Three Tribes: The Creation of Maya

SIGGRAPH’s Mark Sylvester
Three Tribes: The Creation of Maya

Saturday, May 17th

3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.: Sign-in and Registration.
4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.: Mark Sylvester presents,

SIGGRAPH meetings are free to members, $5.00 fee at the door for non members. Membership can be purchased at the door for $25.00 ($18.00 for students). Please RSVP to rsvp@cascadesiggraph.org so that we will order enough pizza.

Oregon3D & the Cascade SIGGRAPH Professional Chapter present Mark Sylvester. Mark will be giving his latest talk, Three Tribes, The Creation of Maya, followed by a Q&A. In this talk Mark will outline the history of Alias, Wavefront and Thomson Digital Images – and how the communities of users that used those packages came together during the development of the software that was just awarded a Scientific and Technical Achievement Award by the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences.

About Mark Sylvester:

Mark currently is the Creative Director and Founder of mixed grill, a Santa Barbara design firm focused on the field of Visual Communications. Mark was the co-founder of Wavefront Technologies in 1984, one of the first commercial animation software developers. In 1995 Wavefront merged with Silicon Graphics and Alias Research, and Mark served as Ambassador for the organization, Alias|Wavefront. In this role, he worked closely with the development organization and the product teams as a liaison between customers and the company ensuring a close relationship between artists and developers.

Mark initially helped to develop The Advanced Visualizer, a 3D animation system first used at Universal Pictures. The software was used by Industrial Light and Magic to create the landmark effects for the Star Wars movie, Episode Two: Attack of the Clones. The software was also used in these recent blockbuster films including, Lord of the Rings, Shrek, and Spider Man. In 2003, the software was awarded an Oscar which joins two previously awarded Scientific and Technical Achievement Awards.

Mark is a frequent speaker at industry events including Siggraph, The National Association of Broadcasters, Digital Media World (Australia ) and Nicograph (Japan ). He is a sought after judge for Digital Media contests, including the Flash Forward Film Festival, and Flash in the Can. He has published articles on computer animation, digital compositing and the future of digital production techniques. His work is also featured in the book, Return on Innovation. He recently addressed the World Animation Festival about the expanding role of virtual humans in film. The history of Wavefront, as written by Mark is included in the authoritative text, CG101, the History of Computer Graphics, by Terrance Masson.
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Meeting Date: April 15
Meeting Time:
6:30pm – 7pm Gather, Eat pizza, & network
7pm – 8pm: Lecture
Location: Oregon 3D
Topic: Design Animation Effects
Speakers: Erik Vignau & Mike Wellins from Happy Hour Entertainment
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Meeting Date: March 22 Cancelled
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Compositing Night on Tuesday, Feb. 4, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at Oregon3D.

Featuring demonstrations from Oregon3Ds industry acclaimed instructors and Discreet product specialists, Compositing Night promises a comprehensive overview of the latest compositing and special effects software for motion graphic designers, animators and visual effects artists. Presentations include:

· Gary Davis, industry acclaimed instructor from Oregon3D, will be showing combustion 2.1®, the latest version of Discreet’s award-winning, unified paint, animation and 3D compositing software application for motion graphic designers, animators and visual effects artists.

· Lance Alameda, Discreet product specialist, will address issues involved with incorporating 3D and 2D compositing.

· Mike Olm, Discreet product specialist, will demonstrate Discreet’s flame®. flame is a high-performance visual effects system, designed to empower the world’s leading digital artists to work interactively on projects ranging from intensely complex visual effects of feature film to the fast paced sessions of online commercial spots.

Immediately preceding the compositing discussion Oregon3D will present several immersive 3D presentations in Oregon3D’s Visualization Room which features an SGI Onyx® 3200 supercomputer and a 6x12 wall display. The supercomputing technology at Oregon3D exceeds most of what is currently used by professional creative artists in the film, video game, television production and visualization industries.

Location and Registration
The Cascade SIGGRAPH Compositing Night will take place Tuesday, Feb. 4, from 6:30 -8:30 pm at Oregon3D which is located at 735 SW 20th Pl., Ste. 230, Portland. Admission is Free for Cascade ACM SIGGRAPH members. Nonmembers will need to pay a $5.00 admission fee at the door. To insure that we have enough seating and pizza, please RSVP to rsvp@cascadesiggraph.org.
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Join us on January 7, 2003 for a presentation of

Miramar: a 3D Virtual Workspace developed by Intel

The discussion will focus on the
interaction between the workspace and the users.

Miramar is an exploration of the value of 3D graphics to the
organization and dissemination of knowledge. It provides a small
virtual world in which its user can keep documents (papers,
spreadsheets, presentations, web pages, notes, etc.) and organize them.
An animated transition between the 2D desktop and the 3D workspace ties
the two together. Documents in the workspace can be organized in
several ways, including absolute and relative
placement, connection with explicit links, and placement in collections.
The user can move around in the environment with simple mouse and
keyboards operations, without the difficulties encountered in previous
3D environments. Document placement and organization is performed with
highly intuitive 3D drag and drop. Four rounds of testing with
typical knowledge workers are described. Testing demonstrated that
both the idea of Miramar and its embodiment were desirable and
effective. The authors speculate on the underlying value provided by
Miramar.

Location: The Art Institute of Portland
1122 NW Davis Street
Portland, OR 97209

Time: 6:30-8:30

Admission is free for members and $5.00 for non members. Pizza and soda
will be provided. Please RSVP to winnc@aii.edu so we will have enough
pizza for all. If you would like vegetarian pizza, please indicate so
on your RSVP.

Future dates:

February 4th, 2002 TBA
March 4th, 2002 – A representative from Adobe will discuss compositing.
Location TBA

Categorised in: Events

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