ILM sent me down to SIGGRAPH this year in Anaheim since I've been one of the software developers on the Alembic project.

Practical Acceleration of Alembic
Birds of a Feather
WEDNESDAY, JULY 24, 2013 - 11:00AM TO 12:00PM

For SIGGRAPH, we released Alembic 1.5, with the new faster Ogawa backend. For my part, I got to speak a bit about some of the tools I've been working on for Alembic:

AbcView is a graphical PyQt-based Alembic inspection and visualization tool. It offers a number of widgets to help you inspect and visualize your Alembic data, as well as assemble hierarchical scenes.

via The Hollywood Reporter

The new full-service VFX business will aim to cut costs for clients without sacrificing quality. Three VFX veterans from Robert Zemeckis’ recently shuttered ImageMovers Digital have launched a new facility in Emeryville, Calif.

Named Atomic Fiction, the business was co-founded by Kevin Baillie, who serves as president and VFX supervisor; Ryan Tudhope, creative director and VFX supervisor; and Jenn Emberly, performance and animation supervisor. At ImageMovers, Baillie, Tudhope and Emberly served as VFX supervisor, digital FX supervisor and performance supervisor, respectively. 

 I found this part especially interesting (Kevin told me they're utilizing Amazon EC2):

“We’re trying to find smart ways to do things less expensively,” Baillie said. “We are looking at cloud computing for rendering so that we pay for it as a service, pay as you go.”

I think it's great the AF is trying to innovate in a market where many producers are chasing subsidies and tax incentives. I think the best way to stay competitive in the VFX market these days, especially in California, is through real innovation.

Using Emeryville as its data center, the company also is considering the use of satellite bases in areas such as in Louisiana or Vancouver, where it can benefit from financial incentives.

Obviously, Vancouver is a major industry hub these days, but Louisiana could be next. Pixel Magic recently opened a branch in Louisiana and Huck Wirtz is basing his startup Bayou FX there as well. Apparently, Louisiana offers some great tax incentives in addition to LITE being in Lafayette. 

via CGTalk

Forty US billionaires pledged today (Wednesday) to give at least half of their wealth to charity, either during their lifetimes or after death. This will be huge boost to nonprofit company, which suffered from the economic downturn.

The list of those taking the pledge includes Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, T. Boone Pickens, Michael Bloomberg and George Lucas, the man behind "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" movies who is said to be worth $3.5 billion. Lucas is the only person in Hollywood to do this.

The pledge idea came about in a series of private meetings that Gates, Buffett and other philanthropists had over the past year on the future of charitable giving. Bloomberg, like several others on the list, said he made the pledge because he has more money than he could ever use himself.

I wonder if he'll dontate any of that fortune to the VFX teams at ILM and Lucasfilm that helped him make that fortune in the first place, like Keanu Reeves did.

Source:
http://www.worstpreviews.com/headline.php?id=18550

A Conversation with Dennis Muren:

The A List Series presents conversations with Authors, Artists, Athletes Adventurers, Academics and Anarchists Star Wars, Wall-E and Human Nature: The Unconventional Mind of a Special Effects Genius A Conversation with Dennis Muren Interviewed by Joan Ryan Wednesday, June 16  7:30pm $15.00 General Admission, $12.00 Students/Seniors Buy tickets or call 415.383.9600 Dennis Muren has nine Oscars on his mantle, winning Best Achievement in Visual Effects for such movies as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Empire Strikes Back, E.T., and Jurassic Park. He is the first visual effects artist to be honored with a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His work takes our breath away. But his  genius is less about technology and more about the art of observation. Muren’s stunning, other-worldly creations come from a very earthly understanding of storytelling and human nature. He is the Senior Visual Effects Supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic, and he is currently finishing a book on “Inspiration & Observation’’ for computer artists. Joan Ryan is an award-winning journalist and author. Her most recent book is “The Water Giver: The Story of a Mother, a Son and Their Second Chance,’’ a memoir published by Simon & Schuster in 2009.  Ryan was a pioneer in sports journalism, becoming one of the first female sports columnists in the country. She then went on to writing op-ed columns and city columns for the San Francisco Chronicle. Her first book, “Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: The Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters’’ (1995, Doubleday) was a controversial, ground-breaking expose that Sports Illustrated named one of the “Top 100 Sports Books of All Time.’’ The A List Series presents conversations with Authors, Artists, Athletes, Adventurers, Academics and Anarchists.

If You Can't Make It Good, Make It 3D: Yep, this pretty much sums it up from my perspective.