SIGGRAPH 2008: Day 3
I spent most of Wednesday catching Talks and re-navigating the exhibition hall. As for the Talks, they covered such topics as “Madagascar 2″ cloud generation, “Mummy 3″ avalanche effects, “Wall-E” crowd texturing and control, “Cloverfield” monster development, and “Iron Man” 3D suit creation. I loved hearing about the quick-and-dirty compositing effects on “Cloverfield.” Damn the purist techniques - so long as it meets the deadline and looks killer, who cares what exactly was done. Also, it was great to hear that most of the motion tracking was done by sheer, brute-force keyframing. Techniques after my own heart. While the “Iron Man” team didn’t get too specific about their metal shaders, they did mention writing custom anisotropic functions and adding the ability to fade in scratch detail when the camera approached for close-ups. Of course, the end results were close to flawless. Although they had BRDF data on the actual suit materials, they went for the artistic approach of matching the visual look.
(Left) Real (Right) Almost real.
Nothing new caught my eye at the exhibition. Yes, software and hardware was a little slicker and a little faster, but nothing really was astounding or revolutionary. There were a number of 3D (stereoscopic) display systems, however, which were indicative of the new burst of interest in steroscopic entertainment. There was one mesmerizing item in the New Tech Demo area off to one side: A 3 foot robot that reacted to your presence and did a pretty good job of indicating pleasant ambivilance or annoyed warriness. (Unfortunately, I didn’t note the developer’s name).
You monkey-like creatures amuse my silicon brain.