Report from SIGGRAPH (Tuesday)
chris williams
This is a report from the second full day at SIGGRAPH, and the
first day of the exhibition.
I wasn't one of the lucky few to get tickets to the first of the
three Electronic Theatre shows. I was lucky to get Thursday, so someone
else will have to tell you about the "really big show."
For me, the big news was the announcement of 3D Studio 4.0. It's
being demo'd, and will be released in September. It adds Inverse
Kinematics (via an IPAS), a spline-based modeler (also via an IPAS)
with view -dependant tessalation, a Basic-like (ugh!) Keyframe scripting
language, EPS output, perspective matching to bitmaps, and the fast
shaded preview rendering has been added to everything.
The long lines are at the "VROOM," a set of three virtual reality
"caves" with stereoscopic video projected on all the walls and ceiling,
and the user can wander around wearing polorized shades. Each course and
paper'n'panel person got a ticket, and the hoi poli can wait in said
long line for one of the few to forget their date with VROOM. A lot of
fun stuff is being shown, but nobody can possibly see everything, and
most will not see anything. Me, all that stuff gives me a head-ache from
crossed eyes.
More companies this year are hiring spokesmodels to take the
canned demos to a whole new depth. I don't know what to call it, maybe
"freeze-dried." Good luck getting an actual sense of what it's like to
*use* Alias, Wavefront, SoftImage, etc. What you'll get is a lot of rah
rah about how many cool things *other* people have done with this
software. Me, I'm more concerned with what cool things *I* can do with
it.
Animo, for the NeXT looks cool enough to make me install NeXTSTEP
on the required really big PC. Postscript-based 2D animation with
resolution-independent output. I plan to see this one more carefully
tommorrow. Today was devoted to trying to find the things to look at
more carefully tommorrow.
Neatest show special was Altamira Composer for Windows for $299
rather than $799. I can only hope enough people see this program and
realize just how lame Photoshop is in comparison.
Lotsa folks are handing out CD-ROMS. Schrieber was at the Autodesk
booth with a CD demo of _Puppeteer_ that also has all their IPAS
routines in a unlockable demo form. _Puppeteer_ is a skeleton
controller, that can work with the _Flock Of Birds_ motion input system,
for (this is amazing) $499! Every other motion input system is charging
thousands for the software to work with *any* motion input system, and
this one is really cheap.
NOTE: I do *not* work for *any* of these companies, I just am
mentioning some cool things that I see.
Lots more tommorrow.
Richard Ottolini
Any comments about nifty technical papers?
chris williams
>Thanks for the reviews. Keep them coming.
>Any comments about nifty technical papers?
Sorry, but no. I'd love to, but as I am but a poor freelancer I did
not get anything but Exhibits and an Electronic Theatre Ticket. The
Internet is not considered a valid press organization. But I'll report
every thing that I see and overhear. The Autodesk party is tonight, but
I haven't been able to weasle an invite to the ILM party, so no luck
there.
BTW, I had an anstonishingly unlikely thing happen to me...I was
standing in a line at Disney/MGM to get info on buses out of there.
They line was short but they had to make a phone call to get info
on a bus to my shabby hotel. I turned around to see the name of the
person behind me in the line. It was a woman named Chris Williams,
*also* from Chicago, *also* an animator. Swear to God. What exactly
are the odds of two people with the same name, occupation and city
winding up one and two in the same line?
Chris Williams of
Chris'n'Vickie of Chicago
chr...@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (his)
vic...@njin.rutgers.edu (hers)
BTW, if you meet a Chris Williams, an animator from Chicago,
I'm the male one in the Kate Bush T-Shirt.
chris williams
day of the exhibition.
I was able to get a full-blown demo of 3DS 4.0. It really isn't as
much of a leap to 4.0 from 3.0, as it was from 2.0 to 3.0. There are no
changes in the 2D Shaper, Material Editor or Keyframer. All the added
functionality is via IPAS, as in the case of the Inverse Kinematics module
or via the external program menu.
The Spline modeler is a bit lame at this point. It only allows the
user to insert a 4 by 4 patch cylinder or flat mesh, and then deform
that. Meshes can be welkded together, but it's a bit cumbersome. They
did seem really interested in suggestions, so I'll give them a bit of
feedback. There is no FFD lattice. They had planned one, but found out
that somebody owns a patent on it, and they didn't want to pay the fee.
apparently Caligari Inc. is in for a surprise.
