Returned from SIGGRAPH 2014

In order to keep everyone up-to-date, SIGGRAPH 2014 was a BLAST!  Vancouver is an amazing and beautiful city, and I must say dealing with Canadian airline security and customs was easier than dealing with USA security and customs.  (Also Canadian money is so pretty and colorful.)

Behold my fellow SVs!

While I was at SIGGRAPH, I helped out a lot with Studio, which is where cutting-edge applicable technology is showed off.  This is stuff like 3D printers, auto-stereoscopic (3D without glasses) displays, and various other technologies.  They had some really cool stuff this year, including a printer than could essentially print a relief on a 3D object.  Imagine printing a texture, like a snake skin or pattern, on the back of your phone cover, with a full color image.  That was the station I worked at, where the Roland printers could print on just about anything.  I ended up staying with them for several days helping them print on phone covers and more, and I even managed to get my own business card holder printed on with a texture.  It looks (and feels) great!

Definitely a technology I can see hitting it big in the near future.

When I wasn't helping out at SIGGRAPH, I managed to do a little site-seeing, and I've got to say Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities around.  I loved the view with the shore line, the water with the planes and cruise ships, the ocean liners in the distance, the beach and city beyond that, and the cloud-covered mountains in the back.  Not to mention the local sights, like the Steam Clock and Chinatown.  It was a blast.

Steam clock in the middle of Steamtown.

The one draw back to the week was an old foot injury started to act up, so if anyone saw a Student Volunteer walking around with a crutch, that was me.  Luckily it cleared up and I was able to walk, crutch-free, for the last 2 days.  I even managed to go on a studio crawl where I got to check out the actual studios for Sony Imageworks, Motion Picture Company (MPC), United Front Games, and East Side Games.  It was a great experience, and I got to talk to a lot of talented people.  I just wish it could have gone on longer.

Inside the convention center, the world was waiting.

Because of my injury, I didn't have the time to post more on this site, and I also noticed some of the posts I did make accidentally were posted on a different blog I run.  So I will re-post those, and apologize that I wasn't able to keep up with more posts during the week.

Every day was like this!

Luckily for me, the powers that be at SIGGRAPH have been working on ways people like me who have graduated and no longer able to be student volunteers will be able to continue to volunteer in the future.  I have to look into this and see what how it works, and I'll post anything I find out, but it is one of those things that only a select few will even be eligible for.  We'll see how it turns out.  Next year in L.A.!

Sweet Dream roomie...

I was also fortunate enough to be able to have several portfolio reviews with amazingly talented people from Dreamworks, Disney, and Blue Sky.  These guys were great, and I got some top-notch feedback for my portfolio.  I want to thank Josh Staub, Eldar Cholich, and Frankie Liu again for all the work they did to help us volunteers, and all of those who dedicated time, money, and talent (and anything else).

And on that note, I am currently working on a new series of projects.  These are going to be photographs (and possibly paintings) brought to life in 3D.  I am going to try to create everything from scratch, with a focus on the texturing and lighting.  I really want to push myself and learn some new stuff, and if I can, I hope to add some camera animation and possibly some particles and/or fluids for fun.  I will be starting this tomorrow, and I will be attempting to keep a DAILY BLOG on here (at least 4 times a week if not more) posting all my Work in Progress (WIP).  I will be starting this ASAP, and I want to push myself to see how fast and how detailed I can make these things.  I will really need to build an audience here as well to force myself to keep up with the work, as a way to help me with motivation.  I am eager to get started, and can't wait!  In the meantime, I have also been working on a new short film, called "H2O No!", but production is still early and slow, so I need these shorter faster projects to help me out now while we get the ball rolling on H2O No!.  I will also be posting work on my portfolio site, HixonArt, as well as other sites like CGSociety.

So stay tuned and tell your friends!  Let's get dangerous!