The Good and Bad of Siggraph 2008

Posted on August 22nd, 2008 in CG Community, Working in CG by Marc Bourbonnais

- The good -

Downtown LA
Once deserted, the whole quarter is booming with housing projects all over. Next Siggraph in L.A. will be lively.

 Double clip badge

good_siggraph_badges.jpg

Yay, no more flip-flopping badges. With two clamps the badge holder stays straight. I don’t know why I keep my old Siggraph passes.

The weather
It’s California. Sunny, or sunny with light clouds. This summer in Montreal, 2 out of 3 days were rainy.

XSI ICE

xsi_ice.jpg

I have been following ICE since the first presentation of Moondust at the Softimage research summit of Siggraph 2006 in Boston. Softimage finally released XSI 7.0 with ICE just before Siggraph, and it’s turning a lot of heads.

Mudbox 2009

mudbox2009.jpg

The presentation at the Autodesk User group was a tremendous success, with this version presenting a complete sculptor/painter tool. Still in Beta, but the release is only a few weeks away.

The exhibition floor
I kinda liked how the exhibition was split in the middle, with the New Tech Demo and Studio taking up the center space. Of course it’s sad that the venue is smaller than the previous years yet again, but at least it’s easy to get around and you get to explore more Sigg stuff.

Haptics
What stood out at the New Tech Demo were the numerous haptic setups. Gloves, controls and other feedback interfaces were all over. Expect some fancy new force-feedback controllers for CG work real soon…

Softimage Nice ICE party
My head still hurts. But it’s a good thing.

Computer animation festival
A great collection of sessions, with the best being the two-day stereoscopy talks. Which brings me to…

3-D Stereoscopy
It’s the next best thing since sliced bread according to the movie industry.  Stereo talks, stereo cameras, stereo displays, stereo glasses… CG, digital effects and post-production are of course very tied to all this.

- The Bad -

The Food
Getting good food at the Convention Center is a nightmare. Outside the Center is even worse; you have to get to one of the nearby hotels to get a decent restaurant.

TV in hotel

badtv.jpg

Smallest hotel TV ever. My grandmother had a bigger set than this in her bedroom.

Wireless Internet
What, I’m so close to Sillicon valley, and Wi-Fi is dead slow in hotels, restaurants or at the Convention Center. I don’t get it.

… and the worst thing about Siggraph 2008 :

No Electronic Theatre
A very, very big hole in Siggraph 2008 appeared by leaving out the ET in a weird revamping of the Computer Animation Festival. Not many attendees could balance their filled-up days to attend the complicated schedule of shows.

... Related posts :
...ADAPT 2008
...Siggraph 2011 : Vancouver
...ADAPT 2007 : Day 4

2 Responses to 'The Good and Bad of Siggraph 2008'

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  1. wireframex said,

    on 2008-08-23 at 2.17 pm

    Bonjour,

    C’est toujours aussi intéressant, merci pour toutes ces infos :)

    Je suis allé au canada au mois de juin cette année et je confirme j’ai eu la pluie 3 jours sur 4 mais le seul jour ou il a fait beau c’était insupportable pour un Européen comme moi (30 degrés Celcius et 85% d’humidité …)

    Wirex

  2. Jean-Sébastien Guay said,

    on 2008-09-26 at 8.41 am

    Salut Marc,

    Wow, il va falloir que tu me donnes des trucs pour mon prochain Siggraph. J’ai été là 4 jours complets (lundi à jeudi) et j’ai l’impression que j’ai manqué 50% des choses intéressantes. Bien sûr, mon focus était différent (much less exhibition, more classes and paper talks).

    J’ai bien aimé mon expérience (c’était mon premier Siggraph) mais un cours sur comment planifier son temps et ses déplacements à Siggraph me serait d’une grande utilité. :-)

    C’était cool de te rencontrer là-bas et d’avoir des nouvelles. Love the blog. À la prochaine,

    J-S

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