Autodesk University is primarily a training conference.  There are over 500 classes that fill four floors of the convention center for almost a week.  Seeing the list of classes demonstrates just how broad and deep Autodesk’s design software reaches.  Everyone from architects to product designers to engineers to animators had something to attend.  In addition to classes, Autodesk used the show as a way to introduce products and reveal future directions for the company.

James Cameron's Avatar

Tuesday night proved to be a big highlight of Autodesk University.  The Media and Entertainment keynote featured the first public screening of footage from James Cameron’s highly anticipated 3D feature “Avatar.”  

Simply put, “Avatar” was as stunning as it was rumored.  The 3D works incredibly well, but what impressed this animator more was the level of realism in the virtual characters.  The facial animation/capture was impeccable, the faces no longer looked like rubber masks as they have in so many movies that use facial capture.  In Avatar, the characters truly came to life and were believable in every way.  The audience identified with the characters and that made the story work on a much deeper lever.  The characters inhabited a world that was just as believable.  Much of it was lush jungle with fantastic creatures.  Some of the little details I noticed were highly realistic water, mud, and other subtle effects that helped to make the world that much more engaging.

Entering the show floor

Autodesk is taking over Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas for the week to stage Autodesk University.  The event is mostly dedicated to training Autodesk’s customers in their wide array of products, particularly people interested in AutoCAD, Revit, and Inventor.  In addition, there’s a trade show as well as keynote addresses and other special events that makes this more like a yearly Autodesk conference than just a week of training. 

Over 5500 people found their way to Las Vegas this week for over 500 classes.  An additional 20,000 will attend virtually.  People started arriving on Monday for various related events, such as the developers conference, but the main conference started on Tuesday with the main keynote.  Being Las Vegas, the keynote started with none other than Elvis Presley (or a reasonable facsimile) singing the disclaimers to the tune of “Glory Glory Hallelujah.”  After that, Autodesk CEO Carl Bass took the stage and talked a bit about Autodesk’s future direction.  A lot of this centered on the idea of the computing cloud, centralized high powered banks of servers controlled by remote workstations.  Users would interface to this computing power by Autodesk software running not only on high-end workstations, but also net-enabled devices such as netbooks and iPhones.

The CTN Animation Expo is a new animation event based at the Burbank Convention Center in California. The Expo is mixed with traditional artist, computer artists, schools, software companies, book publishers, Women in Animation and ASIFA, recruiters from well established companies, and several other animation related companies.

I attended on Saturday, November 21^st 2009.  Young men stood outside the convention center spinning bright yellow signs directing patrons to the parking lot. The parking lot was full and I had to park across the street in another lot.  The inside of the convention hall was no different, packed full of people, slowly moving from one seminar room to the next. Clusters of people formed in different corners of the main lobby watching live art demonstrations and lectures.  Lines of people curved around every corner of the building with patrons trying to squeeze into main rooms to watch the seminars.  The expo floor was crammed with people slowly shuffling from one booth to the next. The booths were packed tightly into the expo area, allowing only a little room for foot traffic.  It was a claustrophobic's nightmare.

VFX Animation Supervisor Keith Roberts.

written by Rick DeMott

CTN-X kicked off its first edition on Friday. Nov. 20^th, bringing a new animation conference to Los Angeles. In it's first year, the event had quickly outgrown its home at the Burbank Convention Center with attendees lined up to attend various standing-room only panels. As can be expected from a first time event, there were a few hiccups I heard of from some attendees, specifically regarding registration lists, but overall the event ran smoothly and was put together with an desire to give people the biggest bang for their buck. In the halls of the convention center, there were animation demonstrations from 2D artists. Panels were broadcast in the halls for people to casually watch. A pirate was on hand for artists to sketch. There was plenty to do in between panels and walking the convention floor.

Sessions ran in two rooms in either 45-minute or 20-minute intervals. In a wonderful move, participants went outside after the panel to meet one-on-one with attendees to answer their questions. This gave attendees a more intimate time with panel members and also allowed for a steady flow between panels.

Finally I understood I am not indestructible so I have to decide to focus myself on highlights and to give the essence of the moment. This is how I proceeded to write this Day 3 Report for VIEW Conference 2009, in Turin.

Michael Giacchino

Michael Giacchino, great anchorman, entertained us with the Italian Wedding Party he ended up without being aware of it. People dancing, drinking and singing. He is an American soundtrack composer who has composed scores for movies, television series and video games.

During his workshop he shared an avalanche of background tips and techniques on his work. For instance: Michael writes the score for a scene very quickly, even in a day. Because he gets to see the entire movie before its completed and he can map each shot and satisfy the requirements.

Here is a nice design advice, which I find very useful in many other fields, Giacchino approaches a soundtrack writing job with this question: whats my feeling for this film if I have to reduce it to one chord? It is really a great way to distill the essence of a project.

While the Maestro drives the audience with questions and answers like if they were instrument players, frames of his films went on the big screen: Mission Impossible III, UP, Star Trek. I could feel the mood being created in the hall thanks to the music playing. He is right, some movies should have only music and no dialogues...

Because, also true, as he said, if the music is working well you are not conscious of it.

Mike Springer of Google

Too much work, too little sleep. So many friends, old and new. Amazing things flying on the big screen. This is VIEW Conference 2009. But everything has a price, like not being able to make it for the first session in the morning.

Since in one of my many past lives I also taught computer graphics to American architecture students in Rome, I have quite an interest in 3D applications for modeling and visualization. So, with another coffee, I attended the Workshop: “Using Google SketchUp for Design and Geo-Modeling: A Beginner's Course” with Mike Springer, Software Engineer at that small, un-known, provincial company named Google.

The public packs into VIEW 09.

The VIEW Conference 2009 [http://www.viewconference.it/] is the 10th International Computer Graphics Conference, which started on November 4^th and will last until the 7^th of November 2009. It's held in the beautiful city of Turin, in the north of Italy, where I had the pleasure of attending this event, now for the fourth time.

Previously I have had the opportunity to tell the wonderful series of events happening at the Torino Incontra Conference Center to a magazine, a blog, and a CG portal. This year I have the great honour to talk to Animation World Network's readers.

The sparkling energy behind VIEW is Maria Elena Gutierrez who is driving a group of partner institutions, private and public sector, in investing in innovation and knowledge-sharing in the field of Technology and Creativity.

David O’Reilly's Please say something won the Cartoon d'Or at Cartoon Forum 2009.

The 20^th annual Cartoon Forum took place September 22-25 in the beautiful town of Stavanger, Norway, capital of the coastal fjord-filled county of Rogaland. The premier European co-production forum for animation for TV and new media platforms takes place each year in a different city and affords participants the opportunity to present their project to all the key players of the animation industry. Always marked by a convivial atmosphere, the event in this milestone year had an especially positive and cohesive vibe, with attendees seemingly enjoying simply being together to share their common enthusiasm.

For everyone used to the grandeur and immense scale of the U.S. SIGGRAPH, it is important to explain that the inaugural SIGGRAPH Asia in Singapore is planned to be much smaller. ACM has taken a big risk in bringing the conference abroad, no one could be certain if it would work. With the last conference day still ahead of us I would already like to call the show a success. From what I see and hear, everybody seems happy at SIGGRAPH Asia in Singapore. The exhibition floor is busy; the quality of talks is as high as we are used to, the Electronic Theater has been praised for its quality selection, and whether speaking with SIGGRAPH Committee members or attendees, everyone notes the intimate feeling, “stars” of the community become more approachable and there is a family flair in the air.