the conference was great. Got to see a lot of friends I hadn't seen in awhile. Made alot of new friends, and got inspired about new techniques and ideas. One thing I can say for Siggraph, it's nice to get out of the office, surround yourself with thousands of other like minded artists, and to generally think outside of the box. I would like to think I live outside the box, but if that's the case, then Siggraph, allows you to think outside the room the box is in. Very inspirational, forward thinking stuff.
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