Softimage Party

Since we went to the Autodesk Users Group Monday night, we thought we could see what Softimage, the biggest competitor to Maya and 3D Studio MAX, had to say. Softimage has something new called ICE - Interactive Creative Environment.

We were expecting to get some info about the software, production houses talking about using it, demo reels, etc. Nope! Just a party at Club 740 in downtown LA. We met a Softimage reseller on the way to the party, and we thought we were close to getting VIP passes, but no such luck. They gave out one free drink coupon to everyone, but I didn't know what it was (I thought it was a raffle ticket), so I didn't use it for the first two drinks. Uh oh!

We weren't sure what to expect at a party with a company delivering a new product called ICE, but we soon found out.

Vanilla Ice! I'm not kidding. He came out along with Clint Eastwood on drums and DJ Dirty Chopstick on, uh, DJ. I'm still not kidding. It was actually a pretty good show! He started with some new music, downloadable for fee at his website, and then hit some of the classics.

 

The DJ brought out two cases of bottled water and put them at the front of the stage. I thought that someone is going to be performing for a loooooong time, but it seems like Vanilla's gimmick is to spray the crowd periodically with water, drink water and spit it out on the crowd, drop kick water bottles and douse the girls that jump up on the stage.

Oh yeah. I'm not sure how they got the signal, but all of a sudden Vanilla held his hand out and started pulling girls up on stage. Of course, they start dancing, and then start dancing with each other. Finally one of the girls decided that she really wasn't in to the other girl and was trying to keep it like regular dancing, but the other girl wouldn't hear of it. Hilarity ensues, and the girl jumps back down into the crowd just to be replaced by someone else.

Here is Softimage's coverage of the event. We're famous! Look for us in the pictures - David's wearing a green shirt and I'm wearing a yellow shirt, and we're in the first three rows. I got dissed, hard, for a fist bump. Twice.

Oh yeah. Ron Jeremy was there. The connection with Softimage? Unknown.

He's up there on the walkway. They never put a spotlight on him, but sharp-eyed viewers should be able to pick him out.

I thought that the Autodesk party had a lot more information about the applications, the business, etc. This was fun, but I was hoping to hear how Softimage is positioning itself in the industry and against its competitors.

Technorati Tags: Club 740,Softimage,Vanilla Ice,Ron Jeremy,SIGGRAPH

Autodesk Users Group and Party

Monday night we went to the Autodesk Users Group and Party. It was at the Shrine Auditorium.

We sat through almost five hours of bladder controversy and demos of Maya, Mudbox, 3D Studio MAX, a lot of stereoscopic demos and industry tidbits. The stereoscopic demos were very nice and done using Dolby 3D Digital Cinema.

We looked totally hot. The glasses were really good. I had absolutely no problems wearing them over my glasses, and they worked flawlessly. They showed stereoscopic scenes from Star Wars, Coraline, Kung Fu Panda and many others. The announced versions of Maya, Motion Builder and Toxik supported stereoscopic in the viewport. Of course, you need a way to display stereoscopic images! A minor technicality, but they also supported the red-green anaglyph mode in the viewport just in case you weren't made out of money.

The meeting had some really great content, but waaaaaaay too long.

After the meeting everyone rushed out of the auditorium to another part of the building to a...party. Make that a semi-rave-like-performance-art-party-thing. Drinks were free, but crushing lines turned us away.

The party was put on by Massive Black, a studio full of really talented people and the force behind www.conceptart.org. Andrew (Android) Jones was there doing what he does best - a combination of live art performance mindbomb. I really like what he does, and his personally-industrialized wearable Wacom tablet is pretty nice too!

The food was a good mix of Asian flavor, but the teriyaki chicken kabob things went too quickly, especially when some dude walks by me and knocks my plate over. Dessert was endless chocolate-covered strawberries, pears with pomegranate (I think) and these fruit pastry things...I'm drawing a blank as to what they are named.

Technorati Tags: Autodesk,Maya,Mudbox,3D Studio MAX,Motion Builder,Toxik,stereoscopic,Massive Black,concept art,Android Jones,Andrew Jones,Wacom

First Day of SIGGRAPH!

We finally get started! We were able to take the HOV lane in to the convention center, so we missed the traffic.

My first class is Massive Model Visualization Techniques. It has some good info, but a little dry at parts.

After a quick lunch we see Ed Catmull, president of Walt Disney Animation and Pixar, give the keynote.

His speech was entitled Managing the Creative Environment, and it had some details about the start of Pixar, ideas vs people, management style and more. It was really good!

Here is the room for the Ed Catmull speech earlier in the day:

Closer to the start of the speech we noticed a line forming down the hallway and snaking back onto itself. It turns out that the auditorium fills up quickly and everyone gets turned away. We go to the first overflow room, but it looks like the video feed won't show him. We end up at the Geek Bar watching another remote feed projected on the wall.

