Angie and Jamie here reporting on Boston Siggraph 2006!
DAY TWO:
DAY TWO:
After day one we started to wonder about the future of animation and how the current overseas push will affect our livelyhoods... Singapore, India, China and Australia - even Turkey had a booth advertising studios for outsourcing at Siggraph this year.
ILM has their studio in Singapore that they have been "training up" for a couple years now and they love the fact that the people there speak english, have a high work ethic, the country has special laws that protect Intelluctual Properties and Creative Content ownership and the government even gives money to those who set up shop in Malaysia. Disney's toon division is set up in India and is in full production on their new Tinkerbell movie there. Vanguard has adopted a new business practice where they set up shop in different countries where the government provides money to them to put on a show and employ their natives. Vanguard (makers of Valiant) has now moved from England to Canada for their new movie about monkeys in space. And, finally R & H has had production going in India for some time now...what does this all mean for animators?
ILM has their studio in Singapore that they have been "training up" for a couple years now and they love the fact that the people there speak english, have a high work ethic, the country has special laws that protect Intelluctual Properties and Creative Content ownership and the government even gives money to those who set up shop in Malaysia. Disney's toon division is set up in India and is in full production on their new Tinkerbell movie there. Vanguard has adopted a new business practice where they set up shop in different countries where the government provides money to them to put on a show and employ their natives. Vanguard (makers of Valiant) has now moved from England to Canada for their new movie about monkeys in space. And, finally R & H has had production going in India for some time now...what does this all mean for animators?
Jamie is feeling a little hungover and so am I as I take this picture, but we are ready to go do another day of Siggraph... aren't you Jamie?
TOURISM:
We felt bad that sight-seeing wasn't really on the schedule while we were in Boston, so we took snaps of kewl architecture while we rode round and round picking up folks from the hotels on the way to the convention center.
There are not too many places in Los Angeles that are established in 1868, so we had to take this photo.
There was all this steam and smoke coming out of the building in the distance, but it didn't show up in the photo. Boston looks so old compared to Los Angeles...so neato to see the brownstones and old architecture.
SCHOOLS:
The first row we hit at Siggraph Wednesday morning was the one with all the schools. We wanted to be sure they all knew about our text. Angie recently found out that her alma mater - Atlanta College of Art - was just gobbled up by SCAD. She regrets not going back to the school to visit before this happened in June, 2006.
Angie and Jason Maurer - Animation Professor at SCAD - discuss the book.
The change is bittersweet since Atlanta College of Art had a lot of history and was one of the few private fine art schools in the south east that still followed traditional approaches to art and design. The institution had been around since 1905 and was the first not-for-profit college of design and art in the Southeast. The school's location, which has been changed now, was smack in the middle of Atlanta's Woodruff Arts Center, the High Museum of Art, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Alliance Theatre.
As bittersweet the new alliance is, Angie believes it will also bring some good things to ACA that they couldn't do for themselves because they were so small and privately owned. The new money from SCAD will bring more facilities, better libraries and equipment and best of all money to bring speakers like Jamie and Angie to town to help the departments and students push their animation to an even higher level! Yay!
The Art Institute had horses set up with easels,
but the easels had computer monitors on them...cute twist!
People learning Maya at Art Institute Booth.
Ringling School of Art and Design.
Ringling also had a busy booth and for those students who came by our booth and asked...we are planning a seminar for the school to be held really soon!
Imageworks booth from afar.
Life Drawing at Sony Pictures Imageworks.
You can also see in the distance the Softimage demo of their new facial robot.
Angie and Jason Maurer - Animation Professor at SCAD - discuss the book.Jason Maurer in the picture above worked with Angie's sister - Jennifer Jones - at Fathom Studios on the movie Delgo. Jennifer was Head of PR and Marketing at Fathom for about 8 years and Jason was supervisor of writing, direction and production for all Fathom Studios' animated projects.
The change is bittersweet since Atlanta College of Art had a lot of history and was one of the few private fine art schools in the south east that still followed traditional approaches to art and design. The institution had been around since 1905 and was the first not-for-profit college of design and art in the Southeast. The school's location, which has been changed now, was smack in the middle of Atlanta's Woodruff Arts Center, the High Museum of Art, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Alliance Theatre.
