Steve_Bennett
2007-08-09, 04:47 PM
Wow. What an awesome couple of days I just had. Tuesday and Wednesday I spent at the San Diego Convention center for Siggraph 2007. I'm expecting an NFR of Vray to come in the mail soon due to my discussions at their booth, made lots of industry contacts and gots lots of inspiration from sweet new stuff. Let's see... some highlights:
Autodesk booth of course - biggest one there and most relevant to my job.
Other big names booths present were Google, ILM/Lucasfilm, Disney/Pixar Animation, Chaos group (vray), softimage, lightwave, sony pictures, Zbrush, Digital Domain, Gnomon, Ballistic publishing, etc.
Saw a presentation from ILM on how they did some of the effects on Transformers - my god that was some sick stuff. Most of the effects that ILM did for transformers was all CG with a little live action thrown in to help the realisim. In the scene where bumblebee stands behind a truck and takes the missle shot from star scream, the truck was actually blown up in real life. It was full of Furbies so they said it was raining furbies on fire in downtown LA after they blew that up. Fire marshall didnt like that too much... But Micheal bay didnt like the explosion too much so they added extra debris that were CG. Also, the freeway chase where the autobots and decepticons first go at it was all CG. The road, bridges, plants, vehicals, etc. They said it was just easier to keep everything CG since they were traveling at 60+ MPH in that shot, plus transforming AT speed. The hanger shot with Megatron in the dam - only his legs were built physically - everything above that point was CG. They also talked about how they had to build special components to have the ice breaking off him to behave physically correct.
Saw a presentation from lucas arts on how they are doing the facial models for characters in the upcoming game Force Unleashed. They said since they are now one company with ILM, they can collaborate with their R&D and have developed a new way to build models for actors in game. Its a multi-camera system that records multiple passes of the models head and obtains optical, z-depth, bitmaps, etc, and builds a CG head all in about 6 minutes. Just sick.
Some of the other demos included one from Neoscape at the vray booth demostrating how they used it on a fairly large and complex remodel in Baton Rouge. Another one was similar to the multi-touch system from Microsoft, only instead of a super expensive LCD, it has a table with a projector mounted above. It would be awesome for CD reviews or other collaborative reviews of digital items. It appearently works with all kinds of MS apps.
Eon Reality had a booth which deals in displaying stuff in fully interactive environments. Essentially it has made virtual reality an actual reality.
The future is now. Next years siggraph is in LA on August 11-15. I will be there again and next time I will be attending classes too. This time I only had time for the exhibit floor. Anyone else going to plan on going?
Autodesk booth of course - biggest one there and most relevant to my job.
Other big names booths present were Google, ILM/Lucasfilm, Disney/Pixar Animation, Chaos group (vray), softimage, lightwave, sony pictures, Zbrush, Digital Domain, Gnomon, Ballistic publishing, etc.
Saw a presentation from ILM on how they did some of the effects on Transformers - my god that was some sick stuff. Most of the effects that ILM did for transformers was all CG with a little live action thrown in to help the realisim. In the scene where bumblebee stands behind a truck and takes the missle shot from star scream, the truck was actually blown up in real life. It was full of Furbies so they said it was raining furbies on fire in downtown LA after they blew that up. Fire marshall didnt like that too much... But Micheal bay didnt like the explosion too much so they added extra debris that were CG. Also, the freeway chase where the autobots and decepticons first go at it was all CG. The road, bridges, plants, vehicals, etc. They said it was just easier to keep everything CG since they were traveling at 60+ MPH in that shot, plus transforming AT speed. The hanger shot with Megatron in the dam - only his legs were built physically - everything above that point was CG. They also talked about how they had to build special components to have the ice breaking off him to behave physically correct.
Saw a presentation from lucas arts on how they are doing the facial models for characters in the upcoming game Force Unleashed. They said since they are now one company with ILM, they can collaborate with their R&D and have developed a new way to build models for actors in game. Its a multi-camera system that records multiple passes of the models head and obtains optical, z-depth, bitmaps, etc, and builds a CG head all in about 6 minutes. Just sick.
Some of the other demos included one from Neoscape at the vray booth demostrating how they used it on a fairly large and complex remodel in Baton Rouge. Another one was similar to the multi-touch system from Microsoft, only instead of a super expensive LCD, it has a table with a projector mounted above. It would be awesome for CD reviews or other collaborative reviews of digital items. It appearently works with all kinds of MS apps.
Eon Reality had a booth which deals in displaying stuff in fully interactive environments. Essentially it has made virtual reality an actual reality.
The future is now. Next years siggraph is in LA on August 11-15. I will be there again and next time I will be attending classes too. This time I only had time for the exhibit floor. Anyone else going to plan on going?