SOFTIMAGE @ VIEW Conference--Torino, Italy

Hello from Kevin G. -- on the road in Torino, Italy @ VIEW Conference (Nov. 6-9, 2007)

Torino (Turin) is the industrial capitol of Italy (home of FIAT- check out the new Fiat 500 - cute classic, Italian answer to the Mini Cooper). Located about 75 miles west Milan, the VIEW Conference (previously The Virtuality Conference)- is generating a huge buzz for SOFTIMAGE.

The 4-day show is a host to mostly students and 3D design professionals entering the industry. Italy is world renowned for its design, and this is the place where students come to learn about the craft of 3D, animation, design visualization and all forms of visual technology and story telling.



















The SOFTIMAGE booth was packed every day to capacity by students wishing to learn more about XSI, the art of 3D animation, and to watch in fascination the work of our customers in our SIGGRAPH Show Reel--and the show favorite, short animation, A Gentlemen's Duel (by Blur studios).



SOFTIMAGE is also offering Master Classes each day of the show, filled to capacity and led by Enea Le Fons, senior certified Softimage instructor. We've had outstanding special guest presentations from customers including:

Game developer PLASTOS (Luca Da Rios, President & CEO--Margarita & Kevin G.)



Visual effects and commercial post production houses- The Shift (Gianfranco Sgura and Emiliamo Colantoni-red background) and Xchanges post facilities (Marco Negri & Gianluca Pedrazzi - metalic background) also provided great presentations and demonstrations of how they successfully use XSI to win business and turn in excellent commercial works.

For the design industry attendees, we were very fortunate to have Massimo Giacon deliver an inspired and fun presentation of how he uses XSI to visualize and create many of the quirky and fun pieces for Alessi --an Italian industrial design and creation house.


Another great element of the VIEW Conference, is that it's really attracting world-class luminaries in the industry, including:
1) Glenn Entis--senior vice president at Electronic Arts
2) Joseph Olin--President, Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (D.I.C.E Summit)
3) Pam Hogarth--Gnomon School of Visual Effects, Los Angeles
4) Peter Nofz--Digital Effects Supervisor, Sony Pictures Imageworks (Spiderman movies)
5) PIXAR - Jessica McMackin- Technical Director Ratatouille
6) PIXAR - Alex Harvill - Technical Director 2D/3D effects on Ratatouille
7) PIXAR - Sharon Calahan - Director of Photography and Lighting -Ratatouille
8) PIXAR - Paul Topolos - Digital Matte Painter, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille
9) PDI Dreamworks - Lucia Modesto--Character Technical Director - all three Shrek films
10) James Clyne - Concept Artist- working with Ryan Church on the new Star Trek movie
... and the list goes on with many more guests.

And finally... The art dealer table was complete with many art books, making-of books, and the latest releases from Ballistic Publishing - and the new "Expose 4" art book

Digital Tutors/PL Studios Grand Opening

I had the honor of attending the opening of PL Studios (aka Digital Tutors) last Friday in Oklahoma City, OK. Before the grand opening, PL Studios hosted UPGRADE 2007: Evolving Art & Filmmaking, Oklahoma’s first annual computer graphics, animation and gaming forum.
http://www.plstudios.com/

The event was focused on exploring what it takes to develop, cultivate and maintain an animation, gaming, and digital filmmaking industry in Oklahoma.

It was a wonderful experience - I felt very privileged to be there.

Here are some photos..
http://picasaweb.google.com/jgoldfin2007/DigitalTutorsGrandOpening

Photos from Make Your Mark

I can't get over how fast time goes by.. we planned the Make Your Mark tour for months.. and in 2 short weeks it was all over.

Each city and presenter and panelist were all so different.. and i enjoyed the time we spent listening and learning from our clients in Boston, New York, LA & San Francisco.
Thanks to Marc & Todd (Boston), Chris & Youngwoong (NYC), John & Raffael (LA) and Jonathan (San Fran). Hearing your advice and experience in developing your careers was invaluable and inspiring to the audience as well as the Softimage staff.

For a complete album of photos, check out:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/avidtechnology
& http://picasaweb.google.com/jgoldfin2007

Tim Sweeney & Chris Johnson in NYC.

Kevin, Jodi & Jonathan Harb

Chris & his wife Melissa with Youngwoong

Make Your Mark Tour - Summary

I am having some technical issues here.. let's try this again...

See below for the MYM Tour Summary that my colleague Kevin G just prepared. I wanted to post this first, because it pretty much sums up where we have been for the last two weeks. Yesterday was the last event, held in San Francisco, and it was a little sad for us to see it end so soon!

This was the first time I have worked with all of the different divisions of Avid.. the Video team, who we know pretty well, but the Digidesign and M-Audio teams are new to us to collaborate closely with. It was a great experience..

Overall, the panel sessions were amazing. In all 4 cities, I felt like I learned something from each team on how to help my own career.. the advice and suggestions from Marc, Chris, John & Jonathan were invaluable, and I was very proud to have these 4 speakers representing the VFX industry.

