SIGGRAPH 2013 and Cinefex

Hello everybody! Sorry for the lack of posting.

SIGGRAPH 2013

As usual this time of year, it's time for the SIGGRAPH conference, this year in Anaheim. Yes, I am going, and as a matter of fact I am Speaking. Thursday, before lunch, in the "Physically Plausible Shading in Theory and Practice", I will hold a talk named "Everything you always wanted to know about mia_material * (* but were afraid to ask)", which will explain the story of how the mia_material (Arch&Design to 3ds max users) shader was developed, why it does what it does, why it is so hard to replicate... and a lot of funny anecdotes never ever heard elsewhere (and very very little math).

Show up - enjoy!

If you are attending this year, make sure to get the cool App, where you can see which talks I'm going to by "following" Zap Andersson. That is, if you are interested in hardcore rendering as I am ;)

See you all in Anaheim


HULK SAYS "GIVE ME ALL THE CINEFEX"

I bet nearly everyone reading this blog knows about the magazine Cinefex and is probably a subscriber. But I bet many of us has also looked longingly at the back issues and how many times have we not wanted to hold that issue about E.T. in your hands?

Well... you may be able to... soon... assuming your hands also hold an iPad!

A couple of people I know have gone through the audacious task of  licencing all the Cinefex back issues and speant a year scanning every copy, OCR'ed it, marked it up for search.... etc.

Words fail me at describing this task, and I will let them describe it for themsleves, on their Kickstarter page, which you can find HERE:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/newscribbler/cinefex-classic-collection

Or watch this video:


If you find this interesting, consider throwing them a $ or more for the effort. I don't even have an iPad and still did it. Just the Blade Runner issue of Cinefex recently went for $250 on eBay. Here you ALL TEH CINEFEXES. That's...a deal.


/Z

Speaking at SIGGRAPH 2013

Less than a week to EUE, less than a month to SIGGRAPH 2013

This year, I am speaking in the course "Physically Based Shading - Theory and Practice"
http://s2013.siggraph.org/attendees/courses/events/physically-based-shading-theory-and-practice
and my talk is entitled "Everything You Always Wanted to Know about mia_material (But Were Afraid to Ask)"

It will be a rush through the history and development of good o'le mia_material (Arch&Design in max-speak) and it will be informative and fun. :)

See you all there!

/Z

What if SIGGRAPH was held in a Pub?

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if SIGGRAPH was about 200 of your best friends, had all the cool talks but none of the showfloor commercial glitz... and was held in a pub?

If you think that sounds like a good idea, you should have registered for the End User Event (see previous post). Me? I'm packing my last thing, flying down there now.

If you wish you were there, well..... I told you already. In the aformentioned previous post :)

This year I'm going a bit more abstract than previous years, and will be talking about "the Physics of Light", and 'tis gonna be fun.

I will (connection willing) try to amend this post with some pictures, videos, and other stuff as the event happens.

For those who want the (likely) stream of crazy updates, tune in to my twitter at twitter.com/MasterZap.... connection willing, of course.


/Z

MRY201 mental ray FXPHD course to be RE-RUN for July 2010 term

For those of you who missed my FXPHD course back in January, fear not, because it is being run AGAIN this upcoming July term!







Scroll down to my previous postings about the course for more info! Now, this is a re-run, so it is the same classes as before (with some minor updates and corrections, especially to Class #1), but I will still be available in the FXPHD forum for the new students to ask their questions!

For more info about the course click here or just go to www.fxphd.com

For now, though, I'm off on some vacation, coming back in time for SIGGRAPH 2010 in Los Angeles! More about that in a later post!

/Z

MasterClass now in 9 languages

The link is still the same, click here.

But if you didn't understand what I was rambling about before, you can now not understand what I ramble about, subtitled :)

Enjoy.

/Z

The SIGGRAPH 09 masterclass is LIVE

Clickety here for the masterclass "GIANT ROBOTS: Using mental ray shaders for introducing CG elements into real shots".



