I spoke with the Computer Animation Festival (CAF) Chair Jinny Choo about her ideas and vision for CAF. Being the curator and manager of SICAF Seoul, Jinny’s aim was to bring a similar festival feeling to SIGGRAPH Asia and sees it as an opportunity to taste other styles in a global festival. So for the animation fan there were a plethora of programs to choose from. The Electronic Theater, screening the best of the best, was, as usual, the main event, with additional submissions selected for the Animation Theatre I and II and the Special Programme I and II. An addition was the Invited Screenings, showing previous Best of SIGGRAPH Award Winners; Gobelins, K’ARTS and Supinfocom selections; an Australian and India Focus and a Studio AKA Special; complemented by Festival Talks and Panels on Productions.

CAF being a festival focusing on computer generated content, Jinny notes that students and filmmakers have adopted the technology and risen up to the challenge between art and technology to combine it in creative ways.

In the early days of CG the moving images often felt immature; now we have story driven and highly artistic content, enabled by technology. Jinny refers to the filmmaker Chris Landreth, whose films, from Bingo to Ryan, have showed this maturity and understood to mix of story, art and technology well.

With a large number of submissions from Asia, Jinny observed that the technology use was on the same level and visual ideas were universal. Yet, in either story or visuals, some film elements were country and culture specific, and deal with Asia’s own traditions, such as in one of the Jury Special winners Kudan from Japan.

I asked Jinny about her motivation to volunteer as Chair of the Computer Animation Festival. Jinny’s reply: “I love animation and being part of it.” As a filmmaker she sees it as a great opportunity to see other pieces in the process and share ideas and experiences with the audience. She finds a festival addictive to work for, just like poison, in a positive sense. Jinny’s favorite pieces in the competition program are This Way Up, the Best of Show winner, and Slip ON, a piece in the Animation Theatre program.

Playtime in the Art Gallery and Emerging Technologies Exhibit
These two parts of SIGGRAPH are always good to have some fun in and inspire the senses. In the Emerging Technologies I enjoyed the exhibit Heaven’s Mirror: Mirror Illusion quite a lot. In three pieces, haptic, visual and auditory illusions could be experienced interactively. What made these pieces stand out is that they did not feel digital at all, actually they appeared rather retro and simple.

Another visual favorite of mine was Eggy Robo, a group of synthetic soft robots in bright colors and with cute looks.

With all these pieces being fun and playful, I can, however, not suppress the feeling that I have seen most of the things shown in one way or another before. The novelty and cutting edge feeling of the Art Gallery and Emerging Technology shows of earlier years is missing and it feels like these sectors have reached a plateau.

Always something interesting to be found at the SIGGRAPH Emerging Technologies.

An Art Gallery piece that showed to be a crowd pleaser was Amagatana + Fula, performed live by the artist. A set of cyber-enhanced ordinary objects, such as a glowing umbrella complete with motion activated sword noises and a portable wind machine to flutter the players scarf, transform daily life into a fun and playful experience.

SIGGRAPH Asia in Singapore was a blast, one day shorter than the U.S. version, yet intense, as we love it, rich with content, ideas and parties. Mark your calendars for next years SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 in Yokohama, Japan.

Melanie Beisswenger is character animator and animation teacher based in Singapore. Some of her past projects include the Academy Award winning feature film Happy Feet, the stereoscopic 3D animated feature Fly Me to the Moon and the TV launch commercial for the blockbuster game BioShock.

Melanie is teaching as Assistant Professor at the School of Art, Design and Media, NTU in Singapore and has been involved with SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 as Computer Animation Festival Producer.

This site is a member of Animation blogspot, part of the Animation World Network

Rob Cook’s featured speaker keynote took us on a journey behind the scenes of a Pixar production. Interestingly, Rob is the Vice President of Advanced Technology at Pixar Animation Studios, yet he hardly spoke about technology. He talked about story, story, story, and art. It might just be that he is so humble to rather highlight other folk’s contributions to Pixar’s final products, but it surely is connected with Pixar’s secret recipe to success – their stories.

Rob highlights the process that John Lasseter had introduced to the previously technology driven group in the early Lucasfilm VFX days, before the formation of Pixar. As John Lasseter put it “art challenges the technology, technology inspires the art.” Throughout his breakdown of the production process, Rob highlighted the importance of story and art, and the artist driven process.

In relating the painting Mona Lisa to the film Ratatouille, he explains that the painter now is the team, and the brush is the computer technology. Yet the process of painting, which is an intuitive and entirely right brain activity, is very different than what computer artists struggle with: a creative decision is made on the right brain, and then the artist has to find a left brain, technical solution, and then switch back to the right brain to assess the results. He compares our current state of tools to the Ford Model T car, which back then needed an elaborate process to start it up. His vision for the future is the creation of artist centric tools, enabling right brainers to work intuitively on the computer.

Melanie Beisswenger is character animator and animation teacher based in Singapore. Some of her past projects include the Academy Award winning feature film Happy Feet, the stereoscopic 3D animated feature Fly Me to the Moon and the TV launch commercial for the blockbuster game BioShock.

Melanie is teaching as Assistant Professor at the School of Art, Design and Media, NTU in Singapore and has been involved with SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 as Computer Animation Festival Producer.

This site is a member of Animation blogspot, part of the Animation World Network

Singapore? Singapore!
Some factors that are making this a great show can be attributed to the very active and growing Asian Computer Graphics community, some of it to the vibrant scene in Singapore itself. It is not a coincidence that Singapore is striving in animation and games. MDA, the Media Development Authority, a government agency, is heavily supporting our industry with research and creative grants, new schools and training facilities and support for companies. Adding to the local studio scene, the opening of Lucasfilm Animation Singapore has been a milestone, with Ubisoft having opened this year and Double Negative setting up their studio in spring 2009.