As bittersweet the new alliance is, Angie believes it will also bring some good things to ACA that they couldn't do for themselves because they were so small and privately owned. The new money from SCAD will bring more facilities, better libraries and equipment and best of all money to bring speakers like Jamie and Angie to town to help the departments and students push their animation to an even higher level! Yay!
The Art institute went all out with special classes set up on these really creative desks. They were teaching Maya to the students.
The Art Institute had horses set up with easels,but the easels had computer monitors on them...cute twist!
People learning Maya at Art Institute Booth.Ringling School of Art and Design.Ringling also had a busy booth and for those students who came by our booth and asked...we are planning a seminar for the school to be held really soon!
STUDIOS:
Moving on from the schools...All of the studios had a BIG presence at the show. Imageworks had a very impressive booth as always and you could see it for miles.
Imageworks booth from afar.Life Drawing at Sony Pictures Imageworks.You can also see in the distance the Softimage demo of their new facial robot.
We cannot say it enough. Drawing is so important to what we do as animators. Sony Imageworks has always encouraged this and usually has a class in their booth taught by Karl Gnass . Back in 2000, when Angie was at Sony she loved going to Karl's classes. He spends a lot of time on anatomy, explaining it and drawing it before he even draws the model.
A guy standing next to Jamie asked him "what does this have to do with anything?" as we watched the class. Jamie explained to him how important drawing is and if you were going to build a house, how could you without a foundation? Drawing is the foundation of animation and the artistry necessary for creating beautiful pictures with a computer.
Surf's Up Poster at the Sony Booth.
Superman Poster at the Sony Booth.
Rhythm and Hues booth was actively recruiting for lighters and technical people. The rumor out there is they are using their new India studio to handle most all of their animation and they laid off all of their freelance animators. The staff animators will repurpose the animation sent back from India. Of course, this is just a rumor we heard.
**We have just been set straight on this rumor that was flying all over Siggraph. A source at R & H says "Due to having the India studio, R & H has been able to have more jobs come into the studio, therefore we have been able to hire the most amount of freelancers in the studio's history."
So there ya go! Worries over outsourcing can be put at rest!
Lucas Film - ILM had an impressive booth as well. We took some video below of a demo they were playing about how they are trying to push Lucas Arts games to have the same level of quality as their films.
ILM Booth at Siggraph.
Video Link to ILM Demo of new technologies in film and games.
Laika - previously Will Vinton
Clay characters under glass from the old days of Vinton.
Eon Touchlight - wooooooooooo!
CG Society and Ballistic Publishing Booth
Our good friend Denise - from the Break Point Books Booth at Comicon - is hard at work at the Ballistic Publishing booth pushing the Art of Oddworld book (among others) which Jamie and I flipped through, so I could show him some of the kewl stuff I worked on up at Oddworld.
Autodesk Hallway of Red - kewllllllllll!
A guy standing next to Jamie asked him "what does this have to do with anything?" as we watched the class. Jamie explained to him how important drawing is and if you were going to build a house, how could you without a foundation? Drawing is the foundation of animation and the artistry necessary for creating beautiful pictures with a computer.
Surf's Up Poster at the Sony Booth.Superman Poster at the Sony Booth.Rhythm and Hues booth was actively recruiting for lighters and technical people. The rumor out there is they are using their new India studio to handle most all of their animation and they laid off all of their freelance animators. The staff animators will repurpose the animation sent back from India. Of course, this is just a rumor we heard.**We have just been set straight on this rumor that was flying all over Siggraph. A source at R & H says "Due to having the India studio, R & H has been able to have more jobs come into the studio, therefore we have been able to hire the most amount of freelancers in the studio's history."
So there ya go! Worries over outsourcing can be put at rest!
Lucas Film - ILM had an impressive booth as well. We took some video below of a demo they were playing about how they are trying to push Lucas Arts games to have the same level of quality as their films.
ILM Booth at Siggraph.Video Link to ILM Demo of new technologies in film and games.
Laika - previously Will VintonLaika had a quite a large booth at Siggraph showing that they mean business. Henry Selick, Dan Wahl and Dale Philips all hope to make a big splash up there in Oregon with their new films Moongirl, Coraline and Jack and Ben.
Clay characters under glass from the old days of Vinton.TECHNOLOGY:
Now on to another really kewl technological product we saw!!! Eon Technologies had this holographic monitor that combined Star Wars and Monority Report into one. It was an image projected onto a screen that you could move and rotate with your hand! Amazing!
