Siggraph 2008 was by far the busiest Siggraph ever for me. I was running between customer & partner meetings, parties, internal planning meetings, 30mins on the show floor and an endless parade of people that I haven’t seen since last Siggraph. All in all, a very successful show for MoBu, with a lot of buzz around the new version and “that awesome 3rd Floor demo”!

We kicked the show off with a bang again this year, delivering one of the largest user group events that I have ever attended. It was huge. The themes of the event varied from new product launches (MudBox 2009, MoBu 2009, Maya 2009 and Toxik2009), acquisition updates (Mudbox, RealViz), customer presentations (3rd Floor, ILM, Blizzard, DreamWorks, Sony Pictures Imageworks) and one of the biggest stereoscopic showing ever. The Kung-Fu Panada showing (in stereo!) was freaking amazing and is certainly something that we are going to see more and more from the big studios. But my favourite was from Chris and Nick from the 3rd Floor, who showed off their virtual cinematography workflow, directing a camera shoot live on stage with an Intersense camera tracking system. They even did a quick mocap session (again live on stage) with a Moven system from Xsens. What made this presentation so awesome, aside from the kick-ass presenters, was the number of people that came up after the show to say “wow! I had no idea that was possible” and “can you really do that in real-time? Is it really that fast?”. So I came away from the show this year thinking that it was really MotionBuilder’s coming out party as a solution for virtual cinematography. And man do I love this stuff!

So don’t just take my word for it, check out the User Group demo for yourself. This year we captured the whole event and posted it online for everyone to check out:

http://area.autodesk.com/siggraph

The 3rd Floor demo and MoBu2009 demo is in “User_Group_Part2”

I am very pleased to announce the immediate availability of a new DVD for all customers on subscription titled “Autodesk MotionBuilder Techniques | Advanced Facial Rigging”, developed by David Coleman @ Electronic Arts Canada. Here is the description:

Autodesk MotionBuilder Techniques | Advanced Facial Rigging

This presentation covers the end to end process of preparing and rigging a character for facial animation with MotionBuilder.
With this DVD, you will explore:
• Facial animation controls
• Facial rigging with joints
• Painting weights
• Animation workflow
• Voice analysis
• Animating the eyes

Presenter Biography:
David Coleman is a CG Supervisor at Electronic Arts Canada, working in a character art department which creates nextgen character art assets for many video game productions. David is currently responsible for the art authoring tools and workflows for a large team of character artists, and specializes in tools for creating character likeness, facial animation and rigging. David has been with Electronic Arts since 1996, working in various teams, including motion capture and art tools groups, having worked on over 30+ video games. David also taught a motion capture class for 3+ years at the Art Institute of Vancouver.


Users that are on subscription for MoBu can login in and download it right now. Check it out an send me your feedback!

Autodesk Subscription Center

For the second year in a row we met with a group of our key customers to discuss the future of MoBu, letting the group see our future plans (under NDA of course), what they could expect in the next version of the product and what some of the key issues they were facing. We had a really good group but just not enough time to get through everything we wanted to discuss. Next round we will be sure to give ourselves an extra hour for discussion.
The MotionBuilder VIP event worked out really well again this year, with a bunch of MoBu gurus enjoying cocktails around a pool in downtown LA – how rockstar can you get? I thought I would post some pictures that were taken before the Product Manager of MoBu had a few too many drinks and tried tossing people into the pool…

This year at Siggraph we met with a group of our hardware partners, talking to them about the new version, making sure that we are working together to ensure their devices are up to date and planning out activities for the future. I have been talking about this for sometime now, but the motion capture trend continues to grow, with a strong showing yet again this year.

A special thanks to Xsens and Dell who sponsored the MotionBuilder VIP event this year.

