Don Greenberg. Courtesy of SIGGRAPH ASIA 2008.

The inaugural SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 was formally opened on Tuesday, Dec 11, in true Singaporean style: with festive opening speeches by the Conference Chair YT Lee and by distinguished government representatives.

Highlight of the opening ceremony was featured speaker of the day Don Greenberg, Computer Graphics Pioneer and Director of Cornell University. Coming from an architecture background and using some of the earliest computer science to generate his first visualizations, Don was basically marking out the new territory of computer graphics. Yes, they did use punch cards back then to feed XYZ coordinates into the computer! Courage to try out new approaches and techniques, and find new fields to apply this technology, were the driving factors for him and his peers back then in the early days of computer graphics. Don noted that large parts of the new computer science research in the SIGGRAPH community are focused in animation, games and entertainment. While the quality increases, research topics have narrowed down to a few fields. Don calls us to have courage not to be risk adverse and venture into new areas of research and interdisciplinary practice, citing examples of applications in medical technology, earthquake and tectonic research, to ornithology where he researched the potential existence of an extinct bird species.

David Silverman talks to a packed house at TAC.

It’s a good life when your job involves watching cartoons.

Attendees at the Day 2 Television Animation Conference (TAC) address got to watch some seriously funny cartoons. David Silverman, animation director and producer long associated with The Simpsons, let Homer talk for him through selected clips screened during his speech. And with grainy black-and-white footage showing comedic inspiration as a backdrop, Silverman went on to explain the origin of Homer’s famous “D’oh!”—culled from the exclamations of such comic greats as Oliver Hardy and the Three Stooges.

Silverman also recalled how he got involved with The Simpsons back when it was first created as part of The Tracey Ullman Show. Silverman credits his admiration for the work of Matt Groening (Life in Hell) for his decision to work on the show.

“We didn’t know if The Tracey Ullman Show would get picked up or if The Simpsons would get picked up as part of the show,” Silverman recalls. “We worked hard… all hours of the night. We were trying to please ourselves.”

Years later, that philosophy still holds as Silverman has continued work on The Simpsons show – directing 22 episodes – as well as directing The Simpsons Movie. Other credits include working with DreamWorks on The Road to El Dorado as co-director and with Pixar on Monsters Inc. as co-director.

Cloudy with the Chance of Meatballs shows more 3-D potential.

The exhibition has closed but the conference continues on this last day, with 3-D screenings (including some new Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs footage) and E-Tech still attracting lots of attention, even spread out in several rooms and isolated on the third floor. The emphasis is on interactive sensory techniques. And what's hot? "The interconnectivity between the machine and human," asserted Manabu Sakurai, Emerging Technologies chair. "If you see the gaming industry, your console is not just a game console anymore -- part of your body is the game console. And the machine understands your natural movements. And then, in an opposite way, the display, what you see is also getting closer to humans. The key word is 3-D."

The Simpsons' David Silverman.Only at OIAF can you get a chance to talk about the crazy Balloon Boy escapade with veteran Simpsons director David Silverman, and get to compare that incident with a Simpsons episode where prankster Bart pretends to be little Timmy, a boy who has fallen down a well. Happily, like Bart/Timmy, Balloon Boy was safe and sound the whole time.

Silverman talks about his work on The Simpsons – both he TV series and movie – with great affection and enthusiasm. “The Simpsons challenges the intellect and stimulates the intellect,” he says. This, despite the fact that the show relies on what he calls a “double act” routine – with one big idiot leading a lesser idiot.

When asked if another Simpsons feature is in the offing, Silverman replies, “I’m sure in future there will be. Right now, we’re too busy on the show.”

Silverman advises that The Simpsons series is being adjusted for HD format. “Backgrounds had to be redesigned and updated, and that involves a lot of fine line work,” Silverman says.

In 2000, Silverman departed Simpsons territory and co-directed Dreamworks’ The Road to El Dorado and in 2001, he co-directed Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. “I had been working on The Simpsons for 10 years, and I thought, ‘This can’t last forever’,” Silverman recalls. As it turned out, after those gigs, Silverman returned to The Simpsons’ comfortable couch for another extended run.

Silhouettes of Jazz

Evening Theater’s Jury Chair’s Reel included the following shorts. Silhouettes of Jazz Dominik Kaser Martin-Sebastian Senn, Mario Deuss ETH Zurich Switzerland The first video shown was Silhouettes of Jazz. Jazz music plays as the camera takes you though a house where each room has a different 3D objects that look like a blob of plastic are turning in place. Light is casted on them to form shadows on the wall. These shadows turn out to be sculptures that highlight five milestones in the history of jazz. The music changes in each room. The first room represents field workers, the second is instruments that also turn into someone playing them, depending on how the light shines on it. The next is a dancing couple. Then a spade sculpture is hanging from the ceiling. The last objects were music notes. This video captured the jazz is a new light. The music chosen takes you through out different jazz eras.

Another busy day at GDC.

Today was off to a good start with Khronos’ three press releases this morning during their “Developer University.” They talked briefly about the all-new OpenGL 3.1 with a new streamlined API, and also covered their new OpenSL ES 1.0 API, which is coming close to completely converging with OpenGL – something that would enable a subset that could run anywhere, either on desktop or mobile. They also unveiled their initiative to bring accelerated 3D content to the web. Mozilla spearheads this effort with the support of Google. The goal of the movement is to not only enhance current web applications, but to enable new innovations in web 3d created by any developer. A call-to-arms was made for industry personnel to support and work towards this goal.

Dustin Grella's Prayers for Peace.

By Dan Sarto

Is it just me, or do Canadians like to congregate and talk hockey while blocking the entrance to every elevator, hallway, doorway and turnstile in the vicinity?  It seemed every single path I took yesterday was impeded by some throng completely oblivious to those trying to navigate past them. Oh, plus I saw some good films!

FMX opens at the Haus der Wirtschaft Center of Commerce.

Here we go again! It's May again, so time to travel to Stuttgart, Germany to meet, to listen, to open the eyes and the minds, to feel the sense of wonder, the pulse of the future and to be amazed by the achievements of the many professionals, as well as those of the bold young students, who present their work. For the 15^th time the Conference on Animation, Effects, Games & Interactive Media starts today and — business as usual — this year's program let your mouth drool, if you are a big fan of those wondrous worlds.

Fifteen editions ago, in 1994, the small and tiny “Film and Medienbörse Stuttgart” was held for the very first time – Prof. Thomas Haegele and his team decided to translate the German term into English and the “Film and Media eXchange” in short FMX was born.

H5's Logorama.

Every year I think Chris Robinson can't take it any higher. But every year he ramps it up a notch.

This guy is the master of the post-modern introduction.

You had to be there to feel the bizarre energy, to share in the intense, quizzical, weird couple of moments.

Then we were back to reality.

Nancy on the animation couch.

By Nancy Denney-Phelps

The Fredrikstad Animation Festival in Fredrikstad, Norway has an emphasis on screening Nordic animation but offers so much more. Along with Nordic short film and student competitions and screenings of animation aimed at the family audience, two days were devoted to seminars with international guest speakers from all branches of the animation world.

Anyone who is lucky enough to be invited to this wonderful festival should not miss the opportunity. Not only will you have the good fortune to see the best in Nordic/Baltic animation but you will also meet many wonderful people and return home with very special memories.