Lee Lanier’s Beezle Blog

Did I Mention They Had Films?

I’ve set a new personal record for films watched at Palm Springs: 92. This is humanly possible because of one special feature: The Film Market. Palm Springs takes all 2500 submissions and sticks them on a a series of shelves. Pass holders can check them out in groups of 5 […]

A Nice Place to Stay

If you’re ever in Palm Springs, stay at the Pepper Tree Inn. They offered a discount for festival attendees, and it was well worth the reservation. Great layout, decor, and detail.

High style at low elevation.
Films, Films, Films, Films, and More Films…

At this point, at the end of the second day at […]

On the road again…

I drove down to Palm Springs this morning, taking state routes the entire way. Hilly, twisty, turny, bumpy, two-lane roads and straight-as-an-arrow-for-50-miles two-lane roads. I love it. The great thing about driving across the U.S. is the vast, empty space between little, funky towns. Whoever’s worried about overpopulation in the states has […]

I haven’t posted for a few days because I’ve been busy getting mundane stuff out of the way in anticipation of several trips. I’ll be at the Palm Springs International Fetsival of Short Films from August 24th-26th. It’s the largest short film festival in North America. I’ll also be at Burning Man from August 29th-September […]

Getting closer…

Here’s the Painter brush I use almost exclusively…

It’s a Circular, Soft Cover Acrylic with super-low Opacity and Resat with no Bleed. Feels very much like real acrylic to me. The main advantage, of course, is that the paint never really dries. The only other brush I use is a standard Smudge Blender. That’s it. […]

“Drat, More Rats!”

Another fine group of sketches by the “Ratatouille” group. New developments included an interactive character collision system that allowed animators to apply primitive deformers that would squish the character as if it were a soft body. The squishiness was controlled by weight maps. This allowed the rats’ bellies to lie realistically on […]

Motion Portrait

Silicon Studio presented a brand new piece of software that can convert a single digital photo into a rigged 2D facial animation system with a full range of expressions, eye movement, and fairly substantial head turns. They had me pose for a quick photo, and within seconds they had a photoreal avatar that was […]

Exhibition Hall

The exhibition hall opened today to a mad rush of attendees. Several hundred booths were filled with software companies, hardware vendors, studios, book sellers, and schools. The first task, of course, is to keep an eye out for swag. Swag - as in promotional giveaways, which can range from pens, to playing cards, […]

Sun Cafe

Animators cannot survive on courses and papers alone, so they must eat now and then. There is a food court at the Convention Center, but it’s way over-priced and has an impossible line at peak times. You can’t really haul food around since you’re carrying too much stuff anyway. Luckily, there are dozens of […]

Checking In

This morning, I drove down to the gleaming white Convention Center on the ocean’s edge. I quickly stepped through self-service check-in. The SIGGRAPH folk know how to make the credential process smooth. With a thick shedule in hand, I tackled the following events and places…

Gaslight District and Convention Center
“Anyone Can Cook […]