NEWS
Hooked on Computer Graphics
One Man's 180 Minutes at SIGGRAPH 2004
story and photos by Scott Janush
 Apple demonstrates its new motion graphics product, Motion. |
As we are all too aware, it is most difficult to break away for any great length of time to fulfill important tasks like medical appointments, let alone trade shows, when we are working. But given my fascination with all things trade show, I adjusted my schedule to allow a three-hour window in which to explore the usually monstrous SIGGRAPH Exposition at the Los Angeles Convention Center in August.
The SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition is held once each year, with rotating venues. This year drew an international crowd of nearly 28,000 attendees. There were 229 exhibiting companies, covering 73,000 square feet of convention space. The primary focus of SIGGRAPH is computer graphics and it covers the gamut from low to high with an emphasis on research and forward-thinking future technologies. The Expo itself is dedicated to marketing solutions for those in the computer graphics industries.
The first thing I noticed as I walked up the stairs is the enormous presence that Apple has at the show. Apple has clearly decided to take the video and film post-production arenas seriously to a degree rarely seen by any computer company. The most impressive piece of “I really want it” technology was the G5 dual 2.5 Ghz CPU mated with two of the new Apple 30-inch LCD monitors running at 2560 by1600 pixels and driven by the new Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra dual link DVI video board. If you want to gloat over a hardware configuration, this may be it for you. In addition to the demo theatre, there were approximately 20 demo stations manned with actual users of the technology–– rather than marketing people––dedicated to different technologies that are supported by the platform.
There were demos showing the recently released version of Final Cut Pro 4.5
HD, which gives everyone in Iowa the opportunity to cut his or her own film
which was shot in high-definition video. Apple was also shipping its new motion
graphics product, aptly named “Motion.” Motion is a combination
After Effects/Combustion-type hybrid that takes advantage of OpenGL acceleration
to provide real-time playback of a project with an exciting new interface
that reads gestures. When using a mouse––or a graphics tablet
for which Motion is designed––the user can swipe the cursor in
a particular motion and the program will switch modes and accomplish tasks
with extremely limited menu selection. No doubt we will be seeing a lot more
programs in the future with this type of interface design. Not surprising,
all of Apple’s programs are only available on…the Mac platform.
(excepting Shake on Mac and Linux and iTunes on Mac and Windows)
www.apple.com
Nearby was the Discreet Logic area, seemingly as large as the Apple booth.
Discreet has made a very strong push into the desktop compositing space with
Combustion 3, and was also demoing Motion Builder by Kaydara, which the company
recently acquired. The second coolest piece of “I really want it”
technology was the demo of the newly released Flint 9, which made the transition
from utilizing large-scale SGI hardware to the desktop space, using IBM desktop
computers running on the Red Hat Linux platform. This fundamental change in
platform allowed the price of this turnkey system to drop from $200,000 to
$80,000. The much more affordable Combustion is available on the Mac and Windows
platforms.
www.discreet.com
Curious Software is the developer of Curious World Maps, the underlying software
driving many of the map-based graphics that you see on almost any news progam.
The company released version 2.5 of Curious Gfx, which is a rotoscoping/paint
application targeted to the very loyal but abandoned audience of Commotion,
which has been discontinued. Gfx is available on the Mac and Windows platforms.
www.curious-software.com
Curious Labs (a different company) released version 5 of Poser, another program
which languished under its previous developer. Poser found a niche audience
for people looking to do animatics on a more simple level than the higher-end
animation packages. Curious also released Shade 7. This is a new modeling
program available in three versions. Both programs are available on the Mac
and Windows platforms.
www.curiouslabs.com
Yet another program rescued from obscurity is Bryce. Daz Productions resurrected
this gem of a program and released version 5. Bryce is primarily known for
being a terrain generator and for having one of the most unusual interfaces
ever seen. For Photoshop fans, Bryce was originally developed by Kai Krause,
of KPT fame. Bryce is available on the Mac and Windows platforms.
www.bryce.daz3d.com
In the paint program space, Pixologic offered Zbrush2, which is a 2.5D modeling/paint
program with an interface somewhere between Photoshop and Painter. Zbrush2
is available on the Mac and Windows platforms.
www.pixologic.com
Another program in the 2.5D workspace is Bauhaus Software’s Mirage.
Mirage is a real-time, pixel-based paint/animation and effects solution. Mirage
is available on the Mac and Windows platforms.
www.bahaussoftware.com
D2 Software was showing Nuke, the compositing application developed by Digital
Domain for their own in-house use and now available to anyone. Nuke is available
on the Linux, Irix and Windows platforms.
www.d2software.com
Photron had Primatte keyer available for just about any platform available:
D2 Nuke, Sony XPRi, Quantel Generation Q, Apple Shake, Discreet Inferno/Flame/Smoke/Fire/Flint/
Combustion/Burn, AVID DS, Xpress Pro, Media Composer/AdrenalinePinnacle Commotion
Pro, Adobe Photoshop, After Effects, Imagineer Mokey and Digital Fusion DFX+.
http://photron.com
Point Grey Research provided a demonstration consisting of a configuration
of Firewire cameras arrayed to duplicate the infamous circlevision shot in
the Matrix. A must buy for film geek do-it-yourself types.
www.ptgrey.com
Since most of us tend to stare at monitors all day long, it was encouraging
to find a few interesting products that allow you to minimize head movement
from monitor to monitor while focusing on the task at hand. Colorgraphic and
Mass Engineered Design offered solutions.
www.colorgraphic.net
www.massmultiples.com
 The Horizon 320 provides a 40-inch seamless display. |
Another very exciting approach was provided by Seamless Display.
The Horizon 320 provides a 40-inch seamless display without mullions
between monitors, using three 20-inch LCD screens.
www.seamlessdisplay.com
This is not anything new, but everyone who spends a lot of time at a workstation
should be familiar with Anthro Technology. Anthro makes some of the most versatile
furniture that you will come across to make your long days more pleasant.
www.anthro.com
For those who carry laptops, and may have dropped them at some sad point,
there is good news from Axio. Hard-shell knapsacks that protect laptops up
to the 17-inch size.
www.axio-usa.com
As usual at SIGGRAPH, there was a large focus on animation. Many of the larger VFX houses were represented on the show floor, with many job seekers presenting resumes and demo reels. A few of the animation software developers took the approach that technology is nothing without basic skills, and held drawing classes with pencil and paper. A little retro, but not unlike having a script before shooting.
One of the most interesting aspects of SIGGRAPH is not on the expo floor at all.
The experimental technology demonstrations are where you can see demos of prototypes that are purely abstract at the moment, but may find themselves as parts of real systems in the future.
Along the mezzanine level of the LA Convention Center were two areas devoted
to digital art and experimental projects. For an example of the type of work
being displayed in these sections, check out
www.itgoesboing.com
and http://hct.ece.ubc.ca/research/sap/
I apologize for the brevity of this report, but these were the highlights of my three hours at SIGGRAPH 2004. Hopefully, I’ll be able to stay longer next year.
The next SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition will be held at the Los
Angeles Convention Center from July 31 through August 4, 2005.
www.siggraph.org
When he’s not attending trade shows, Scott Janush is working as the VFX Editor on The Legend of Zorro. He can be reached at sjanush@primenet.net.
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