The latest project is the NYP-SESI Visual Effects Studio, a collaboration between Nanyang Polytechnic and Canadian software developer Side Effects Asia Pacific (SESI-AP). It is aimed at training and producing talent in visual effects, games and interactive digital media for Singapore and the region.

Another project that has just been announced is Mediapolis @ one-north, a 200-ha innovation and R&D hub driven by industry demand, will be developed in stages. When ready, it will be a hub that will house a media ecosystem comprising soundstages with green screen capabilities; digital production and broadcast facilities; interactive digital media (IDM) and R&D activities; Computer-generated Imagery and visual effects; post-production, games and animation; industry-response digital media schools, business parks, work lofts and incubators; intellectual property (IP) creation and digital rights management.

Melanie Beisswenger is character animator and animation teacher based in Singapore. Some of her past projects include the Academy Award winning feature film Happy Feet, the stereoscopic 3D animated feature Fly Me to the Moon and the TV launch commercial for the blockbuster game BioShock.

Melanie is teaching as Assistant Professor at the School of Art, Design and Media, NTU in Singapore and has been involved with SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 as Computer Animation Festival Producer.

This site is a member of Animation blogspot, part of the Animation World Network

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.

This curiosity for innovative uses of technology and to look beyond narrowing boarders shines through in Don’s enthusiasm. Adequately the motto, which he thinks of every morning, is “happy is the man whose work is his hobby.”

Computer Animation Festival Announces Awards
SIGGRAPH Asia’s Computer Animation Festival showcases an amazing selection of animated works. The competition was tough; out of 685 submissions from 44 countries the jury selected 29 works for the Electronic Theatre.

One of the two Jury Special awards went to the short Oktapodi by students of Gobelins, l’école de l’image in France. Oktapodi is a pulsing and vivid animation that has been a crowd pleaser and major award winner on the festival circuit this year. Both a marvel in style, animation and tight storytelling, it also sports amazing character rigs for the main characters.

Kudan was one of the hits at SIGGRAPH Asia.

The second Jury Special was awarded to Kudan by director Taku Kimura, Kudan’s story revolves around the disconnected relationship between a father and his son, taking us into a beautiful fantasy world with box headed cows, giant trees and strange creatures.

Best of Show was awarded to This Way Up by directors Smith & Foulkes of Nexus Productions Ltd, United Kingdom. This Way Up takes us on the hilarious journey of two undertakers struggling to lay the dead to rest. Intriguing visual designs with backgrounds in soft washes and great animation and character personalities, coupled with the unique British humor makes a funeral funny as never seen before.

Other notable shorts in the Electronic Theater selection are Blind Spot, another Gobelins piece, about a grandmother’s shopping trip that didn’t turn out quite right. And the short Hugh by students of the Ecole Supérieure des Métiers Artistiques in France, retelling an Apache legend with great character personalities and a wonderful mix of 3D and stylized 2D sequences.

The Electronic Theater program was dense and entertaining as rarely seen before, with a clear focus on storytelling and innovative visuals. Interestingly no visualizations, research demos or experimental work was included in this selection, a novelty for the SIGGRAPH Electronic Theatre. These pieces, among other animated works, can be seen in the Animation Theater program running throughout the conference.

The Computer Animation Festival also includes another special program showing more great submitted animated works, as well as several invited screening programs, such as previous Best of SIGGRAPH Award Winners, School selections and an Australian and India Focus. The SIGGRAPH Asia CAF trailer can be viewed at AWNtv.

The Clone Wars Are Upon Us – At Least When You Are In Singapore
Thursday featured a whole line up of speakers from Lucasfilm Animation Singapore. One sketch I am particularly grateful for, as I am a teacher myself, addressed overlooked fundamentals of our art – seeing and understanding — which are sometimes missed by aspiring artists. Kalene Dunsmoor’s sketch Keeping It Real: Classical Art Principles in Today’s VFX Features talked about observation in nature, conceptualization and composition as the essential tools a VFX artist needs to rely on in their process.

Ben Huber spoke about the art of lighting and the creation of the unique look in Lighting Clone Wars: A New Planet Every Week. He explained how the lighting process helps sculpt the character features, particularly how the edgy and strong designs in the facial shapes become enforced. The passion for his art showed when he spoke of treating the light almost as its own character. They are indeed painting with light in the Clone Wars series, using a far more stylized approach than in the Star Wars feature films and employing strong hues to tint entire sequences and episodes to achieve the desired mood and outer worldly feel.

Visual gems were shown in another talk about the Clone Wars. Matt Aldrich, Art Director in Games at Lucasfilm Animation Singapore showed concept art created for the Nintendo DS game Star Wars: the Clone Wars: Jedi Alliance. Many beautiful original designs of galaxies and characters were created for the game. My favorite was the series of designs for the Night Sister, clearly inspired by the Star Wars character Darth Maul with a touch of Anime designs. As Matt told us, George Lucas was so impressed by the original concept art that we might see some of these designs fed back into the TV series.

Melanie Beisswenger is character animator and animation teacher based in Singapore. Some of her past projects include the Academy Award winning feature film Happy Feet, the stereoscopic 3D animated feature Fly Me to the Moon and the TV launch commercial for the blockbuster game BioShock.

Melanie is teaching as Assistant Professor at the School of Art, Design and Media, NTU in Singapore and has been involved with SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 as Computer Animation Festival Producer.

This site is a member of Animation blogspot, part of the Animation World Network