Image courtesy of Deron Yamada. © 2004 DYA367.

If you've heard about fmx and wonder what the heck all the fuss is about, I'm here to tell you. If you haven't heard of fmx, it's about time you did. I've attended the last three and I'm about to head off for my fourth. Held in Stuttgart, Germany, fmx (which stands for Film and Media eXchange) is Europe's largest and most important international conference on animation, vfx and digital content. But that alone would not entice me to go. Several years ago I'm thinking, fmx? It's not my kind of thing and it's a lot of trouble to get over there; it's not all that cheap a trip. I didn't think it would be worth the expense and time to attend. I was wrong and I'll tell you why.

fmx isn't all about German film and media. It's truly a global conference presented mostly in English. When a presentation is given in another language, simultaneous translation is available. At first I didn't actually attend any foreign language presentations... that is until I discovered what I was missing. Now I regularly attend them with earphones on and learn a lot of fascinating stuff. For one thing, some of the world's most talented animators don't speak English. There are so many excellent presentations (more than 300) and you're going to have to make tough choices. In a bit, I'll introduce you to some of the people presenting May 1-4, this year. But first let's get an overview of what you can expect.

What You Can Expect
First, there is the city of Stuttgart. It's a beautiful city with fine old architecture, in the middle of a fantastic wine region. Their dry Riesling is world famous. You'll pass hillside vineyards as you come in from the airport.

My old 1969 Porsche was built here in Stuttgart. I went with a group of fmxers on a factory tour that I will never forget. Then there's the food. Stuttgart has a wide range of gourmet restaurants. This is the kind of elegantly served food they tell you about on FoodTV. As soon as I arrive I go off my low carb diet and indulge myself. Compared to my neck of the woods, prices are reasonable too. The famous Swabian cooking originated in this area. Try it. Of course the German beer is amazing... try a rattler, half beer and half lemonade; but I digress. Stuttgart is a city filled with friendly people, charming architecture and easy transportation. If you come to fmx, schedule a few days to visit the city and the region.

At fmx, attendees can expect beautiful Stuggart, an intimate atmosphere and access to some of the powerful people in the industry.

The Venue
The König-Karl-Halle where the larger events are held is miracle of modern presentation technology. No expense is spared to give you top-drawer presentations. The "hall" is located in the large Haus der Wirtschaft convention complex, which has many smaller, yet excellent, presentation spaces. Thus it is that many presentations are scheduled simultaneously. Otherwise the show would go on for months. Yet the complex is historical with many battles scars evident on its exterior stonewalls.

The Atmosphere
Perhaps the one thing I love most about fmx is the wonderfully intimate atmosphere that has evolved here. Important people leave their power suits at home, let their hair down, have a few drinks and embrace the spirit. True I'm a bit of a schmoozer and I do go up to people and start talking, but I must tell you, it's rare that you find a conference this big that attracts so many accessible big wigs. I've had dinner with studio heads, drinks with industry legends and indulged in cappuccino with famous directors and brilliant animators. I've even gone drinking (which I rarely do) with a cadre of well-known studio executives. And yet, I find my time with European film students just as rewarding if not more. The atmosphere here is fun, open and full of enthusiasm. You will be warmly embraced by fmx.

The People
I selected a few of this year's presenters to introduce. Some are gods of our industry; others are on their way up. They're all worth getting to know and you'll want to attend their presentations.

Christophe Héry
First is my brilliant and talented (and I mean that most sincerely) co-host of the Virtual Humans Forum, Christophe Héry. Christophe is a technical pioneer in vfx animation. He even holds a technical achievement award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (2003). You've seen the results of his work in films like Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events and Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and many other films. He was very much responsible for the look of the amazing Davy Jones character. The technical wizardry behind Davy is hard to believe. I asked him about it specifically. "I was personally involved on the rendering side of things. The main challenge here was the amount of data and the optimization of the various passes, due to the geometry resolution. Davy was sculpted in Z-brush, which is wonderful for adding details (yielding millions of polygons). But I almost had a heart stroke when I first saw the processing numbers for the ambient occlusion renders on the Dutchman crew. I took this as an opportunity, and we ended up collaborating with Pixar (Renderman) to invent novel technical approaches for computing the information. We had to develop clever approaches inspired by the videogame industry. In turn, this led me to optimizing some more my sub-surface scattering methods (for getting a realistic skin look)."