Eon Touchlight - wooooooooooo!CG Society and Ballistic Publishing BoothAutodesk Hallway of Red - kewllllllllll!Jamie liked the look of this hallway at the Autodesk booth. Unfortunately we were in between demos when we passed by, so we didn't get to see much on Maya 8, but have heard that Autodesk intends to support both Max and Maya independently and improve both products concurrently by taking what users like best and pushing that in both.
Angie has written two books on 3D Studio Max and used it in both film and games. Although the Maya toolset is stronger in her opinion, the best thing about the Autodesk merger is Autodesk takes great care in listening to their users and providing forums where users can ask for tools that are not already in the software. Maya/Alias never had this kind of customer service, so it should push Maya to be a more well rounded product.
Jamie wanted a picture with a motherboard. LOL!
Where are the crowds at the Massive Booth? Pun intended, we arrived just in between the "crowd creating" software demo for Massive.
Diane and Angie outside the Massive booth.
Diane Holland - CEO of Massive Software, is an old friend of Angie's and ran out to say "hello" as we started to walk off since we saw no crowds there. She is one of the few people in CG that can claim she has been doing it for 17 years!!! and as a female she is even more rare in this circle.
Diane Holland started in 1989 at ILM and was also the third person hired at Digital Domain as Director of Operations and later as Director of Marketing for the feature film division. Angie met her when she was in charge of the development of an animated feature at Disney a year or so before she joined Massive in 2004. Diane is an intelligent and together lady and if you ever have a chance to talk to her, take advantage!
Angie has written two books on 3D Studio Max and used it in both film and games. Although the Maya toolset is stronger in her opinion, the best thing about the Autodesk merger is Autodesk takes great care in listening to their users and providing forums where users can ask for tools that are not already in the software. Maya/Alias never had this kind of customer service, so it should push Maya to be a more well rounded product.
Jamie wanted a picture with a motherboard. LOL!Where are the crowds at the Massive Booth? Pun intended, we arrived just in between the "crowd creating" software demo for Massive.Diane and Angie outside the Massive booth.Diane Holland - CEO of Massive Software, is an old friend of Angie's and ran out to say "hello" as we started to walk off since we saw no crowds there. She is one of the few people in CG that can claim she has been doing it for 17 years!!! and as a female she is even more rare in this circle.
Diane Holland started in 1989 at ILM and was also the third person hired at Digital Domain as Director of Operations and later as Director of Marketing for the feature film division. Angie met her when she was in charge of the development of an animated feature at Disney a year or so before she joined Massive in 2004. Diane is an intelligent and together lady and if you ever have a chance to talk to her, take advantage!
More technology!
Z-Brush Demo
We guess Siggraph is not complete without a mocap picture.
The balls glow when the flash goes off - wooooooo!
Softimage Demo of Robot Facial.
Softimage was pimping their new tool Robot facial and it was quite impressive with real time wrinkles and a really fast interface for creating photoreal facial animation.
Jamie has fallen in love with this WACOM tablet...anyone want to loan us $2500?
Link to Video of Jamie drawing Redd the Clown on the Tablet
Link to Jamie Coloring that Clown in on same Tablet.
Actually we BOTH want one - so make the check for 5k to Thinking Animation!
So, now it's time to go sign books again....Yay!
We get to sit down!
Off to the Thomson Booth!
More people bought the book today than yesterday
and many friends stopped by to say hello.
Alba Garcia and Hubby.
This girl was the cutest thing ever. Alba Garcia is a stop-mo animator with high energy and is like a female Latin Tim Burton. Her husband is a talented modeler and she told us that she is employing him to help her cross over into CG animation from stop-mo. "He make da models and I animate"...she says. We love Alba!
David Allen - Animator/Director/Producer/Studio Owner extraodinarre!
David Allen came by as well to pick up his copy! He was at our Meet and Greet BOF with a couple other friends and he has some high aspirations for his future. To our favorite wolverine animator - Shoot for the stars! Its the only way to rise above the rest man!
Eric Tsai - pipeline and real estate, dancing KING!
Eric Tsai is an old friend of Jamie and Angie's from Rhythm and Hues and he hung out with us all day long! He made us laugh, think and even taught us a thing or two about real-estate! Eric - Thanks so much for hanging out - you made the day so much fun! If you ever need pipeline set-up for your show? Eric is the MAN! Of course he said he is on vacation this year. Oh and one more tip - he is so smart! Since he was at Siggraph for the whole week, he sublet an apartment for 800$ in Boston! I think we paid that much for two nights at our hotel - sheesh!
