A Report from Michael Goldman, senior editor West Coast, Millimeter

*SGI’s humungous booth was the first thing Siggraph attendeesencountered as they poured into the LA Convention Center exhibitionhall at 10 a.m. on day one. There, they found the usual productofferings and demos, but individually, dozens of them also found a wayto escape the show’s madness for a minute or two. Their literalescape pod: SGI’s and Elumens’ VisionStation—apersonal and private CG visualization station. Show-goers in need of alittle “private time” could sit at the product’s teststation, put on 3D glasses, pull down a curved hood to separatethemselves completely from the rest of the show, and literally immersethemselves in some cool, SGI-powered 3D animation. The only problem wasthe long line of folks waiting for their turn, often left far behind byattendees once they get under the hood and enter their own, private 3Dworld. The VisionStation represents the low-end of SGI’s push tooffer content visualization products—the individual solution. SGIis also showing off two higher-end products in the samecategory—the Graphics Cluster, a wrap-around viewing screen forhigh-resolution imagery, designed to demo material for up to fivepeople at a time; and the Reality Center, a large, wrap-around theaterscreen showing digitally projected, high-res academic, corporate, andinteractive films to those looking to buy such products, or just take aload off.

*NewTek quietly made a little company history on Day One: it shippedLightWave 7.0 on Siggraph eve … and the Macintosh version of theproduct went out ahead of the NT version. “Well, we shipped theMac version first by a grand total of three minutes,” LightWavethird party manager David Tracy admitted. “We held a raffle forthe first box of the new LightWave, and a Mac guy won, so he got thefirst one. That’s the first time we’ve‘shipped’ Mac ahead of NT. Sort of.”

*Finally, at IBM’s press conference announcing thecompany’s new suite of digital content creation and managementproducts, as well as Linux-based Intellistations, movie producer LarryKasanoff confessed to the assembled media throng that he doesn’thave a clue how to use his cel phone. Kasanoff, owner of SantaMonica’s Threshold Entertainment, its visual effects affiliate,Threshold Digital Research Labs, and producer of the “MortalKombat” film and TV franchise, spoke at the event to promote hiscompany’s partnership with IBM to wire Threshold with IBM toolsdesigned to help the company make its upcoming CG feature film,“Food Fight.” Kasanoff yanked out his phone and explainedit was easier to understand IBM’s content creation strategy thanto use his phone. “I’ve had three or four celphones,” said Kasanoff, “and I really have no idea how touse them. It’s a problem.”

Day Two (Wednesday, August 15, 2001)

*A popular stop at the show was the 2d3 booth (shared with sistercompany Vicon), showing off the latest version (1.3) of Boujou, theautomated camera tracker that has caught fire throughout the industrysince it’s introduction earlier this year. But the 2d3 guys (2d3is an Oxford, England-based company) confessed their progress insolving the tracking headaches now routine in sophisticated effectswork is hardly the only “dull” issue they are targeting.2d3’s Phil Pritchett showed off a clip demonstrating R&D workthe company is doing for a future, as of yet unnamed, product. The clipshowed the results of an automated attempt to digitally produce cleanbackground plates from obstructed plates. The plate in question showeda bus and pedestrians moving down a busy London street. 2d3 applied amosaic image creation process to clear the plate of the bus,pedestrians, and all other movement, ending up with a tidy, clearplate, devoid of movement. The demo was one of several Pritchettoffered—others included the 3D reconstruction of still frames forthree-dimensional viewing for pre-viz purposes, and the automatedcreation of high-resolution mosaics out of digital video images.Pritchett claims such solutions are important for artists tired of whathe calls “the dull stuff,” but he admits there could be adrawback from such breakthroughs. “If we get too successful, thenI guess the negative might be that crews could start gettingexceedingly careless on set, thinking they have tools to make it allright. They might start fobbing about on set.” Pritchett neverexplained what, exactly, “fobbing” means.

*Dot-com woes hardly seemed to damper enthusiasm at the Pulse booth.There, the San Francisco-based Web 3D media provider showed off allkinds of low-cost solutions for those seeking to put media richmaterial on their Web sites without busting the bank. Their“Virtual Cloning” tool, for instance, allows users toanimate their own facial expressions via a digital image capturesystem, and their Pulse Sonifier tool lets users drag-and-drop audioelements directly onto images, text, links, or other Web site objectsfrom a large online audio library subscription service in three easysteps. But the coolest display may have been the “AnatomicalTravelogue,” which lets users view floating, detailed, 3D imagesin space (using 3D glasses) from the comfort of their own desktop, withno special equipment other than the glasses. Pulse officials say thetool is aimed at the medical, research, and education communities,because it allows users to tap into online medical libraries and viewanatomically correct 3D images of body parts in glorious detail withoutever leaving home.

*Those fabulous French “virtual character specialists”from Attitude Studios lured folks to the Vicon booth Wednesday withrepeated showings of their various, short films starring that hotdigital chick—Eve Solal. Starting out as a test film in Europecombining 3D and motion-capture, Eve has taken on a life of her own,literally. She “hosts” a radio show, stars in short films,does commercials, and is reportedly shopping for a movie deal. She wasalso the subject of a clever marketing campaign prior to Siggraph, asEve “sent” thousands of invitations to come“visit” her to members of the media. Vicon marketing rep,Brian Nilles, meanwhile, vociferously insisted Wednesday that Eve is“way hotter” than “Final Fantasy’s” lead3D babe, Aki. Animators at Honolulu’s Square Pictures, makers of“Final Fantasy,” were unavailable for comment.

*Incidentally, Dick Van Dyke paused at the Pulse booth during aquick tour of the convention floor Wednesday. The actor happily greetedanyone not too geeked out to recognize him, and commented that Siggraph“is interesting.”

Day Three (Thursday, August 16, 2001)