Our four artists in the break-out sessions were equally fantastic... Todd, Young, Raffael and Jonathan all brought a different story to each city with their different career paths and projects.

I also got to work with our newest Softimage employee - Peter de Lappe - who is joining forces with Mark Schoennagel to spread the gospel of XSI as our new 3D Evangelist.

Here's Kevin's summary, we'll both be posting photos and more details later today.



For Make Your Mark, Montreal-based Softimage represented its professional 3D animation technology software, SOFTIMAGEXSI, by inviting 3D industry thought leaders to attend the lively and informative panel sessions in all four cities: Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Softimage additionally provided highly-visual demonstrations of its professional 3D animation software in each break-out session—providing a comprehensive demonstration of how one can break into the 3D industry using XSI software for a career in 3D game development, visual effects, broadcast or pre-viz and design visualization.

In Boston, Modus FX president Marc Bourbonnais represented the visual effects industry in the first panel event. In the Softimage break-out session, PSYOP’s Todd Akita shared his experience working on award-winning spots for some of world’s biggest brands (Mercedes, Infiniti, MTV, Nike, Coca-Cola and more)—and provided advice on building a successful career using XSI 3D software.

In New York, Chris Johnson from TOPIX in Toronto shared his experience at the panel discussion about learning 3D and how he has applied his expertise in a career creating 3D visuals for major television advertisements. Youngwoog-Jang, recent winner of the Academy Award Student Gold Medal for his 3D animated short, Mirage, gave an inspirational “Making-Of” presentation at the break out session.

In Los Angeles, John Norris, director of Artists and Directors Cooperative spoke about how artists can break into the industry. Raffael Dickreuter, host of the XSI community site www.XSIbase.com and 3D pre-viz artist for Pixel Liberation Front, showed how SOFTIMAGEXSI was the best 3D animation software for next-generation games, film and television projects—and provided insider advice on how to get a job in the animation industry.

In San Francisco, Jonathan Harb, CEO and Creative Director at Whiskytree, shared his knowledge of working in the industry as an XSI artist to create specialized environments and his past experience of working on visual environments on films including all three Star Wars prequels, Mission Impossible 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Make Your Mark Tour - Summary

Hi -

See below for the MYM Tour Summary that my colleague Kevin G just prepared. I wanted to post this first, because it pretty much sums up where we have been for the last two weeks. Yesterday was the last event, held in San Francisco, and it was a little sad for us to see it end so soon!

This was the first time I have worked with all of the different divisions of Avid.. the Video team, who we know pretty well, but the Digidesign and M-Audio teams are new to us to collaborate closely with. It was a great experience..

Overall, the panel sessions were amazing. In all 4 cities, I felt like I learned something from each team on how to help my own career.. the advice and suggestions from Marc, Chris, John & Jonathan were invaluable, and I was very proud to have these 4 speakers representing the VFX industry.

Our four artists in the break-out sessions were equally fantastic... Todd, Young, Raffael and Jonathan all brought a different story to each city with their different career paths and projects.

I also got to work with our newest Softimage employee - Peter de Lappe - who is joining forces with Mark Schoennagel to spread the gospel of XSI as our new 3D Evangelist.

Here's Kevin's summary, we'll both be posting photos and more details later today.

For Make Your Mark, Montreal-based Softimage represented its professional 3D animation technology software, SOFTIMAGEXSI, by inviting 3D industry thought leaders to attend the lively and informative panel sessions in all four cities: Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Softimage additionally provided highly-visual demonstrations of its professional 3D animation software in each break-out session—providing a comprehensive demonstration of how one can break into the 3D industry using XSI software for a career in 3D game development, visual effects, broadcast or pre-viz and design visualization.

In Boston, Modus FX president Marc Bourbonnais represented the visual effects industry in the first panel event. In the Softimage break-out session, PSYOP’s Todd Akita shared his experience working on award-winning spots for some of world’s biggest brands (Mercedes, Infiniti, MTV, Nike, Coca-Cola and more)—and provided advice on building a successful career using XSI 3D software.

In New York, Chris Johnson from TOPIX in Toronto shared his experience at the panel discussion about learning 3D and how he has applied his expertise in a career creating 3D visuals for major television advertisements. Youngwoog-Jang, recent winner of the Academy Award Student Gold Medal for his 3D animated short, Mirage, gave an inspirational “Making-Of” presentation at the break out session.

In Los Angeles, John Norris, director of Artists and Directors Cooperative spoke about how artists can break into the industry. Raffael Dickreuter, host of the XSI community site www.XSIbase.com and 3D pre-viz artist for Pixel Liberation Front, showed how SOFTIMAGEXSI was the best 3D animation software for next-generation games, film and television projects—and provided insider advice on how to get a job in the animation industry.