I saw a lot of neat stuff, but I don't have a lot of time to type.
Maybe tommorrow mornig I can do a bit more and summerize. Unfortunetly
the Net room here closes at 6:00 PM.
Cool thing from a small company: 3DeXpress from Synthonics. 2 photos
taken 30 degress apart, build DXF files via triangleation. Show special
$199. Really neat, and it actually works. Poor man's (or woman's) 3D
digitizer.
Hash gets the Tirekicker award for their obnoxious demo person.
NewTek has calmed down a lot and is no longer annoying.
Robert Glidden
nonattendees.
How about low cost hardware assisted 3d on the PC? ($400-600) Matrox
Impression 3D, Diamond, etc., and 3d engines/drivers like Intel's 3DR,
RenderWare, Rendermorphics, Argonaut?
chris williams
into gold goes to SDI Virtual Reality Corp. This booth was huge,
hi-tech, and almost empty except for a couple of flight simulators
at the corners, some completely improbable looking "Memphis" design
box alleged to be a computer, and a whole bunch of brochures advertising
a so-called contest. Reading the fine print, what they want you to do is
this:
Design a game or "experience" and send them a four minute videotape
Let them look at it.
Give up all claims to your idea when they swipe it.
(Item 6)
Entrant acknowledges that SDI is independently developing it's
own ideas for use with virtual reality and that it is possible that
Entrant's idea will be similar to an idea already in development by SDI.
SDI reserves all rights to reject any entry similar to an idea already
in independent development. Futher, Entrant acknowledges that it is
possible that at some future date SDI may indepentently develop an idea
or concept similar to that presented by Entrant. By entering this
contest, Entrant releases SDI from any liability for use of any idea or
concept similar to the entry made by any Entrant.
*Real* nasty. So-called contest pays $10,000.
The award for most undeservedly ignored booth goes to Ron Scott
Inc. These people have one of the only Windows NT image editing and
paint programs around, running on both alphas and R4600s. The software
is being demo'd by Ron himself, and I have never seen anyone ask him
a question that he couldn't answer. This software screams, and any
Lightwave user with a Raptor II *NEEDS* this software. Yes it is
Windows, not AmigaDOS, but you own all the hardware already.
Caligari trueSpace is here in the part of the show floor that I
have designated "Tim-buk-too." Loads of cool stuff in this hidden little
area off the main show floor.
Went to the Autodesk party and handled 3DS 4.0 More later....
I gotta get back to the floor....
chris williams
A couple of things that I forgot...
The winner of the hotly contested "Silliest Hat" award has to
go to the fellow in the Silicon Graphics booth demoing some
some facial movement recognition system. He had small white dots
glued to areas of his face, a camera stuck on top of his head facing
forward aimed at a pair of mirrors so that it captured the dots on his
face. I giggled for several minutes.
The Walt Disney company was here in force, but seemed a bit confused
about why, exactly, they were here. They showed a VR system for
capturing movement for charactor animation, three pieces of software
including a screen saver and the old "Disney's Animation Studio" and
a whole bunch of cels. Oh, and in the Silicon Graphics booth they
featured an "Ultimate Computer Interface" and claimed to have a patent
pending. It *was* cool, but anybody reading this, and I do mean anybody,
could build it. It was a teleprompter in reverse. Here's how it works:
___________
| |
| | {- Monitor with yoke reversed
| |
/ \
/_____________\
- {- sheet of smoked glass
You - * {- light
-
-
-
================ {- Wacom tablet
Image from the screen is reflected onto the glass and reversed. The
light has a cover and illumates the users hand only. The user sees her
hand through the glass and it appears to be drawing directly on the
monitor. Works great, and they were using this at NYIT in the seventies.
They had ropes around it to keep people from getting too close and
figuring it out. I could have told you how to build this in my sleep
from someone else description. Silly mouse.
Please build one and help stamp out bad patents.
chris williams
The winner of the hotly contested "Silliest Hat" award has to
chris williams
didn't sound, it is truely over. They start rolling the carpets up at
3:40, herding everyone out. I was a bit disappointed that they didn't
play the traditional end of SIGGRAPH music, _Amazing Grace_ on bagpipes
at a deafening volume. I do have to bitch about something else about
this, and the last, SIGGRAPH. The T-shirts. These last two shirts have
featured small designs on the breast, and the majority of the
design on the back. Well, that's perfectly fine if you have short
hair. I mentioned my dislike for this sort of design to the person
at the merchandise counter, and she actually told me "Well, get a
haircut!" The entire universe is going to Hell.
