SIGGRAPH 2010

July 27th and 28th I was in Los Angeles for SIGGRAPH 2010. Even though I only attended two days for the convention, it was a lot of fun and incredibly informative.
I spent most of my time between the Exhibition Hall, the Electronic Theater, and the Emerging Technology Room, all of which were incredible.

If you haven't seen it yet, check out Logorama. This was by far my favorite video shown at SIGGRAPH for the great idea, creative modeling and animation, and overall humor.

On the 28th I also attended two of the production sessions for The Last Airbender and Day & Night. Both were fantastic! The Last Airbender session was very heavy on VFX and the rendering technology used to create it. The Day and Night session contained a lot more artistic background in addition to the technical discussion of merging 2D and 3D animation.

There were also some special events at the Exhibition Hall. Dick van Dyke and William Shatner made a special appearance at the Lightwave 10 booth. Although neither are experts in CG, I enjoyed hearing the enthusiasm when they talked about 3D technology. It reminds me why I love this field- it's awesome!

In the emerging technology room people from all over the world displayed technology from synthesized touch to 3D LED displays. Sony showed off their new 3D technology: a cylinder with spinning LEDs that produced a 3D graphic. You can even interact with it by moving your hand close to the cylinder. At another booth, I put on a special glove, stuck my hand in some water, and when I put my hand under a certain color of light the glove synthesized different textures.

Like most students and ambitious attendees, I also check out the job fair. Unfortunately, as a student without experience in the industry I barely got a word from the big name companies. There were a few smaller companies present, but overall I was disappointed with the representation at the job fair. I did get one helpful tidbit from the job fair: get experience. While, each person I talked to made a point not to verbally say, "Graduate school is a waste of time," it was apparent from their reactions that prior experience has a much higher value in this industry.

That is not to say there aren't great graduate, undergraduate, and in between programs out there. I stopped at several booths including Vancouver Film School, Academy of Art University, SCAD, and Rochester Institute of Technology to name a few. Each program offers something different, and each program sounds incredible. If I had known about SIGGRAPH in high school, I may not even have gone to a four-year college, despite my love of Purdue's Technology college staff.

I could go on about SIGGRAPH for hours, so I'll just cut it off here. It's an expensive trip for a student if you're not a volunteer, but well worth every dime.

Anne