Ian wears his nose with pride!
Ian Stead is another animator who came by the Meet and Greet Tuesday night and also stopped by the booth on Wednesday to get his copy of the book. Thanks Ian for all your support!
Todd the death metal clown!
Todd looks like he could kick your ass or at least play the hell out of some death metal, but was a sweet, quiet guy who came by for his dose of Thinking Animation!
Steve Rotenberg is a old friend of Angie's from her Angel Studios days.
Angie worked with Steve Rotenberg at Angel Studios in 2000 down in Carlsbad, CA after her stint at Oddworld Inhabitants.
During her career, Angie has run into people who started from the Digital Production/Robert Abel age of CG animation over and over again. Diego Angel, Micheal Limber and Brad Hunt are some principals from Angel Studios who were big players during the Abel/DP era, as well as Lorne Lanning and Sherry Mckenna from Oddworld. It's amazing the history you can be walking around the halls with at some studios. We encourage you to get to know the principals of the your studio. You might be surprised what these folks have done in their careers!
Angel Studios is now Rockstar Games but Steve and his brother Mark really put Angel on the map with their smarts in writing CG tools, especially real-time lighting and rendering engines. Angie was blown away by a real-time renderosity tool Steve was developing when she was at Angel that could create real raytraced bounce light over surfaces interactively. He would move a sun over a terrain the the space would light itself interactively - it was amazing! No more specular map passes for games!
Steve has now started his own game company called Pixelactive in Carlsbad, CA. PixelActive develops state of the art interactive 3D technology including visualization, physical simulation, geometric modeling, and video game development.
In other words - Steve is a smartie and knows his stuff!
Mark Rotenberg of Bunkspeed.
And then who walks up? The other brainiac brother - Mark Rotenberg! Mark has joined a company with another Angel Studios alumni - Brad Hunt (previously mentioned) called Bunkspeed. Brad Hunt worked at Digital Productions way back in the day and he is another CG veteran like Diane Holland (CEO of Massive - see above) that Angie has a lot of respect for.
Flyer for Bunkspeed
This company creates an interactive way to design cars. If the client wants to shave just a bit off the back of the car, instead of going to a sculptor and having them work all day on the clay to get the shape the client wants??? Bunkspeed can interactively make those changes on the computer - and fast! Basically
During her career, Angie has run into people who started from the Digital Production/Robert Abel age of CG animation over and over again. Diego Angel, Micheal Limber and Brad Hunt are some principals from Angel Studios who were big players during the Abel/DP era, as well as Lorne Lanning and Sherry Mckenna from Oddworld. It's amazing the history you can be walking around the halls with at some studios. We encourage you to get to know the principals of the your studio. You might be surprised what these folks have done in their careers!
Angel Studios is now Rockstar Games but Steve and his brother Mark really put Angel on the map with their smarts in writing CG tools, especially real-time lighting and rendering engines. Angie was blown away by a real-time renderosity tool Steve was developing when she was at Angel that could create real raytraced bounce light over surfaces interactively. He would move a sun over a terrain the the space would light itself interactively - it was amazing! No more specular map passes for games!
Steve has now started his own game company called Pixelactive in Carlsbad, CA. PixelActive develops state of the art interactive 3D technology including visualization, physical simulation, geometric modeling, and video game development.
In other words - Steve is a smartie and knows his stuff!
Mark Rotenberg of Bunkspeed.And then who walks up? The other brainiac brother - Mark Rotenberg! Mark has joined a company with another Angel Studios alumni - Brad Hunt (previously mentioned) called Bunkspeed. Brad Hunt worked at Digital Productions way back in the day and he is another CG veteran like Diane Holland (CEO of Massive - see above) that Angie has a lot of respect for.
Flyer for BunkspeedThis company creates an interactive way to design cars. If the client wants to shave just a bit off the back of the car, instead of going to a sculptor and having them work all day on the clay to get the shape the client wants??? Bunkspeed can interactively make those changes on the computer - and fast! Basically
ally, the software they are developing is a real time and print rendering solution for automotive and design industries. 
Hernando Bahamon came by to get his book and we think he should wear that nose all the time!
