It is over! I thought I would add some closing thoughts.
I managed to check out the Blender display (back in the far corner) and they had some cool stuff going, but could not help thinking that the Autodesk slogan "Don't blend in, stand out" may have some additional marketing subtext. I like Blender, and with their latest updates they are the best open source 3D modeling package out there, and while they are a few steps behind all Maya can offer, free is hard to beat when you are selling something. It was just a though, I still prefer Maya and really like Autodesk in general, but it was just a curious thought that passed my mind.
Otherwise, I think that Siggraph is a great pool of knowledge, but next time I go, I think I will try and spend the majority of my time in the talks, rather than the exhibition and galleries. I learned quite a bit, but I wouldn't say my mind was blown or anything like that. I felt like the exhibition and gallery were focused more on beginner to intermediate information, which is great when showing off a new technology, feature or process, but there is only so much detail you can go into in those kinds of demonstrations before you start losing people. The more formal presentations would likely not be as interested in attracting a crowd as exploring the depth of the ideas, and this, I think, would be very appealing.
Overall, I am very happy to have attended, and saw some neat things, learned some new technologies, and generally made me excited to work in this industry.
Can't really ask for more than that,
Michael Hubbard
http://michaelhubbard.ca
Showing posts with label siggraph. Show all posts
Showing posts with label siggraph. Show all posts
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Siggraph 2011 Vancouver Part 2
So, I went to the exhibition and some of the galleries and ballrooms today. Losts of neat stuff. If I was to sum it all up, it would be Motion Capture, 3D printers, Autodesk, Maya and NVIDIA. Those seemed to be the major players, although not surprising since they are also some of the more expensive technologies, so would do well to advertise.
Some of the talks I went to include:
World Creation in CryEngine: I am awaiting for the release of the free version of CryEngine 3 SDK which will likely be this month (I checked and no mention of it on their webpage yet). The demo was ok, a bit simplistic in talking about the interface, but looks impressive nevertheless.
Photoshop 3D texture map integration: This was interesting talking about how 3D height maps can be created (and tested in 3D) in Adobe Photoshop CS 5.5. an intersting talk, with some good examples and neat features I will have to try out.
Real World Camera Rig Creation: The focus of this talk was to improve the use of a camera in Maya. This was a little different, the basic concepts here was to try and build a crane, dolly or curve path rig and attach a camera to it, to mimic real life cameras. By setting up and constraining the camera in this way, it allowed for more traditional movements alongside the free flowing camera that is so easy to misuse in a 3D animation or game.
Zbrush: Creation of Venom and Carnage from Spiderman. This was just very impressive to see how talented the artists were in creating these characters from a simple head (sculpted and painted in less than an hour) and with amazing results. Just seeing how some of the artists work give ideas for how to improve your own workflow, but really nothing but lots of practice can get you to that skill level.
Adobe Premiere Pro Integration: Shows how Premiere Pro can integrate with After Effects and Encore by sharing the same project information can allow all the programs to interact and update in sequence automatically. This will allow things like a project to be open in After Effects and have an effect added to it (like rain or snow) which will automatically update the same project in Premiere so it can be viewed and editted as necessary. This encourages experimentation, and allows for quick results to be seen immediately.
ILM Transformers 3 Colossus: The stats on the Colossus Transformers (the giant worm robot) in Transformers 3 were very impressive. Over 16 million polygons, 13 separate pieces and was the equivalent to 2 and a half Devestators (from the previous movie). It took a machine with 12 cores and 48 gigs of RAM over 40 minutes to load the shot where Colossus is tearing apart the building, which has multiple layers of complexity and physics (with skin based building model) to get the shot of the building falling over.
Nvidia Parallel NSight: http://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-parallel-nsight is a very impressive tool integration for Visual Studio, that breaks apart the scene into different draw calls and gives a lot of previously difficult information about the rendering process back to the developer. A tool that allows a developer to select a pixel onscreen and not only track it, but see what draw calls have gone into its creation is amazing. I will definitely be spending some time further investigating this tool, and since it is free, I recommend everyone interested in 3D graphics programming to check it out, it looks like it will be a new favorite to many developers.
Siggraph Dailies: This was a one-minute segment of many different studios, backgrounds and styles. It was nice to see only a brief but intersting clip and a short (sometimes only a few sentences) of the challenges in getting that shot, techniques used, or ideas behind the shot. Ovearll, there are (as expected) a lot of cheats that go into a shot to get the desired effect. One interesting technique used in Tangled (from Disney) was running simulations on the hair in reverse than running the frames backward.
Lots of fun, the exhibition was pretty neat, the art was interesting, the technology was cool and I learned some neat stuff.
