Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

I first attended a SIGGRAPH convention in 1983. The International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques was held in Detroit that year. I traveled with Tim Onosko, a technology writer from Madison, Wisconsin, to learn about pixels and how computers were able to help with the laborious process of animation.

Traditional cel animation had no inate ability to illustrate 3D geometry, only providing photographic 2 1/2 D depth through multiplaned layers of glass shot on the animation camera stand. In the 70’s I had worked on a few independent cel animated projects with Steven Lisberger in Boston, and we imagined that in the future perhaps computers would replace the drudgery of inking and painting acetate cels. I was shocked to see Steve had moved into 3D computer animation when he wrote and directed TRON, and I was determined to catch up on this innovation.

SIGGRAPH 1983 was a rush of excitement, a real eye opener. I attended a 2 day course presented by staff members of NYIT’s computer graphics lab; Fred Parke, Duane Palyka, and Lance Williams to name a few. They were writing their own software and systems to aid 2D painting, tweening and 3D animation. At small gatherings and parties I met some of the leading thinkers in new media at the time, such as Gene Youngblood whose book EXPANDED CINEMA had influenced me greatly in my earlier undergraduate film school studies.

There was a great sense of anticipation and invention. The software engineers and artists at SIGGRAPH 1983 knew they were staring at a wide open territory fresh for developing new frontiers in 3D animation, gaming and filmmaking. Back in those days, the animation industry itself was weak. MTV was just starting to spark new creative endeavors in music video production. Pixar, The Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, Ren and Stimpy, Beavis and Butthead, South Park – none of these had happened yet.

By 1984 I was working at NYIT Computer Graphics Lab as a 2D compositor, experimenting with animating a 3D Gumby model which appeared as part of the SIGGRAPH 1984 Electronic Theater. In 1985 and 86 I was NYIT’s post production director for their SIGGRAPH show reels.

The upward momentum of computer graphics and animation in those days was even more intoxicating than the great Internet ramp up and bubble in the late 90’s. Yet today, you can’t escape the influence of computer graphics. Animated pixels and visual effects are part of almost every motion picture, television show and certainly every computer monitor. I would argue that today there is as much or more artwork generated by computer artists than by traditional painters and sculptors.

SIGGRAPH has lost that magical luster of cultish wizardry for me. It’s a routine convention machine now, carefully connecting large educational institutions with large corporations and influencial Hollywood studios. Also, in the past, employers were more willing to help pay your way to a special conference such as the SIGGRAPH that once was. Now the corporations are tighter, and travel expenses to just another convention are often seen as an obstacle. Although the mystical secret genie of SIGGRAPH was out of the bottle over 10 years ago, if I were paid to cover SIGGRAPH I’d go and know what to look for.

SIGGRAPH will still be full of great technical papers, panels taught by smart guys looking to have some of their costs covered, and more student animation than you will have time to sit through. So for me it’s more of the same, mostly redundant stuff, and not the excitement of riding a remote new wave with a small band of pioneers that it used to be.

As the Donald Fagen song The Goodbye Look goes…

The rules are changed, it’s not the same
It’s all new players in a whole new ball game.

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Last summer a Senator from Alaska, Ted Stevens, fumbled through his description of the Internet as a “series of tubes.” His simplification was a clumsy adaptation to what telecom folks colorfully refer as “pipes”, network bandwidth such as fiber optical cables providing faster transmission speeds and therefore a “fat pipe.” In 3 to 5 years IBM promises we will have much, much fatter pipes. (Link to full story.)

“We have worked out a way to ship almost inconceivable quantities of data at extremely low power,” said Bernie Meyerson, chief technologist for International Business Machines Corp.

Imagine 160 Gigabytes of data or an entire HD movie being downloaded to your computer or DVR box in one second! The implications of this new chip are staggering. Codecs, audio and video compression technologies, such as MPEG used in mp3, DivX and all the rest will no longer be necessary. Larger hard drives and bigger memory storage devices to collection your new tidal wave of data will be necessary. Online video web sites will contain larger, higher resolution clips which will certainly compete with traditional television broadcasting stations to a larger extent than they do now. Peer-to-peer networking schemes will be more important for sharing vast storage resources than bandwidth itself. Networked games will become higher resolution and more interactive. I can imagine two remotely located Nintendo Wii users playing a lifesized game of tennis through the network. My mind is on fire with ideas, get me a VC quick!

Scott aka Spot Draves has been developing an open source network rendered screensaver, Electric Sheep for over 10 years. The project has grown in size and capability, and Spot is receiving recognition within the computer art world and the fine art gallery scene as well. Spot stopped by the Tubular TV studio and we videotaped an artist’s statement as well as an informal interview. See it over at my videoblog, Tubular TV.

Since posting this episode on our video web host, blip.tv, they have cited it on their home page as one of their “Hot Episodes.”  Thank you blip.tv, we think you’re hot too.

It’s high time I started using Maya’s mental ray renderer. I’ve been stuck in the Dark Ages with Maya until recently working on a project demanding high end renderings. This animated calendar image on the right makes use of mental ray’s image based lighting option. Thanks go to team member Ruby Rieke for helping me to get up to speed on mental ray texturing.

Keeping up with Maya’s many complex features is a daunting task. Recently Autodesk announced Maya Nucleus, new dynamics features providing improved interaction between colliding objects. They’ve got a dozen QuickTime movie animation examples of the amazing physical dynamics Nucleus is capable of. How dynamic I am in learning to use the powerful tools is another problem.

The MGM Grand Las Vegas
Originally uploaded by Wolfgang Staudt.

In a few days I will be joining the famous video blogger Nick of schmult.com, the TechieDiva and rising TV presence Christianna M to cover the Billboard Music Awards for our newly launched Tubular TV vlog site. Nick seems to be equipped to video blog everything, so it might be a bit uncomfortable sharing a room with this dude. How far will he go to get more hits?

Britney Spears, help!

Why of course, it’s only a refinement of the Frustrated Total Internal Reflection sensing technique.  See the cool video displaying virtual DJ platter interaction on the big colorful touch screen.

Luma Pictures recently produced 200 monstrously realistic visual effects shots of vampires and werewolves for the recent horror movie UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION. Apple’s web site has a good write up of the software and visual effects techniques of Luma’s artists on Underworld, Crash and The Cave. The 3-D modeling, animation and compositing is very high end.

Luma’s work generated a VFX Forum discussion which includes an excited artist bubbling over his first film experience. Looking at the trailer I am too removed from the excitement. With all the real life horrors in the world, what is so scary about this old fashioned hocus pocus stuff?

Google Maps Mania, an unofficial Google Maps blog, was recently covered in an NPR news story. The site has many cool links to individual interests based on locations.

A related site, Google Sightseeing, is themed around collecting eye catching satellite photographs.

Yahoo’s new Flash-based maps also have an API that can be accessed and customized, as seen at the Programmable Web blog. Yahoo is also developing a Local Events browser based on their maps, as described by a Yahoo! developer’s blog. Other Yahoo map users linked their videos to locations.