ology dot org

Wednesday, August 3, 2005

It's official. My dogs? They're barking.

Random bizarre misunderstanding of one's audience: SIGGRAPH forbids the use of cameras or other recording devices. Naturally, at any given time, I can see two cameras, one camcorder, and three cameraphones out in my field of view. The convention staff is constantly running around telling people to shut them off. This garners on affable or confused smile, compliance, and then a re-emergence of the device fifteen minutes later. You can't keep a good geek down.

I just got back from the Electronic Theater, which is the two hour showcase of badass computer imagery from the last year. This is the best way to see all the good bits from movies you will otherwise never ever watch, like Stealth. Hint: it's best to get someone else to pay your way in.

(Aside: as I'm walking back to the hotel this afternoon, some guy asks if that's where SIGGRAPH is. I nod. He asks if I wouldn't mind "saving him a little time" and points to my badge. After all, he assures me, he has a registration (points vaguely at printed out piece of paper). Baffled, it takes me a moment to actually summon up: "Um, I'm still using mine.")

Before the show, there was a live performance of Autocosm: Gardens of Thuban. This guy basically uses a joystick, a keyboard, and a WACOM tablet to conjure up a bizarre otherworldly garden on the bigass screen in front of us. Breathtaking when seen live.

Did I mention my feet are composed entirely of bruises at this point? 9:43:19 PM (comments [])

Best quote, from an animator working on the new Disney Chicken Little movie: "Working with a fluid dynamics system is like trying to get a really conservative adult to lighten up. They're very rule based. It's like you're trying to corrupt its morals." (The talk is about trying to make fluids in the movie look cartoony/caricatured, as opposed to overly realistic.) 2:31:31 PM (comments [])

Random observation: there's as many guys here from the film and games industries as there are from academia. Sometimes it's kind of cute to watch the industry guys talk academese. 2:00:41 PM (comments [])

Nerds in their native habitat:

1:33:35 PM (comments [])

Remember when I hedged on the PS3 demo? I'm sitting in a panel right now on believable AI characters, and saw a demo of a Fight Night 3 sequence that was originally meant to be a cinematic, that they can render in real-time in HD on the PS3. They didn't see it was real-time when they showed it, so I assumed it was a cinematic. It was that good. Wow.

Also this morning, I sat in for a big on the course on general purpose computing on GPUs. Short version: pretty interesting, but your application domain definitely has to match up well, and we're a ways out from any kind of automated compiler support.

Also, how 'bout that Mighty Mouse? Sadly, there weren't any at the Apple SIGGRAPH booth this morning when I swung by. 11:21:12 AM (comments [])