Australia's visual effects community gathered at Sydney's Darling Harbor Convention Centre for the 6th Australian Effects and Animation Festival (AEAF) from February 26 — 28, 2001. While their motives for attending may have been as diversified as the festival's sessions, all visitors left with the same outcome: an invaluable experience and insight into the digital world at large.

Hael Kobayashi and Tim Alexander from Industrial Light & Magic. All photos courtesy and © AEAF.

"Our target audience consists of a broad range," stated festival chairman and editor of Digital Media World, Bill Dawes. "From students to craftspeople, animators, post-production professionals and technical experts within the industry." One of the major attractions for these attendees was the festival's line-up of guest speakers, which included a comprehensive gathering of local and international experience. "We got Hael Kobayashi from ILM to take Australian animators through the process of how to get a gig in this industry, and how to structure their careers," enthused Dawes. "For an Australian animator to get that sort of information from ILM is a once in a lifetime opportunity."

Apart from such overseas talent, the festival also provided the chance for two Australian animators, who have made their mark overseas, to partake in a sort of homecoming. Karen Ansel, who has worked on such films as The Mask, The Klumps and What Dreams May Come, pondered on the differences between working locally and in America. "Australia makes you flexible, because you really have to do everything. You're not slotted into one particular area, whereas in the U.S. you might be working on one sequence for 2 years. The plus side of working in the States was that there is a greater sharing of technological knowledge. In Australia, where the competition is tougher, people tend to hold onto their information a little bit."

Robyn Schremmer, design director, Digital Pictures, and Chris Nurse, CEO of Attik London, proved that people travelled to attend this event.

Also returning home was James Rogers, the composite supervisor for the upcoming film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Opening with clips from the full motion videos of the Final Fantasy games, James pointed out that, "If you ever question why Square decided to make a movie, looking at those videos should give you a fairly good idea of the logical progression." Following on with exclusive clips from the film, including never-before-seen behind the scenes footage, James gave an in-depth explanation of the process of creating a shot, from storyboard through to final composition. While the film had an average number of nine layers per shot, James shocked his audience when he recalled that the largest number of layers in one frame was 498. "That was a very bad day at the office."

Undoubtedly a draw-card for the festival, Final Fantasy's inclusion in the line-up, coupled with Mark Coleran's glimpse of his work on Tomb Raider, highlighted the relationship between film animation and video games animation. As Bill Dawes confirmed, "Previously that quality of animation was limited to the opening cinematics of major computer games. Then when you would go to the game play, where the animation has to be rendered in real-time by the graphics processor on the console or PC, [it wouldn't be as good]. Although it could not be of the quality of the pre-rendered sequence, I think we are now approaching that level with products like the X-Box and PS2. You are also seeing similar developments in the quality of animation produced for feature films. In terms of the presentation we saw of Final Fantasy and Shrek, we are close to photo-real capabilities, making animation of even two or three years ago appear second rate."