Is it really over?

Wow.

It's Saturday morning, and I am back in Montreal. I finally had a chance to go through all the videos that are fab Avid Video team put together, and it was really great to see what they were able to capture.

The week of SIGGRAPH goes by in a blur.. i was there for 8 days this year, since Christine and I get in a few days early for set-up. As shown in the videos, we had a lot going on this year.. Production Challenge, the Education Summit, Reseller Meeting, Leadership Summit, Developer Conference and all that took place before the show even started!

We had a large amount of the latest available 8 core workstations at the show - due to ICE being multi-threaded, we were pretty demanding of our hardware partners that they had to provided fully loaded systems, and they all delivered! We had at least 20 systems from our great partners like HP, Dell and Lenovo for SIGGRAPH that included the latest and greatest technology, including a couple of the new Dreamcolour monitors.

We had a new booth this year, which was constantly standing room only. I do apologize for the small design flaw that caused some tripping around the corners - if it's any consolation, I was the first one to go flying when i walked into the booth first thing Tuesday morning. (Thanks Mark for pointing that out during your demo!)

Of course, party party.. we hosted the NICE ICE party on tuesday to replace our annual User Group. The goal this year was to celebrate the launch of ICE with our clients, and i think we certainly were able to do that! And i am still impressed with Vanilla's set and how NICE ICE he really is!

We also sponsored the Blur Crystal Method party on Wednesday. I headed over after stopping by the Pipeline FX party at the Standard. At Blur i missed Carmen Electra's performance unfortunately, but i did get the chance to dance for a bit, sore feet notwithstanding!

More pix coming soon.. thanks to everyone on the Softimage team and in the Softimage Community for a stellar week.. it was my 5th SIGGRAPH and my favorite one to date!

Highlights from the Show Floor

Education Summit, Show Floor, & Nice ICE Video!

ICE ICE Baby! Softimage Nice ICE party photos

Tuesday August 12th 2008, Softimage held its Nice ICE party at Club 740 in downtown Los Angeles. 3000 people packed into the club where Vanilla ICE performed!

Word to your mother

What an awesome party - Vanilla Ice was great, everyone thought he was brilliant. He even brought Ron Jeremy along with him... yeah, _the_ Ron Jeremy. My sides were hurting it was so funny.

I think pretty much everyone got into the party (except for people without ID - which is the club's policy, not ours) and had a good time. We had podium dancers, awesome DJ's, trapeze performers, all kinds of stuff going on. Hanging out with customers and friends with no agenda other than to have a good time. Driving to the club we saw our show reel being projected onto the sides of the building, which was pretty exciting. I spent a fair amount of time in the super VIP area (sneaking people in mostly), which seemed a privilege until I saw the bar bill. Ouch!

Anyway - another day on the show floor beckons. I pretty much lost my voice shouting at the party, so today is going to be interesting.

Best. Party. Ever. Jen and Christine deserve a huge round of applause for all their work on getting that party together.

(duplicate post)

Softimage Production Challenge

And so it begins....

Managed to escape the frenzy last night and get an early night - so no red eye this morning. Had a flick through some of the announcements for the show. Mudbox looks really nice, so I am looking forward to seeing a demonstration of that. Apparently they were doing live digital painting throughout the party, which sounds pretty sweet. It will be interesting to see what Pixelogic come back with - I heard they were just doing sneak peak stuff. We'll soon see. It's always good for the customers when packages duke it out - you lucky people you ;)

I get to spend a whole morning on the stand today before I get locked away in our meeting suites, so talking to the visitors makes for a fun time. I don't envy the guys on our booth team, when I used to be an application engineer it got really tiring. It also screwed my demo flow for about a month after a show as I got stuck in a "show them as much as possible in ten minutes" demo mode :)

I'll take some pictures on my phone today and post them up later - tonight is our party, which is going to be great. I doubt my posts tomorrow will be quite so jolly :)

*short version of another blog post*

All Education, all the time!

It's my last day in the office before heading to LA. ACK.

(A perfect time to write a blog post, of course.. not like i don't have a zillion things to do, but I like this better!)

I am just finalizing some details on our Education initiatives at SIGGRAPH, and I received some fantastic news from Kevin, our PR manager. I'll share that later on..

At SIGGRAPH 2008, Softimage will be holding an Education Summit on Monday, August 11th from 3-5pm at the Sheraton Downtown Los Angeles. We are expecting representatives from the leading art and design schools from around the world, and we have a packed agenda for them. We'll be showing off XSI 7 and integration with CryEngine 2 and Gamebryo.. presenting new training material from Escape Studios designed specifically for educators and "How to integrate XSI 7 & ICE into your curriculum," presented by Softimage Certified Instructor Adam Sale. And longtime Softimage user and studio owner Marc Bourbonnais of ModusFX will be sharing his thoughts on how instructors can help in "Preparing Students for their First Job."

More details can be found here: http://www.softimage.com/events/sig08/edu_summit.aspx

We are also holding the 2nd annual Production Challenge on Sunday, August 10, also at the Sheraton, from 11am-8pm. This is a master class to end master classes.. 4 of the industry's top XSI artists will be creating a shot LIVE in front of an audience. You won't be taught about techniques at this event.. you will learn both how and why these talented artists use the software in a real, live production scenario. It's also FREE!

Don't miss it - register HERE: http://www.softimage.com/events/sig08/prod_challng.aspx

For the 2nd year in a row, Softimage is sponsoring the Student Volunteer Program with 300+ licenses of SOFTIMAGE XSI 7 Academic. At the end of the show, each volunteer will have a FREE license of XSI 7. That's approximately $90,000 worth of software!