There was also some odd robots at the new tech demo.

After that I checked out the bookstore and caught the end of Advances in Real-Time Rendering in 3D Graphics and Games: Part 2 to see some details on how Blizzard rendered Starcraft 2. Looks nice!

The exhibition floor isn't open until Tuesday, so we take off and bolt to the Autodesk User's Group and Party.

Technorati Tags: SIGGRAPH,Ed Catmull,robots,Blizzard,Starcraft 2

San Francisco and The Clone Wars, episode 1

Boom! I'm in San Francisco, taxi to the Marina and wait for Dave to get out of work. We dumped my stuff, had a few beers and then Dave showed me "the REAL San Francisco" - we went to what may be the gayest dance club in the city. I mean, DAY-UMM! The good part was he and I got really good drink service at the bar.

Saturday we went to see the premiere of The Clone Wars. We were issued a movie ticket, a "Lunchbox" ticket and a badge.






We saw the show at the Metreon, and then cabbed over to Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio for the rest of the events.



There were tables set up with stacks of metal lunchboxes, as well as drinks for the over-21 crowd.




Tell you more about this lunchbox? No problem. The sticker on the front denoted vegetarian or regular, with the regular containing chicken strips, corn on the cob, potato salad, cherry tomatoes with mozzarella in pesto, and chocolate cake...all of which were good.




Luckily I was able to score an additional lunchbox so I don't return home causing a battle royale with my two boys over one lunchbox!

I also managed to catch a glimpse of George Lucas mingling with some people. It's still pretty surreal to actually see someone in person that I have only seen on TV.

RIP Gary Gygax

Thanks to Cale for the tip - Gary Gygax, one of the co-creators of Dungeons and Dragons, died yesterday.

Wow. I've been playing D&D for over 20 years...probably closer to 25. I remember the Basic Set my parents got me for Christmas. Man, that came out in 1977! I can't remember how old I was when I got it - I'll have to find out.

I have D&D to thank for many of the friendships I still have, and many new ones I've made since holding those dice for the first time.

Here is a link to one of the many websites that mention his passing, and it has an email address that was set up to communicate any thoughts you may have to the Gygax family.

Who's in charge here?

I stumbled upon a cool website - Who's in charge here?

It takes a publicity photo and asks readers to determine who they think is the leader - based on the photo only. It doesn't matter if you know who is the "leader" of the group...this is an examination of the dynamic within the oh-so-important press materials.



There is some hilarious text and some great comments are sprinkled throughout.

Presenting Data and Information course by Edward Tufte

Monday I went to a seminar on how to effectively present data by one of the masters of visual information, Edward Tufte, with more info here.

It was in the Doubletree Hotel, and I parked in the parking garage and decided to walk down the stairs instead of taking the elevator. This corridor is straight out of the movies.



I figured if something was going to go down, this was the place. Luckily (for them), nothing happened.

The seminar was in a conference room, and they had some surprisingly good coffee.





Here is another "review" of his seminars by someone else that went - some great details that I left out.

ET, as he is known online and to the community, is a great presenter, and I liked his style. Most of it was him talking with a little bit of some multimedia stuff. He's a Mac guy, but he doesn't come off as pretentious.

Patrons of the seminar received four of his books, which I heartily recommend. They are fantastic references as well as just plain great reading.



I also picked up a copy of his mother's book, Artful Sentences.

So why did I take this course? I have to present a lot of data, the lion's share of it is performance data, and my customers are engineering, marketing and sales. Whatever I can use to make what I show more effective (and have them come back to me less) is a win!

Evolution of Netflix DVD shipping wrappers.

I found a short article about how Netflix has changed the design of their DVD mailers over the years - check it out.

Here is a direct link to the gallery of mailers from the beginning. I think the earliest mailer I can remember is the 2001 era mailer, #9 on the list.

We're on our second run of Netflix memberships, and we have definitely been affected by their (in)famous DVD throttling plan. There seems to be a DVD distribution hub located in Austin, so delivery has gotten faster lately.


The mailers are famously red and can be picked out at a distance, as seen here. I've wondered about Netflix thieves watching the post offices for those telltale envelopes, but it turns out a lot of such scams exist. There is even what must be an upper echelon of discriminating DVD thieves, as seen here.

Dell Inventors Awards Banquet

Monday night was the Dell Inventors Awards Banquet. It's for everyone who has had at least one invention/patent disclosure make it through the (Engineering) Patent Committee to get submitted to the US Patent Office.



This was my third Inventors Banquet. This year it was at the Renaissance Hotel in the Arboretum, and everyone gathered in the atrium (360degree Java image) for cocktails and mingling. We've started our diets again, so I was bummed at the idea of not taking them up on free wine, but eventually we had some (hey - we've been really good!).

