The winners of the Academy Awards for Scientific and Technical achievements for the year 2002 have been announced and Alias|Wavefront will receive an Oscar for Maya, its 3D animation, modeling and rendering production tool. Maya is widely used in feature films that incorporate 3D visual effects and animation, and was employed extensively in such films as SPIDER-MAN, ICE AGE, HOLLOW MAN and THE PERFECT STORM. Other animation-related technology to be honored by the Academy includes a Scientific and Engineering Awards plaque to the creators of Houdini animation software, and Technical Achievement certificates to PDI/DreamWorks Facial Animation System, which is used to create and control natural, expressive, highly-nuanced facial animation on a wide range of computer-generated characters; Mental Ray rendering software, a highly programmable computer-graphics renderer incorporating ray tracing and global illumination to realistically simulate the behavior of light in computer-generated imagery; and Deep Canvas rendering software, which captures the original brush strokes of the traditional background artist to render elements in three dimensions for animated films. Deep Canvas was first used in Disney's TARZAN and taken to even greater heights with Disney's latest release TREASURE PLANET. The Academy's Board of Governors voted on the award recipients based upon recommendations from the Scientific and Technical Awards Committee, chaired by Richard Edlund. The Scientific and Technical Academy Awards will be presented at a gala black tie dinner on Saturday evening, March 1, 2003 at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel.
Academy Awards for Scientific and Technical achievements for the year 2002 are:
ACADEMY AWARD OF MERIT (Oscar Statuette)
- Alias|Wavefront for the development of a 3D animation, dynamics, modeling and rendering production tool known as Maya.
- Arnold & Richter Cine Technik and to Panavision, Inc., for their continuing development and innovation in the design and manufacturing of advanced camera systems specifically designed for the motion picture entertainment industry.
SCIENTIFIC AND ENGINEERING AWARDS (Academy Plaque) - Glenn Sanders and Howard Stark of Zaxcom for the concept, design and engineering of the portable Deva Digital Audio Disk Recorder. - Mark Elendt, Paul Breslin, Greg Hermanovic and Kim Davidson for their continued development of the procedural modeling and animation components of their Prisms program, as exemplified in the Houdini software package. - Leslie Gutierrez, Diane Kestner, James Merrill and David Niklewicz for the design and development of the Kodak Vision Premier Color Print Film, 2393. - Dedo Weigert for the concept, Depu Jin for the optical calculations, and Franz Petters for the mechanical construction of the Dedolight 400D.
TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS (Academy Certificates) - Dick Walsh for the development of the PDI/ Dreamworks Facial Animation System.
- Thomas Driemeyer and to the mathematicians, physicists and software engineers of Mental Images for their contributions to the Mental Ray rendering software for motion pictures.
- Eric Daniels, George Katanics, Tasso Lappas and Chris Springfield for the development of the Deep Canvas rendering software.
- Jim Songer for his contributions to the technical development of video-assist in the motion picture industry.
- Pierre Chabert of Airstar for the introduction of balloons with internal light sources to provide set lighting for the motion picture industry.
- Rawden Hayne and Robert W. Jeffs of Leelium Tubelite for their contributions to the development of internally lit balloons for motion picture lighting.
