“The works selected for this year’s Festival represent the best creative sparks and freshest ideas from around the world that are set to inspire the artists, designers, researchers and scientists attending the Festival,” said Jinny HyeJin Choo, SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 Computer Animation Festival Chair.

This year, the world-renowned jury of the Computer Animation Festival has selected three very special awards for the “Best of Show”, “Best Technical” and “Best Student” recipients.

The “Best of Show” award goes to “Poppy”, directed by James Cunningham from New Zealand production house Supercollider. Based on true events, “Poppy” is a short story about two soldiers who found a baby in a muddy ditch, under his dead parents. Working with partner Leslie Chan in a spare bedroom for a year, Cunningham explored the emotional potential of computer-generated imagery (CGI), often used in animation for children, to produce this heart-wrenching film.

The “Best Technical Piece” award goes out to “Civilization V.” from Digic Pictures, winner of the same award last year. Produced by Istvan Zorkoczy, this clip reiterates Digic Pictures’ mastery and expertise in 3D and computer graphics production. The world-class rendering of a beautifully detailed and realistic living world, clear cinematography and amazing surfacing made this clip stand out prominently in terms of computer graphics technology applied to storytelling.

A new award, the “Best Student” prize goes out to “Loom” by Ilija Brunck, Jan Bitzer and Csaba Letay of Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Germany. This exceptional piece by students of the reputable film academy tells the story of a moth getting caught in a spider’s web. Viewers are taken through the moth’s struggle to face its predator bravely only to be digested into an integral part of its own trap, that is, the spider’s web. The creative ideas behind this piece outshone its competitors’ and proved to the international computer graphics community there are brilliant emerging talents that are set to take the industry to new heights.

Attendees can also look forward to a series of enriching sessions at Computer Animation Festival Panels and Talks. Ki Bum Kim, the Digital Artist for I.L.M. Singapore, will speak on “Photomodel and Sequence Light Setup on "Iron Man2", the creation of virtual suits, drones, and the location and background for Iron Man 2. Leon Jeong Wook Park’s talk on “Bulldozer Trash from Toy Story 3” will focus especially on interactions between bulldozers and trash piles and introduces trash simulation pipelines for Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 3.

Educating and Nurturing Creative Minds
The Courses Program at SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 will focus on topics related to gaming, animation and visual effects techniques, including the basic foundations of computer graphics and highly technical summaries of the latest research breakthroughs.

To date, 24 organizations and 50 presenters will be participating at the Courses Program including prestigious institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jeju University and the Savannah College of Arts and Design. Blizzard Entertainment, Industrial Light and Magic, Pixar Animation Studios, Microsoft & Microsoft Game Studios, Disney Animation Studios, Disney Imagineering, NC Soft and Weta Digital have also lent their support to this year’s SIGGRAPH Asia.

NCsoft, Intel Corp, Crytek, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute Course highlight on “Recent Advances in Online Game Technology” includes advanced production secrets in developing the world’s best online games. Activision/Blizzard’s “East Meets West: The Power of the Pitch”, presents a publisher's perspective on development opportunities related to the pursuit of new intellectual property, work for hire on existing portfolio needs, and possible acquisition off external, independent developers. “Stereoscopy from XY to Z” is another course which will explore creative ways to use stereoscopy, allowing the user to tell different stories and propose a bag of tricks to fix the common issues encountered when adding stereoscopy to one’s graphics pipeline.