Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Speaking and Rats and Posters, Oh My!

I just returned from what has to have been the busiest SIGGRAPH I've ever been to. I gave a talk on the last morning (how to chop vegetables when making Ratatouille), which was really well attended, considering the 8:30 time. A co-author was giving a talk in another room at the same time (hand tracked gestures to animate cameras and simple motions); he also had good attendance. We had a couple posters up as a result of the sketches and posters being clobbered together. They didn't seem to be all that rewarding for us as authors, in that we got very little feedback. They seem to be more unidirectional in that, as attendees, they're convenient to browse outside of presentation times when the area isn't crowded. Lots of parties, caught up with lots of friends. San Diego is also and amazing place for siggraph. The climate and atmosphere and location in the city all mix really well. And the conference content at both SIGGRAPH and SCA had a really nice variety and more novel ideas. Motion capture technology is all over the place. Pretty soon you'll be able to make you're own motion capture zombie films using only the camera in your laptop. Now to finish digesting all the information...