Animation

Dan Maas, my best friend and partner. We ever co-work in Digimax on Quantum Quest. He is a RenderMan expert with excellent animation experience and knowledge. Last year, just after he graduated from Stanford Graduate School of Business, he was planning his next business. It turns out in this year, 2012, that he succefully co-founded another company, SpinPunch. The following is my casual interview with Dan, about his idea behind, the new company, the ‘Starcraft in million browsers’ and his vision for future gaming. Enjoy it :) ...

Python, the so-called scripting language but actually more than that, keeps sweeping this CG/Animation/VFX/Game industries in technical programming field. The bigger the stronger. I even start to doubt if PyPy could take over this situation one day by it’s natural power of strength in concurrent programming. > 由 Aardman Animations 與 Sony Pictures Animation 合力製作，於 2011 年放映的動畫。《聖誕快遞》揭示了一個令人難以置信、以前從未見過的答案，關於每一個孩子都曾有過的問題：“究竟聖誕老人是如何在一個晚上送完這些禮物？”答案是：聖誕老人在北極擁有超高科技的協助！但是，電影中心是關於一個家庭的故事，一個有漫畫功能障礙和一個不太可靠的主角阿瑟，一個緊迫的任務，一個必須在聖誕節前黎明的晨光前完成的任務。 ...

{{ flickr drakeguan 6445315283 >}} After spotting this exhibitor DM, it reminds me of one un-answered question: Do we really realize the contribution and advantages of Pixar’s RenderMan? If we don’t, how can we evaluate other renderers (ex, Arnold Renderer) in that soon without any hesitate?

The followings are the research titles in the trailer video with html copied from Ke-Sen ’s work: SIGGRAPH Asia 2011 papers on the web . **Rendering Synthetic Objects into Legacy Photographs ** [Kevin Karsch](https://kevinkarsch.com), [Varsha Hedau](https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/vhedau2/www/), [David Forsyth](https://luthuli.cs.uiuc.edu/%7Edaf/), [Derek Hoiem](https://www.cs.illinois.edu/homes/dhoiem/) ([University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign](https://www.uiuc.edu/)) Modeling and Generating Moving Trees from Video [Chuan Li](https://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/~cl249/) ([University of Bath](https://www.bath.ac.uk/)), [Oliver Deussen](https://graphics.uni-konstanz.de/mitarbeiter/deussen.php) ([University of Konstanz](https://www.uni-konstanz.de/)), [Yizhe Song](https://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/Song/), [Phil Willis](https://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/~pjw/), [Peter Hall](https://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/~pmh/start/home.html) ([University of Bath](https://www.bath.ac.uk/)) Video Face Replacement ...

Siggraph 2008 的一篇論文：[Upright Orientation of Man-Made Objects](https://www.cs.ubc.ca/nest/imager/tr/2008/upright_orientation/ )。這篇論文的目的是要把 3D 模型給擺正。只要你隨意給一個 3D 模型，使用這篇論文裏的方法的話，就能把一個模型擺正到可以平放在桌面上來。（註：其實是人造的物件為主，如果你是給一隻兩隻站立的狗的話，不曉得會跑出什麼結果來~） ...

今年的 Stupid RenderMan/RAT Tricks 2011，Pixar 的 Patrick Coleman 給了一個簡短的 trick: Illustrating RenderMan for the Masses 。整個 talk 的目的圍繞在一個主題上： 跟你的奶奶解釋 RenderMan 是怎麼協助電影動畫的。 上頭這個副標不錯吧，也很難吧。事實上，你把上頭的 RenderMan 換成任何一個你熟悉的技術或東西，都一樣困難。試試換成 mp3、電子書、網際網路、Facebook、iPad、App……以我自己來看的話，我想 mp3 是最容易解釋的一點 XD ...

Just someone did that test, lol~

上頭是我目前打算在 SIGGRAPH 2011 的暫時（我相當懷疑，參加 SIGGRAPH 可以事先很明確地訂下行事曆來……）的行程。每天的行程看起來都還挺不錯的，至少，幾乎每晚，都會參加一個“晚會“，像是 Taipei Reunion, The Foundry GeekFest, Disney R&D Mixer, RenderMan Users Group Meeting~ 我同行的同事更帥氣，他還找到了 Houdini User Group Meeting 來著，先祝他有個很有看頭的一晚 :) ...