Hernando Bahamon came by to get his book and we think he should wear that nose all the time!Hernando was full of questions for Jamie about Sheridan because he is in the middle of his studies there. We saw a light in his eyes when he spoke of animation. With that kind of enthusiasm, he will go far!
TJ Galda and friend.
TJ Galda came by to say hello! Angie has known TJ through forums and meetings at Siggraph over the years, but he looked so different she almost didn't recognize him! TJ we are so glad you stopped by!
TJ was nominated for the AutoDesk/Maya Masters award this year. He has always been so giving of tutorials and his expertise in CG! His expertise is in Character Animation, Rigging, Lighting - you name it! and he has since left Dreamworks to work at EA where he is overseeing production on nine titles. You go TJ!
Bobby Beck and Angie ham it up!
TJ was nominated for the AutoDesk/Maya Masters award this year. He has always been so giving of tutorials and his expertise in CG! His expertise is in Character Animation, Rigging, Lighting - you name it! and he has since left Dreamworks to work at EA where he is overseeing production on nine titles. You go TJ!
Bobby Beck and Angie ham it up!We were supposed to leave at 4 p.m., but the people kept coming by...so we stayed. We are so glad we did because at the end of the day Bobby Beck of AnimationMentor.com came by!
Angie has known Bobby since 1998, when we were both just pups learning about the world of CG animation. Bobby was animating at Tippett on movies in Softimage and she was animating cinematics at Oddworld for the Abe's Oddysee video games with Alias Power Animator. Bobby has been a great friend and confidant over the years and it was so wonderful to see him again! Many of the Animation Mentor students were asking if we would give a class or seminar through AM and Jamie and I hope to put something great together with Animation Mentor really soon! In the meantime, we are featured on the AM newsletter for students - here is a link!
Tony Bennett - can you believe that is his name? Awesome!
Angie has known Bobby since 1998, when we were both just pups learning about the world of CG animation. Bobby was animating at Tippett on movies in Softimage and she was animating cinematics at Oddworld for the Abe's Oddysee video games with Alias Power Animator. Bobby has been a great friend and confidant over the years and it was so wonderful to see him again! Many of the Animation Mentor students were asking if we would give a class or seminar through AM and Jamie and I hope to put something great together with Animation Mentor really soon! In the meantime, we are featured on the AM newsletter for students - here is a link!
Tony Bennett - can you believe that is his name? Awesome!Tony is an aspiring animator studying hard and he came by to chat and buy the book as well. His desire to learn all he can about animation will take him far. Keep that up Tony, Jamie and Angie learn something new everyday! And thank your Uncle for us for supporting and helping you get through school! We need more enthusiastic artists like you out there!
Javier shows us his scary side.
Rob and his friend get their clown on!
J Griffin shows his clown spirit!
Javier shows us his scary side.Javier stopped by again to harass Angie so she made him wear a nose! In case you didn't see Javier in the previous posts for Siggraph, he helped make our clown real by rigging the skelly and pushing it to a higher level. There is a blog in the back of the book that accounts for all of his rigging solutions for the cartoony clown!
Rob and his friend get their clown on!J Griffin shows his clown spirit!J was at the Meet and Greet, but he came by to get his book signed and he is just so cute with the freckles and the nose that Angie wanted to pack him up in her suitcase and take him home with her. Of course, the baggage claim at United might not approve so she refrained. J is another super enthusiastic animator and we are so glad we got a chance to talk to him. J, if you ever find yourself in LA - look Jamie and I up - we will take you to Trader Vics for a Mai Tai!
Convention Floor from the mezzanine as they told us all to leave.
This is how Jamie and I felt...man it's over - we are tried and hungry and need a stiff drink!
Well that is it for us! Thanks for hanging out, we tried to see everything and cover it from an animator's perspective. There were many parties we just were not able to attend because the show is so exhausting, but we heard they were all crazy fun with the usual go-go girls and drinking! We will be busy the next month working on our seminars, but write to us and let us know what you think of the book!
Thanks,
Angie and Jamie
Convention Floor from the mezzanine as they told us all to leave.This is how Jamie and I felt...man it's over - we are tried and hungry and need a stiff drink!Well that is it for us! Thanks for hanging out, we tried to see everything and cover it from an animator's perspective. There were many parties we just were not able to attend because the show is so exhausting, but we heard they were all crazy fun with the usual go-go girls and drinking! We will be busy the next month working on our seminars, but write to us and let us know what you think of the book!
Thanks,
Angie and Jamie