Hope you also made it there,
Michael Hubbard
http://michaelhubbard.ca
http://www.3dtotal.com/siggraph_diaries/exhibitor_golaem.html
Some of the talks I went to include:
World Creation in CryEngine: I am awaiting for the release of the free version of CryEngine 3 SDK which will likely be this month (I checked and no mention of it on their webpage yet). The demo was ok, a bit simplistic in talking about the interface, but looks impressive nevertheless.
Photoshop 3D texture map integration: This was interesting talking about how 3D height maps can be created (and tested in 3D) in Adobe Photoshop CS 5.5. an intersting talk, with some good examples and neat features I will have to try out.
Real World Camera Rig Creation: The focus of this talk was to improve the use of a camera in Maya. This was a little different, the basic concepts here was to try and build a crane, dolly or curve path rig and attach a camera to it, to mimic real life cameras. By setting up and constraining the camera in this way, it allowed for more traditional movements alongside the free flowing camera that is so easy to misuse in a 3D animation or game.
Zbrush: Creation of Venom and Carnage from Spiderman. This was just very impressive to see how talented the artists were in creating these characters from a simple head (sculpted and painted in less than an hour) and with amazing results. Just seeing how some of the artists work give ideas for how to improve your own workflow, but really nothing but lots of practice can get you to that skill level.
Adobe Premiere Pro Integration: Shows how Premiere Pro can integrate with After Effects and Encore by sharing the same project information can allow all the programs to interact and update in sequence automatically. This will allow things like a project to be open in After Effects and have an effect added to it (like rain or snow) which will automatically update the same project in Premiere so it can be viewed and editted as necessary. This encourages experimentation, and allows for quick results to be seen immediately.
ILM Transformers 3 Colossus: The stats on the Colossus Transformers (the giant worm robot) in Transformers 3 were very impressive. Over 16 million polygons, 13 separate pieces and was the equivalent to 2 and a half Devestators (from the previous movie). It took a machine with 12 cores and 48 gigs of RAM over 40 minutes to load the shot where Colossus is tearing apart the building, which has multiple layers of complexity and physics (with skin based building model) to get the shot of the building falling over.
Nvidia Parallel NSight: http://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-parallel-nsight is a very impressive tool integration for Visual Studio, that breaks apart the scene into different draw calls and gives a lot of previously difficult information about the rendering process back to the developer. A tool that allows a developer to select a pixel onscreen and not only track it, but see what draw calls have gone into its creation is amazing. I will definitely be spending some time further investigating this tool, and since it is free, I recommend everyone interested in 3D graphics programming to check it out, it looks like it will be a new favorite to many developers.
Siggraph Dailies: This was a one-minute segment of many different studios, backgrounds and styles. It was nice to see only a brief but intersting clip and a short (sometimes only a few sentences) of the challenges in getting that shot, techniques used, or ideas behind the shot. Ovearll, there are (as expected) a lot of cheats that go into a shot to get the desired effect. One interesting technique used in Tangled (from Disney) was running simulations on the hair in reverse than running the frames backward.
Lots of fun, the exhibition was pretty neat, the art was interesting, the technology was cool and I learned some neat stuff.
Hope you also made it there,
Michael Hubbard
http://michaelhubbard.ca
http://www.3dtotal.com/siggraph_diaries/exhibitor_golaem.html
Monday, August 8, 2011
Siggraph 2011 Vancouver
Siggraph is in Vancouver. It is pretty neat to be hosting the 3D animation festival, and there are lots of people excited to go. Some of the Animation Film Festival is today.
Some of the standouts include:
Le Royaume: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6ZmMjMdrqs
Coca Cola Siege: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shvwd7VYpE0
Spots vs Stripes: http://www.youtube.com/user/spotsvstripes#p/search/0/Zh-s3auYdKo
Dreamgiver: http://tycarter.blogspot.com/
Hezarfen: http://www.youtube.com/user/Supinfocomgroup#p/a/u/2/5YzT_RdBUvs
Kia Soul this or that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWJ4jHZwUPo
Meet Buck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vt4fBtxWYY
New Digs: http://martinsenart.blogspot.com/
Rubika: http://blog.autourdeminuit.com/distribution/rubika/
There were of course the big boys, Transformers 3 is amazing visually, I watched it twice in theaters (once in 2D, once in 3D) because it was just so visually impressive, and of course some of the games, movies and animations that are more mainstream (or are part of movies) are awesome too. Check out the animation festival list here: http://www.siggraph.org/s2011/for_attendees/computer-animation-festival for all the details.