While I was standing in front of the Autodesk booth a guy handed
me a disk with what puports to be a disk-based mag for 3D animators.
I'll check it out when I get home (but first I'll make sure that I
have a current backup and a recent copy of Scan.)
The award for "Interface of the Year (good or bad)" goes to
Mirage Graphics for Mirage for 3D Studio. Every single button, every
square inch of the interface has paintings. The program itself looks really
neat, and does a great job of producing ripples and waves, but it is
so busy that it makes Kai's Power Tools look understated and
businesslike. It was painful to look at for any length of time.
ElectroGIG had a great looking booth, some really nice software,
and the worst chairs of the show. Anyone who has done a show like this
knows that by the end of the second day, you willwatch almost any demo
if it means a chance to sit down. These chairs must have been supplied
by a designer working from an original drawing by De Sade. Imagine a
bicycle seat on a tripod. Their new Particle system, on the other hand
looked quite nice. They finally have a machine at their US sales office,
so they should finally be able to make a serious impact on the US
market. But they gotta get rid of those chairs.
As 3D software gets cheaper, the cost of associated technologies
must drop. The Schreiber _Puppeteer_ software that I mentioned before
that sells for $499? The Ascension "Flock Of Birds" sells for over $2500
per channel! Now, unless I'm mistaken, it is basically a transmitter
coil and three sensor coils and sampling hardware. It is a bit pricey,
especially as the average user will need at least eight of these to
capture a human.
On the other hand, I did see some things headed in the right
direction. Immersion Corporation had a six-degree-of-freedom digitizer
for $1499 with software. It appeared to be at least as rugged at any
of the competing units for a fraction of the price. One point that I
heard from a guy who had looked at all of the units available was that
their software was the only off-the-shelf package that actually produced
DXF files with 3DFace entities. Everybody else produced only points
and lines, and if you bring a point'n'line file into most 3D packages
you will have to sew up all the faces manually.
People have written me asking to cover specific areas. Sorry, but
my only real area of semi-expertise is in 3D animation and 2D graphics,
and that only as a skilled user, not a programmer. Hopefully plenty
of other people will post their own views of the show from their own
specific areas of interest.
I'm going to wait in the line from Hell for the Electronic Theatre.
They really need to increase the number of shows. Three just isn't
cutting it anymore.
David Fuzzy Wells
>go to the fellow in the Silicon Graphics booth demoing some
>some facial movement recognition system. He had small white dots
>glued to areas of his face, a camera stuck on top of his head facing
>forward aimed at a pair of mirrors so that it captured the dots on his
>face. I giggled for several minutes.
It's called VActor. Really cool, actually.
BTW, SGI had over 200 machines on the show floor and over 50 were Onyx
Reality Engine2s. For those that haven't discovered it yet, SGI is THE
platform of choice. All of the BOOMs (by FakeSpace) in the BOOM Room
were using them and most of the thingys in The Edge (the research side
of SGIGRAPH (er, SIGGRAPH) for those without real passes). The Courses
were cool...I took VR Programming, Animation Tricks (mondo popular!) and
Real-Time VR (with Disney Imagineering and SGI).
Most bogus ride MUST go to HP. Awesomely BAD! A few semi-interactive
experiences for thirty seconds or so with many minutes of boring video
clips in between. All while standing up in a metal room with lots of
dry ice, fans, and no ventilation. Yawn!
Evans and Sutherland had a great ride. A virtual adventure based around
saving Nessie's eggs at the bottom of Loch Ness. Kubota: simplistic
racecar ride, poor steering, cool shirt. SGI: lots of mini-"rides":
Egghead Shred (a cool skiing simulation), an ostrich race (sounds bad,
real gaudy, pretty cool), "save the cutty sark cargo" game...sail the
high seas, roam around a cathedral, IndiZone2 (with DOOM playing!!! (in
a small window and not yet on the IndiZone2 CD)) set of games. Disney
had the best ride, but you need to fly the carpet for a long time to get
anywhere in the game...plus only a very select group got to ride (not
me!). Disney has really gone to bed with SGI over Alladin. Plus, they
have created a very high-rez HMD with a "wide" FOV, that.....just so
happens to look like an "Alien" when being worn.
Amazing how many people from my past I met there....
Later,
Fuzzy
(If you saw a guy wearing a Nyx t-shirt, that was me)