Michael Dell gave an opening speech about innovation, simplification and the contribution to Dell from patent submitters. We unknowingly sat two tables away from him, who was spirited away when I wasn't looking.




After The Big Dog spoke there was a mad rush to the buffet. Salads included Caesar and some kind of Thai salad. Moving up, there was some sort of pasta area that we skipped. Next came the meat of the dinner...the meat. Moroccan chicken with some sort of great curry dusting, some kind of roast, and Halibut steaks...all very good. We said no to the rolls and desserts, but of course said yes to coffee.

During the dinner our Chief Technology Officer (my manager's manager's manager) talked more about our patents, future trends, actual crazy patents and gave awards, alongside our patent counsel.

The event was semi-formal, and we'll take any opportunity to dress up when we're out of the town sans bambinos. After some last minute changes (new purchases) to our wardrobe before leaving the house we were a pretty good match.

I couldn't resist

So I'm cruising IMDb, like I love to do, and I start reading a story about how Harrison Ford turned down $20 Million to play Han Solo in another Star Wars movie, and instead will play Indiana Jones in a fourth IJ movie.

I'm fairly deep in the thread, and I see this entry by a certain Mr. Roadkill, and I couldn't help but post it:

Okay, here's the REAL deal.

Harrison Ford took the Indiana Jones role over the Han Solo one because it's going to be a much better movie.

The rumour that it takes place in the sixties is true, and fits in nicely with the Mr Ford's present age.

What hasn't been widely revealed is that Sean Connory *will* be in the movie, although the role will probably surprise many people.

Since Satan owns the pink slip for the soul of pretty much everyone who has ever worked in motion pictures, he can shuffle the deck however he sees fit... and some interesting studio mergers mean that Sean Connory will play an elderly James Bond who fell through a temporal rift as the result of Xindi interference with Earth history - the theory being that if they could get all the kids hooked on beer and acid and dope then warp drive would never be invented. Little did they realise that Optimus Prime would ride in on My Little Pony and save the day by assassinating Kennedy and illegitimately fathering Rosie ODonnell with, you guessed it, Rosie ODonnell - who fell through the same temporal rift James Bond fell through. Pygmies re-discover left-over gou'auld technology that permits them to build hypersonic blow-dart weapons, which are capable of destroying ICBMs and thereby save the USA from the tyranny of total destruction when they decide to make the Ukraine glow in the dark...which happens two-thirds of the way through the movie, because the Ark of the Covenant (which was stolen from Area 51 by the Xindi) has been given to the Russians, who are using it to try to re-animate a cut-n-shunt SuperPolitician they've made from the cryogenically preserved remains of Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin and Walt Disney - but exposure to nuclear fallout causes this re-animated monstrosity to sprout wings and fly to Tokyo, where as Mothra it does battle with Godzilla until Indiana Jones...

Sorry, I've given too much away already. You'll just have to buy a ticket like everybody else.

Peter Boyle, RIP

Peter Boyle died two nights ago from heart disease and cancer.

The first time I saw him was when my main man Spaghetti and I went to see Young Frankenstein in Rudder Auditorium at Texas A&M. I thought the show was pretty funny until the "Puttin' on the Ritz" scene with Dr. Frankenstein and the monster.

Wow.

I could not stop laughing...loudly. Apparently my uncontrollable laughter carried over through the next couple of scenes and people were turning in their seats to see what's happening.

The story goes that during filming, Mel Brooks, Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle didn't know what the monster would say, and Peter came out with the garbled response on the first take. Awesome.

He'll be missed.

File under Celebrity Sightings!

We were in Harbor Freight today picking up a dolly, tie-down strap and a screw extraction set. I love going to Harbor Freight. Unfortunately, there is one pretty close to work. Anyway, I'm standing in the checkout line when guess who comes in and picks something up? Joe McDermott!

Or at least I thought it was him - I've only seen his CD and pics on the website, so I wasn't sure. Plus he was in civilian clothes, and what's he doing in Harbor Freight? That's where regular people go?!!

We're in different lines, and I can't screw my courage up enough to say something; I mean, what if it's not him? Oh, the humanity! I'm rushing to get checked out (by a checker that had to ask a nearby manager what $20 minus $3.27 was) and it's about four minutes before the store closes. I run out to get the family, who have seen Joe in concert and can verify his identity. They run in but I'm stuck trying to get the dolly in the van and have the door closed enough over it and an antique table we picked up from a local Craigslister earlier that day.

Dudes, I'm like, "I'm going to miss my window of opportunity!"

Finally I get back in the store and get the high-sign ("Tippy-toe!") that it is him, so after a few excruciating minutes waiting for him to finish, I talk to him for a few seconds and thank him for signing my guitar at the concert. He seems like a very nice guy, and if they weren't kicking people out of the store (I still wasn't finished picking up my stuff) I would have talked with him more.

Of course, I fail at my blogging duties and don't have a camera.