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Computer graphics, animation & beyond
Friday June 25 2004 — 9:00 AM
Nowadays, it is possible to achieve high quality 3D animations with major animation software. However, there remain significant challenges to producing high quality animations easily and effectively. In this panel, we intend to look back at the past discoveries, such as inverse kinematics, dynamics, procedural animation, motion capture, non-linear animation, etc. and jump into the future and see what might be the next set of major discoveries for computer graphics animation.
Speakers:
Michael Isner – Softimage
Manager – Special Projects
Michael Isner is the Head of Special Projects at Softimage and responsible for a worldwide team of 3D production experts and engineers helping Softimage users. He works with high-end production clients from both the California film industry and Tokyo Gaming. He specializes in character setup, crowd and multi-character animation, and complex 3D problems.
Michael's early background was in art and architecture, but was drawn into technology as one of the original founders of XSI and was behind its content and first production tests. He did the original proto-typing for many XSI tools such as web integration (Netview), UV texturing and pivot based animation mixing. He has implemented many features in XSI such as the character menu, the spine, motion deformation and envelope copying.
Michael continues to be leading force in Softimage's research on embedded and interactive rigging. He has participated in character seminars and panels worldwide, from Montreal to Tokyo. More information can be found at www.isner.com.
John Rix – EA
Director, Visual Development
John Rix formal background included Typography, Graphic Design, Photography, Illustration and Ceramics. Joining CBC Vancouver in 1981 as a Designer for "on-air", and promotional Graphics he became involved in Graphic Animation before computers were a production viable option.
After directing dozens of animated show openings for CBC, he wanted to get more 'hands on', and in 1986 moved to Gastown Productions (now Rainmaker Digital Pictures).
For the next 8 years he designed and executed 2D and 3D FX, animation and compositing for commercial, episodic and MOW clients.
In 1994, he joined Electronic Arts as they made the transition from 2D to 3D games. Over the last 10 years John has been involved in a variety of areas including interface design, 3D modeling and animation, motion capture, video FX and compositing as well as managing the related internal studios. Most recently, his focus has been on next generation artist tools and pipelines.
Mike Swanson
Art Director, All things Swanny (USA)
Mike Swanson has worked in the interactive entertainment industry for 15+ years. Starting out in interactive multimedia presentations in the mid-80s, Mike then moved into interactive entertainment working on touch-screen laserdisc driven golf simulators in the late-80s. In 1992, Mike joined the newly formed Electronic Arts Canada studio working as an artist, lead artist, and then finally a technical director over the next 10 years. Mike has worked on over a dozen EA games including FIFA Soccer, NHL Hockey, Triple Play and SSX.
Mike teamed up with Lucasarts Entertainment in 2001 managing and evolving the technical art department. During Mike’s three years at Lucasart, he helped bridge the gap between ILM and Lucasarts with art creation technology. Mike currently consults wih the film and game community in the Bay area. “My consulting services name is called ‘All things Swanny’ (seriously!)”
Michiel van de Panne – UBC
Associate Professor, Canada Research Chair
Michiel van de Panne obtained his B.A.Sc. in 1987 (University of Calgary), and his M.A.Sc. & Ph.D. in 1989 and 1994, respectively (University of Toronto). From 1993 to 2001 he was a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. Since January 2002, he is an associate professor and Canada Research Chair in Computer Graphics and Animation in the Department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia. In between, he was a visiting professor at the University of British Columbia, and also founded Motion Playground Inc. to develop games using physics-based animation and simulation.
His research interests are in computer graphics, physics-based animation and simulation, motion planning, robotics, and applications of machine learning. He has served on the program committees of ACM SIGGRAPH, ACM I3D, and Graphics Interface and co-chaired the 1997 Eurographics Workshop on Animation and Simulation. He recently helped found and co-chair the first Symposium on Computer Animatio
© 2005 · Vancouver ACM SIGGRAPH · info@siggraph.ca
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