In San Francisco, Jonathan Harb, CEO and Creative Director at Whiskytree, shared his knowledge of working in the industry as an XSI artist to create specialized environments and his past experience of working on visual environments on films including all three Star Wars prequels, Mission Impossible 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Make Your Mark Tour - Summary

Hi -

See below for the MYM Tour Summary that my colleague Kevin G just prepared. I wanted to post this first, because it pretty much sums up where we have been for the last two weeks. Yesterday was the last event, held in San Francisco, and it was a little sad for us to see it end so soon!

This was the first time I have worked with all of the different divisions of Avid.. the Video team, who we know pretty well, but the Digidesign and M-Audio teams are new to us to collaborate closely with. It was a great experience..

Overall, the panel sessions were amazing. In all 4 cities, I felt like I learned something from each team on how to help my own career.. the advice and suggestions from Marc, Chris, John & Jonathan were invaluable, and I was very proud to have these 4 speakers representing the VFX industry.

Our four artists in the break-out sessions were equally fantastic... Todd, Young, Raffael and Jonathan all brought a different story to each city with their different career paths and projects.

I also got to work with our newest Softimage employee - Peter de Lappe - who is joining forces with Mark Schoennagel to spread the gospel of XSI as our new 3D Evangelist.

Here's Kevin's summary, we'll both be posting photos and more details later today.

For Make Your Mark, Montreal-based Softimage represented its professional 3D animation technology software, SOFTIMAGEXSI, by inviting 3D industry thought leaders to attend the lively and informative panel sessions in all four cities: Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Softimage additionally provided highly-visual demonstrations of its professional 3D animation software in each break-out session—providing a comprehensive demonstration of how one can break into the 3D industry using XSI software for a career in 3D game development, visual effects, broadcast or pre-viz and design visualization.

In Boston, Modus FX president Marc Bourbonnais represented the visual effects industry in the first panel event. In the Softimage break-out session, PSYOP’s Todd Akita shared his experience working on award-winning spots for some of world’s biggest brands (Mercedes, Infiniti, MTV, Nike, Coca-Cola and more)—and provided advice on building a successful career using XSI 3D software.

In New York, Chris Johnson from TOPIX in Toronto shared his experience at the panel discussion about learning 3D and how he has applied his expertise in a career creating 3D visuals for major television advertisements. Youngwoog-Jang, recent winner of the Academy Award Student Gold Medal for his 3D animated short, Mirage, gave an inspirational “Making-Of” presentation at the break out session.

In Los Angeles, John Norris, director of Artists and Directors Cooperative spoke about how artists can break into the industry. Raffael Dickreuter, host of the XSI community site www.XSIbase.com and 3D pre-viz artist for Pixel Liberation Front, showed how SOFTIMAGEXSI was the best 3D animation software for next-generation games, film and television projects—and provided insider advice on how to get a job in the animation industry.

In San Francisco, Jonathan Harb, CEO and Creative Director at Whiskytree, shared his knowledge of working in the industry as an XSI artist to create specialized environments and his past experience of working on visual environments on films including all three Star Wars prequels, Mission Impossible 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean.

In a New Yok Minute...

One of the downsides about writing a blog is the associated guilt I feel when I don't update it fast enough! I have been trying to get a quick around to posting an update about the NYC Make Your Mark event, but time keeps getting away from me!

I am now in LA, gearing up for the next event, but I want to share some details about last weekend in NYC.

I arrived in the city last Thursday and headed off right away to meet with some schools and training facilities to discuss XSI training for professionals. We know there are so may jobs out there for talented artists that can use XSI, we just need to be able to offer a couple of transition courses.

One of the things I was discussing with the schools I was at was offering a free weekend class in Feb for non-xsi freelancers to get them up to speed. I would love to hear some feedback from NY shops if they think they could help us get some people there.. also we are looking at London as a possibility as well.

So after a long day running around NYC I got to SVA to meet up with Mark Schoennagel and Mike Walsh of Softimage, where we were getting ready to be the guest speakers at the NYC User Group, run by Phill Avanzato. This was exciting, because we were showing a little tech preview from SIGGRAPH of some exciting technology that may or may not make it into the next release of XSI. Looks like what Mark showed resonated well with the crowd, so that was very encouraging! Mark also opened up XSI 6.5 and showed how the 3Dlight beta plug-in works for rendering in XSI.
http://www.3delight.com/en/modules/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=3delight_for_xsi_changelog

It was a great opportunity to catch up with a few XSI guys (and gals!) that I haven't seen in a while, like Todd Peleg, Leigh Rondano, Alex Arce, Mike Wharton and many more. (We missed you Kris Rivel!) I love going to the NYC User Groups- they jut go by SO fast!

On Friday, we went to a couple of client shops to hold some technology sessions and talk training. Both places we visited have grown SO much since the last time I had been there, with both project scopes and team sizes. There are some fantastic projects coming that are using XSI - I can't wait to be able to talk about them!!

Later in the day we met up with our guest panelist for the event, Chris Johnson of TOPIX and his wife Melissa. It was nice being able to have the time to chat and catch up, very different from when we are all running around at SIGGRAPH.

This was a longer post than I expected.. I'll do a second one for the Make Your Mark event later today - it was a great day.

see you later!