You need to register 1st, but it's free!

Enjoy me rambling for 1.5 hours ;)

UPDATE: Link is now back online - but it seems to require Flash 10. I had Flash 9 in Firefox, and it did not work, but never gave any error message.

/Z

SIGGRAPH Masterclass: GIANT ROBOTS (Using mental ray shaders to integrate CG elements into real scenes)

Hello Everybody!

Sorry for being incommunicado for a while. I've been busy, and I've been on Vacation.

On Monday, SIGGRAPH kicks off, and for the first time in many years I will actually not be going there... however, I will be there "in spirit". As usual, I have an Autodesk MasterClass running, only, this year the MasterClasses will be ONLINE, and not live in-person things.

My class is called "Giant Robots: Using mental ray shaders to integrate CG objects into real scenes", and it will be available from August 3rd 2009 somewhere on www.the-area.com

Here's a teaser:



I'll let y'all know when the actual class is on, and give a direct link to it.

Enjoy... and for those actually going to SIGGRAPH in New Orleans... have a beaker for me ;)

/Z

Merry Christmas Post

My render from Jeremy Birn's lighting challenge

'ello 'everybody, and merry christmas, and all that Jazz!

Yes, I'm back from SIGGRAPH ASIA in Singapore. I couldn't get so much net connection so there wasn't much of the promised "reporting"; I apologize profusely. For the totally curious, there are some random pictures here and some cellphone video here.

SIGGRAPH ASIA was overall a very nice experience. It was small (Pixars Tony Apocada compared it to "US Siggraph 10 years ago") which was a good thing - the US SIGGRAPH's tend to overwhelm. Only drawback of Singapore; drinks way too expensive ;)

And there was an Electronic Theatre (see last post)!

The Masterclass went very well, many special thanks to Mike Seymour from FXGuide who not only was my MC for the Masterclass, but also kept up with my 175 page powerpoint, and knew which page I had to return to when Powerpoint decided to crash yet-another-time. Note to Self: Keynote, pre-prepared DVD, or anything... ANYTHING but Powerpoints next time!

Speaking of next time, unless the economy implodes further, I'm tentatively signed up for doing a class next year in New Orleans. Nothing signed up for next SIGGRAPH ASIA in Yokohama, Japan, though.

For me, I will be trying to spend the remaining shivering pieces of the year w. my family, enjoy the festivities, eat the stuff we Swedes eat, and celebrate the most holy thing on Swedish Christmas: Donald Duck.

I part with a little Christmas Gift from (again) my friends at Blur Studios (who I must add was a great help in providing me with eyecandy for my Siggie presentations); you may recall I posted a while back about an event where they talked about their Warhammer cinematic. Well, this event was filmed and is now available online, clikety here and enjoy over 2 hours of rendering, animation, crowd/hair/cloth sim, modelling and rigging geekiness!

With that, I bid adieu for 2008.

Marry X-mas and a happy new year!

/Z

Electronic Theatre FTW!

I sit here outside the Eletronic Theatre at Siggraph Asia 2008 posting this, waiting to get in. The Electronic Theatre has always been a cherished Siggraph event, the highlight of the entire conference.

Yet, this year, in Los Angeles, there wasn't one. In the opinion of me, and many others, this was a disasterous move.

My good friend Mike Seymour from FXGuide (who was also nice enough to MC my Masterclass) has started an online petition to bring it back, so when we go to New Orleans in 2009, this Gem of the computer graphics industry will be back in it's proper forum, to spread the digital joy we all so desperately crave (oh, how poetic!).

So please, if you are a Siggraph nut, head over to and sign it.

Thanks. I'll now go in and enjoy the show...

/Z

Singapore Setup Session

I arrived alive and well in Singapore, almost immediately ran into Duncan Brinsmead from Autodesk (pictured here on the left) and since we had some free time we walked around Singapore, and even took a trip on the "Singapore Flyer", which is the Singaporean version of the London Eye thingy.

