First-timer Alert.
It’s my first Siggraph, so forgive me if I’m a little bit redundant. It’s been a really lovely 3 days, starting from Saturday afternoon where I attended the Chapters workshop. Great people, cool parties, nice food. The ratio of men to women however is horribly skewed, but like one of the guys also attending the hotel (who presented a paper on ray-tracing on Saturday, no idea why it was on Saturday, and unlisted, but it was) Computer Science is one of those things that just not many women do. And if they do do it, they’re not really your standard kinda girl. It’s like guys doing hairdressing. Nothing wrong with that, my hairdresser is male and Alan Rickman did make a fantastic hairdresser in Blow Up, but you know, girls in the strange world of Computer Science are not too common. There are some very pretty ones however. They’re either really pretty or… not. Then there’s the more ‘art’ side of things, that one has plenty of chicks, but it’s a smaller section of the conference.
Frivolities aside! The talk/course on Ratatouille was good fun. It really opened up my awareness to justhow much detail goes into making a film look really great. Like really, really great. It’s all the little detail that makes all the difference really. Things I normally wouldn’t think would be important. But the amount of observation required squares when you go from 2D to 3D animation. The amount of reference they had to research and use was just mind-blowing. An interesting fact I remember was how the steam in the kitchen sometimes had special personalities. Hero effects as they call it. So the steam would react differently depending on which chef was cooking. It’s all these little things that give the film a good style, and we don’t (at least I don’t) even notice it. Not consciously anyway.
Thinking back, I used to lament the beautiful, more human qualities that were lost in animated films when they made the move to 3D, but apprently it is not so much a problem, or failing of the medium but rather a lack of familiarity, and a lack of all the little details that make a film, for lack of a better word, warmer. More heartfelt, visually.
I’m headed off to the Electronic theatre now, so no time to be long winded as I usually am. Thanks for reading in 