Cheers,
Michael Hubbard
http://michaelhubbard.ca
Some of the standouts include:
Le Royaume: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6ZmMjMdrqs
Coca Cola Siege: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shvwd7VYpE0
Spots vs Stripes: http://www.youtube.com/user/spotsvstripes#p/search/0/Zh-s3auYdKo
Dreamgiver: http://tycarter.blogspot.com/
Hezarfen: http://www.youtube.com/user/Supinfocomgroup#p/a/u/2/5YzT_RdBUvs
Kia Soul this or that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWJ4jHZwUPo
Meet Buck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vt4fBtxWYY
New Digs: http://martinsenart.blogspot.com/
Rubika: http://blog.autourdeminuit.com/distribution/rubika/
There were of course the big boys, Transformers 3 is amazing visually, I watched it twice in theaters (once in 2D, once in 3D) because it was just so visually impressive, and of course some of the games, movies and animations that are more mainstream (or are part of movies) are awesome too. Check out the animation festival list here: http://www.siggraph.org/s2011/for_attendees/computer-animation-festival for all the details.
Cheers,
Michael Hubbard
http://michaelhubbard.ca
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Event: Siggraph "The Art of Lighting and Rendering Rio"
I went to the Siggraph event "The Art of Lighting and Rendering Rio" for the new animated movie Rio http://siggraph.ca/festivals/information.php?fest=20110621-RO which featured Jim Gettinger, Lighting Supervisor at Blue Sky Studios. Blue Sky Studios (New York) is owned by Twentieth Century Fox and has a pretty good 3D rendering history including Ice Age movies, Robots, Horton Hears a Who and more.
Gettinger talked about a number of aspects that were important to lighting Rio as well as initial concepts for creativity and direction. The first focus in the 3D movie is chosing the style. For Rio they went with ~80 percent realism (higher for human characters), 20% stylized, which can be seen in the stylized yet recognizable shapes in the movie. Probably the most interesting bit of news was the proprietary tool called "Studio" that Blue Sky Studio uses. I suspect it is a layer that sits on top of Maya and has its own renderer or sits on top of Mental Ray that allows for more level details to be exposed through tools for the artists. Some of the functionality includes:
- Voxels for feathers, plants and eventually buildings.
- Procedural textures on all background terrain and buildings (including all of the panoramic screen shots in the movie).
- Atmospheric pass that interacts with the raytracer.
There is not a lot of information about the CGI Studio propreitary software, but there is a link describing a little more at http://www.blueskystudios.com/content/process-tools.php but that was of course the most interesting part of the talk for me.
Some of the other information that was interesting was they had up to a 13 hour render for some of the frames on shots on Rio. There was a lot of compositing work and complexity of the shots (reflections, shadows etc.) dealing with the human characters' glasses. Some of the work invovled creating a separate pass for blending with refraction index of 1.1 (instead of 1.5 for glass), to give a more realistic look. There was also quite a lot of research and development done on the skin of the human characters, especially related to subsurface scattering. They needed to update subsurface scattering for different areas of face, creating additional maps for those areas that need scattering like on the character's nose.
An interesting talk, in an interesting building (looks like an art gallery on the outside, a bar on the inside and a theater inside that :P).
Looks like I will have to check out that movie now,
Michael Hubbard
http://michaelhubbard.ca
Gettinger talked about a number of aspects that were important to lighting Rio as well as initial concepts for creativity and direction. The first focus in the 3D movie is chosing the style. For Rio they went with ~80 percent realism (higher for human characters), 20% stylized, which can be seen in the stylized yet recognizable shapes in the movie. Probably the most interesting bit of news was the proprietary tool called "Studio" that Blue Sky Studio uses. I suspect it is a layer that sits on top of Maya and has its own renderer or sits on top of Mental Ray that allows for more level details to be exposed through tools for the artists. Some of the functionality includes:
- Voxels for feathers, plants and eventually buildings.
- Procedural textures on all background terrain and buildings (including all of the panoramic screen shots in the movie).
- Atmospheric pass that interacts with the raytracer.
There is not a lot of information about the CGI Studio propreitary software, but there is a link describing a little more at http://www.blueskystudios.com/content/process-tools.php but that was of course the most interesting part of the talk for me.
Some of the other information that was interesting was they had up to a 13 hour render for some of the frames on shots on Rio. There was a lot of compositing work and complexity of the shots (reflections, shadows etc.) dealing with the human characters' glasses. Some of the work invovled creating a separate pass for blending with refraction index of 1.1 (instead of 1.5 for glass), to give a more realistic look. There was also quite a lot of research and development done on the skin of the human characters, especially related to subsurface scattering. They needed to update subsurface scattering for different areas of face, creating additional maps for those areas that need scattering like on the character's nose.
An interesting talk, in an interesting building (looks like an art gallery on the outside, a bar on the inside and a theater inside that :P).
Looks like I will have to check out that movie now,
Michael Hubbard
http://michaelhubbard.ca
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