At the Imagina Awards, the only architecture/industry/urbanism films that stood out were those based on a truly artistic vision. 

Another promising direction for the vfx and animation industry is the renewal of in-theater feature presentations thanks to stereoscopy. As John Tarnoff, head of show development at Dreamworks Animation, stated in his keynote address, "[The studio] is currently working on making the switch to stereoscopic rendering. All our releases starting in 2009 will be available in this 3-D-with-glasses format."

But it's plain to see that vfx will no longer be limited to the film industry, and this may have been the biggest message Imagina 2008 had to offer. 3D imagery is popping up everywhere, and will be increasingly available to the masses through simple yet excellent tools (such as Google Earth) or with totally new applications still hard to imagine today. As an example, Jovan Popovic, assistant professor at M.I.T., presented a new and completely autonomous motion capture solution geared for 24/24 use! Though it does require a small backpack to carry the operating laptop on which it runs today, it will very soon be able to run on something like an iPod. The system is based on a combination of gyroscopic and ultrasonic sensors rigged on the subject's body, without the need of external sensors such as optical cameras. It can be used to capture movements such as skiing or bike riding, but as Popovic said, "Many applications can be thought of for this kind of set-up: since we can monitor and record the movements of a person throughout very long periods, we could use it for health monitoring, sport training..."

This may not seem like vfx at first, as a student kindly pointed out, yet all this data will need to be visualized in an elegant way. The massive presence of architectural and industrial visualization solutions on the Imagina trade floor (in free access this year), made it obvious that the visualization industry is in sore need of the experienced artist's eye. Most of their products looked like ancient videogames, lacking the appeal found even in today's worst 3D game or animation series. The aforementioned Crytek has licensed its rendering engine to the architecture industry, yet the difference between what Crytek has achieved in its games and the images produced by the architects using the CryEngine is striking. There is a real need for artistry, script development, camera placement and visual skills.

This was particularly true during the Imagina Awards, in which the only architecture/industry/urbanism films that stood out were those based on a truly artistic vision. Albeit a "simple" architectural visualization, the CNIT film Entrez dans la Lumiere (Walk into the Light) created by Sparx-fx, a renowned French vfx and animation house, was resolutely outstanding and well deserving of its Industry for Best Promotion award. It gave a poetic vision that was far superior to any other visualization presented at the competition or on the trade floor.

Undeniably, Imagina isn't the vfx industry show it used to be. And in many ways, the massive invasion of suits tones down its glamorous past. But don't write off Imagina for that reason. They also represent new markets for vfx houses, which can provide them with the skills and the vision that they would take much too long to achieve by themselves...

Mireille Frenette and Benoit Guerville have been reporting on digital effects and film technologies for several years in Europe and in North America. Through their production company, they are currently setting up a research lab on alternative filmmaking technologies with a film project already in development.