As it happens, both Duncan and myself are doing presentations at tonights Autodesk User Group event.

So for us, today is "Teh Big Setup Day" for this presentations, as well as the booth theatere stuff.

For most of the week, I'll be alternating between the Autodesk and NVidia booths. I also hear Autodesk is streaming their booth theatre presentations over the net this year (see link below).



On Friday december 12:th, the 3 hour version of my "Miracles and Magic" mental ray masterclass will be held. It's in the convention center, but note it's an Autodesk masterclass and hence requires a ticket beyond the siggraph one.


More information on User Group event, Masterclasses, and Streaming..



/Z

Up up and away....

I'm at the airport awating my first airlift enroute to SIGGRAPH ASIA in Singapore.

As a precaution, I took the photo on the right of my bag, so if it gets lost, I can show people what it looks like ;)

Smaller updates of my travels and wherabouts will be on Twitter, so follow me there, please.

If I am in Wifi range, I may show up on the FRING thingamabob on the right side.

Also, there may be QiK updates now and then.... stay tuned, same zap time, same zap channel....


/Z

Singapore Sling: SIGGRAPH ASIA 2008

In December, I am flying to Singapore to attend SIGGRAPH ASIA.


Singapore. I think.


This will really be my first visit to this corner of the world, so it will be interesting. Assuming the current planning remains, you can most likely find me around our mental images corner of the NVidia booth, as well as doing mental ray demos in the Autodesk booth. I'll be tweeting as well, as usual.

Among other things, one thing I will be doing at SIG' ASIA is to do a re-run of my masterclass from SIGGRAPH 2008 in Los Angeles, entitled "Miracles and Magic".

It was clear I had tried to cram way too much stuff to fit in the 1.5 hours I had; I had to skip every single live demo, and leapfrog little gems to just to get through it all. But I did get through it all, at a breakneck pace.

The Audience looked somewhat like this:





So... the idea here is to re-do pretty much the same masterclass, but as a 3 hour version. This would give us a more ... relaxed... pace, and the demo bits would actually fit!

So, to be totally clear. If you were at my Autodesk masterclass (not the "SIGGRAPH Course" on "HDRI for Artists") held at the Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles, you already saw this, but very ... quickly. :)

So if you weren't in L.A, and are interested in the same topics, feel free to attend. The blurb for the class reads as follows:

• The course will focus on photo-realistic rendering in mental ray in the context of visual effects, as well as for product and architectural visualization. The session will open with a quick introduction to photometric concepts followed by a practical guide to a linear workflow and why proper gamma correction is imperative. It will then move on to efficient techniques for achieving highly realistic results when combining CG and live action by combining existing tools together (e.g. the architectural and production shader libraries), techniques for rendering flicker-free animations with Final Gathering, and tips for conserving memory.
  

For more information about attending the Autodesk Master Classes, go here.

/Z

The Post SIGGRAPH 2008 Post

Aaah, another SIGGRAPH done. This year was busier than ever, with both a course, masterclass and... stuff.

I'm still Jetlagged out of my head, even a week later, so this will just be a short post to say "I survived"... even the Blur party. :)

As you noticed (in previous post) the amount of QiK coverage I was able to do from the show was near nil - this was mostly due to lack of time but also rather shaky WiFi connectivity in the exhibition hall (it was fine in the conference areas, but who wants to see corridors? ;) ).

I must, however, take this opportunity to thank the guys of mymentalray.com who extended their hospitality quite extraordinarily to make me feel at home, especially Juan who gave me a little "tour".


mymentalray.com Maestro and Myself

While I was there I also visited my friends Colin & Greg at Hydraulx, in their new facility which I hadn't seen before. Verrry nice, their new screening room is sweeeeeeeeeeet. Me want ;)


Hydraulx screening room


/Z

SIGGRAPH 2008 talks

Phew. I just finalized the course notes for my SIGGRAPH talks.



