SIGGRAPH arrives in the San Diego Convention Center this month (August 5 to 9) with its usual healthy fare of education-heavy technology sessions, papers, demos, the always well-attended Computer Animation Festival and new products and demos from more than 225 exhibitors. Highlights this year include exclusive, behind-the-scenes looks at the effects featured in Transformers and Spider-Man 3. Special sessions are scheduled with leading ILM and Sony Pictures Imageworks (respectively) artists.
Also new this year will be FJORG! (pronounced forge), a computer graphics animation contest where 16, three-member teams will be selected to participate in a 32-hour competition held before a live audience. Co-sponsors AMD, DreamWorks Animation and HP will award one team the title of "FJORG!- 2007 Viking Animator" after completing a character-driven animated sequence (of at least 15 seconds in length) based on a specific theme provided by the judges. Participants will have access to HP xw9400 workstations (with AMD processors), Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Maya, Macromedia Flash, Adobe Photoshop and After Effects and Softimage|XSI. For video of the competition and the winning animations, visit http://workstations.tv throughout the show.
The coolest take-away will probably be figurines designed by acclaimed Japanese artist Hiroshi Yoshii – the first 100 people to buy ZBrush 3 from Pixologic at SIGGRAPH will receive them. For details about SIGGRAPH product announcements, check out Gear Up (page 10) and visit the conference’s official site at www.siggraph.org .- L.R.