Ooh.. I just got GREAT news from our partners over at Digital-Tutors. Every attendee of our events at SIGGRAPH will receive a special promotion code for a brand new, not-yet-announced training title for XSI 7.. which will entitle them to 40 per cent off the cost of the training!
http://www.digitaltutors.com/store/home.php?cat=32

So my great news.. A few months ago, Digital Content Producer Magazine asked us to help promote a student cover contest for their SIGGRAPH issue. Well, they chose a Softimage XSI artist from Centre NAD here in Montreal!

Here's a mini shot of the cover:

See you soon!

jen

SIGGRAPH 2008 Booth Schedule Posted

The booth schedule for Softimage at SIGGRAPH 2008 has been posted. Booth #647. Be there!

Special presentations:

• Using XSI for the award-winning anime, TekkonKinkreet (English, translated) - Takuma Sakomoto, Studio 4°C

• Rock Legend Uses XSI in the Music World - Rudy Sarzo

• Using XSI to Create Basketball-Playing Robots for Mitsubishi Robot Factory Ad - Andrew Proctor, The Mill

• Creating VFX for Journey to the Center of the Earth Using XSI - VFX Supervisor Chris Townsend and Mathieu Leclair, Hybride

• Creating Photoreal Simulations in XSI, Phil Dobree, Jellyfish Pictures

• Using XSI for Creature Features, Aaron Sims

• Pre-Viz & Post-Production Using XSI 7 and ICE, Robert Moodie, Buzz Image Group

• XSI in Education, Carl Callewaert & Chris Cowen, Center for Arts and Technology

• Using XSI to Animate Dinosaurs in Jurassic Fight Club, Jeff Stoyer, 1080

• Using finalRender with XSI, Edwin Braun, Cebas Computer

Softimage SIGGRAPH 2008 Booth Schedule

SIGGRAPH by the Numbers..

As we get closer to the date of our biggest show of the year, all i seem to see is numbers..

- 3 sets of show giveaways have been delivered
- 4 different hotels have Softimage reservations
- 5 student volunteers are lined up
- 7 ancillary events are planned
- 9 days until the first crew departs for LA
- 21 workstations are being staged
- 22 customer presentations are scheduled
- 42 staff members have been registered for show badges

.. and so on...

There's a buzz on the 5th floor of Softimage HQ, as the marketing team's checklists are being completed one by one.. RSVPs are coming by the dozens every hour.. schedules are filling up.. everyone is gearing up for LA!!

jen

Register for Nice ICE: the can’t-miss Softimage event of SIGGRAPH 2008

At SIGGRAPH 2008, Softimage will be hosting its Nice ICE event - unlike anything you've ever seen! If you're going to SIGGRAPH, this is one event you don't want to miss.

Where: Club 740 in downtown Los Angeles
When: Tuesday, August 12th, 8:00PM-1:00AM.

Join us at one of L.A.’s premier nightclubs for an exciting multimedia celebration of XSI 7, featuring music from live DJ’s and a surprise guest performer that you absolutely won’t want to miss!

Register Now

Welcome to the Softimage at SIGGRAPH 2008 blog!

It's SIGGRAPH time again and Softimage will be there in full swing!

Watch this space for more information.

Softimage @ SIGGRAPH video part 4

Softimage @ SIGGRAPH video part 3

Production Challenge Finished Animation

And it's a wrap!!!

I just watched the second SIGGRAPH video - I hope our users are enjoying them as much as I am. Josh, Brandon & Doug have been great - I am so amazed at how fast they are able to cut these together!!

This has been an incredible week. The Production Challenge. The Research Summit. The User Event. The Party. Our client presenters were wonderful - i was able to watch almost a little bit of all of them this year, which was nice.

I just heard that some people that attended the party thought it was one of the three best SIGGRAPH parties ever - that was nice to hear, especially since I know people were frustrated that the couldn't get in. It's chaos when you have 2700 people at an event, and I am sorry for those who couldn't attend. I am happy that it was such a great party that Marc Stevens almost closed the place - and i even got him out on the dance floor for a bit!

House of Moves & pendulum were the co-hosts of that party - it wasn't just a Softimage event - collaborating was great fun, and I can't believe I am about to say this, but we are already thinking of next year in LA!

Paul Hellard is writing great reports of the show at www.cgsociety.org check them out!!!

Our fabulous Director of EMEA Sales - Mark Pammenter!

My good friend Melanie from Autodesk laughing at Mark demo-ing 3dsMax.

Me and Bill Coleman (our VP of Sales) - making up after a little bit of drama.

So cool to be on 2 Marquees in 2 days.

Softimage @ SIGGRAPH video part 2

What. a. night.

Last night's party was insane. We had about 2700 people filter through the House of Blues. I have a couple of pics, and when I find my charger I'll post. :)

I have organized a few parties in my day, but nothing on the scale of last evening.

This has been quite the week. SIGGRAPH 2007 was the best I have ever been to.

Overheard...

Syd Mead speaking to Moondust lead engineer Ronald Beirouti, "Young man, that's some wonderful software."

Nice. 'Nuff said.

XSI and Face Robot in the Guerilla Studio...

For those at SIGGRAPH - the Guerilla Studio is a place where artists or anyone can TRY 3D -- It's a non-intimidating chance to sit down with XSI and Face Robot -- and explore at your own pace... Getting there is a bit of a journey.. up the escalators, across the food court, down the escalators -- whew! I can't wait until Transporters are invented.

Kevin G.