As mentioned before, I will be holding an Autodesk masterclass with the title of "Miracles and Magic: mental ray technology in Photo-real Rendering for Production". This will - on popular demand - be a lot about gamma and linear workflow (I actually clocked the pure presentation "talky" part on this segment alone at 30 minutes, sans practical demo bit!).

Beyond the LWF/Gamma stuff, it'll talk about CG/Live Action integration, and tips for rendering flicker-free animations, and some other stuff (assuming I can get through it all in time ;) ).

Unless things change, the masterclass itself is from 1:30PM to 3:00PM on Thursday, August 14:th. There is also a "QA with all the masterclass presenters" on Wednesday, August 13:th at 9:00AM that I will also participate in. The full agenda and more info is here.

Furthermore, I will also be co-teaching a SIGGRAPH course entitle "HDRI for Artists" together with Kirt Witte (Savannah College), Hilmar Koch (ILM), Gary Davis (Autodesk) and Christian Bloch (HDRLabs).

The class is set for Monday, 8:30-12:15 in room 502A.

To make it easier to track these things, I've added a twitter feed, plus I gave this place a new, short, easy-to-remember URL:

www.mentalraytips.com

Enjoy.

/Z

Quick Informal Poll on Gamma Stuff

"Sponza Overgrown" (more here)

A discussion recently came up on CGTalk about gamma correction.

Since I have an Autodesk Masterclass at SigGRAPH 2008 which touches briefly on the subject, I was thinking if I should, by "popular vote", actually expand that section of the masterclass, perhaps shave off some other things and talk more about Gamma?

Technically, the agenda is already "set" but I could perhaps be flexible?

What do you think? Do you plan to go to SigGRAPH 2008 in L.A.? Would you attend the Masterclass, and if so, would you want to hear more about Gamma stuff? Or would you rather hear about the other things?

Please post a reply to this blog post with your preference.

To be clear: This question is about SigGRAPH in particular. Gamma is a topic I'll be adressing quite a lot here, to the point of making a whole website about it. So it's not like there will be any shortage of online info.

(Btw, I also co-teach on a "HDRI-for-artists" SigGRAPH course)

/Z

Random Dancing Robots - The Post SigGRAPH Post

Phew!

Never did I know attending SigGRAPH would make me so busy I wouldn't have time to make a post post SigGRAPH! Oh well, now I finally take five minutes to post a post.

First, I like to remind everyone of the mental ray wiki over at mymentalray.com, which is really taking off with the good help of Martin Breidt, especially his "mental ray cookbook" section.

Secondly, SigGRAPH was a blast, although I missed much due to, as always, lots of meetings. One of the funniest events happened when some random straggler (apparently not completely awake) wandered into one of our meetings and grabbed a coffee and sat down.... after some investigation we figured out the guy was in the wrong room.... he staggered out mumbling "at least I got free coffee". He had no pants on, for some reason. ;)


Thirdly, I can finally talk about mental ray 3.6 and the new toys that come with it. As shown in various posted demos, there are some new architectural stuff, like the portal lights, which allows a really quick set up for perfect quality skylight coming in through small windows.... as well as other things.



Also included is my own little "baby", the production shader library. I promise that you'll read a lot more about that in this blog as things get released. A lot.

For now, you'll have to make do with watching random dancing robots.




But hey, random dancing robots never hurt anyone, did they? Thought so.



/Z

SIGGRAPH 2007

Hello all.

I'm going to SigGRAPH 2007 conference in San Diego.

I made a twitter account which I'll try to keep updated with my "whereabouts" so that anyone wanting to run into me knows approximately where I am. Be warned, I'm pretty filled up schedule-wise, but there are gaps....

There will also be some nifty posts here, methinks... stay tuned.... *grin*


/Z