Here are some of the many, many press releases issues by our partners:

InterSense Introduces IS-900 VCamTM Virtual Camera Tracking System
Los Angeles, CA, SIGGRAPH — August 11, 2008 — InterSense Incorporated, a market leader in precision motion technology, today announced its IS-900 VCamTM Virtual Camera Tracking System, a precision, inertial-ultrasonic virtual camera tracking system for use in the pre-visualization of virtual content. Combining InterSense’s industry leading motion tracking technology with powerful virtual production software, the new system enables producers of animated & 3D feature film, game and video to increase productivity, streamline workflow and lower production costs.

http://www.isense.com/news.aspx?id=405&


Xsens, Autodesk Collaborate on MotionBuilder Plug-in
Xsens Technologies, creator of the camera-less motion-capture solution Moven, is working on an advanced plug-in of Moven Studio for Autodesk MotionBuilder software, a solution package for character animation. The Xsens MotionBuilder Plugin will create a tight link between Moven Studio, Xsens' motion capture software, and MotionBuilder. The process of streaming live motion-capture data from Moven Studio to MotionBuilder in real-time will become easier. The rich set of body movement data captured by Moven will be imported intelligently into MotionBuilder without the need for further adjustments. The plug-in will be available with the upcoming release of Moven.

http://www.cgw.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=18D0688066F147478EC16B28787B1558


PhaseSpace Captures Audience
PhaseSpace, maker of optical motion-capture systems and technology, enables attendees to try out a system in their motion capture studio. Suited-up attendees can perform and see the results in real time with PhaseSpace's systems. They can then take their moves home on a DVD. Phasespace is exhibiting across from the Autodesk booth in the Studio on the exhibition floor. The 24-camera motion-capture studio in PhaseSpace's booth is identical to ones in major video game design and research labs around the country. Attendees can sign up for time slots where they can experience the latest in mocap technology.

http://www.cgw.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=034DA995F28445529F68446D56BE630B


NaturalPoint Demonstrates ARENA Expression
During SIGGRAPH 2008, NaturalPoint is demonstrating its Facial Mocap product, Expression, designed to deliver high-fidelity facial motion-capture for the desktop. Facial expressions bring new depth and emotion to digital content, but capturing them has traditionally required complex setup, expensive equipment,and a dedicated team to generate. ARENA Expression introduces ease of setup matched with great fidelity and an affordable price, says a company representative. The company is announcing a package with six cameras, calibration tools, software, and markers for 99. Export is available to popular C3D formats and real-time streaming to Softimage FaceRobot, Autodesk MotionBuilder 7.5, and DAZ 3D.

http://www.cgw.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=2204F2A0652D46D48C7912F8515E001B


Animazoo Showcases Contact Editor
At booth 907, Animazoo is showcasing its most advanced software to date. Animazoo Contact Editor is the new patent-pending software with sophisticated editing and auto-cleaning tools. The Contact Editor has been designed specifically to work in conjunction with Animazoo’s IGS-190M (Mobile) and the newly launched IGS-190H (Hybrid) motion-capture suits. Together with Contact Editor, the Hybrid systems can deliver optical-quality motion-capture data from an inertial gyroscopic system for the first time.

http://www.cgw.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=E34DA04AEC5A45D2AD99C825DAF8DD13

Organic Motion Debuts First Public Motion Capture Experience
Organic Motion, makers of the only commercially available markerless motion capture systems, announces the first general public motion capture experience to be unveiled at the 2008 SIGGRAPH conference and exposition. During this unique demonstration, attendees to the show can interact with markerless motion capture and have their full-body motions captured and instantly animated. The exposition will serve as another example of how this breakthrough technology can be incorporated into a new line of public experiences for retail, entertainment, medical and sports training applications.

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS33378+11-Aug-2008+BW20080811


Lightstorm Entertainment Uses Isilon IQ to Power Production of 'Avatar'
At SIGGRAPH 2008 in Los Angeles, Isilon(R) Systems (Nasdaq: ISLN), the leader in clustered storage, today announced that James Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment, the production company behind such films as Abyss, Terminator and Titanic, is using Isilon IQ clustered storage to power the production of its next major motion picture Avatar. To create Avatar, Lightstorm Entertainment is employing an all-digital virtual filming environment with leading-edge, performance capture technology and Pace/Cameron's Fusion Camera System to create a 3D movie experience unlike any yet produced. Using Isilon IQ, Lightstorm is able to unify, manage and access vast stores of unique, extremely high resolution 3D content from a single, high-performance, highly scalable, shared pool of storage -- accelerating and simplifying its entire digital workflow from the virtual environment's creation, to live-action motion capture and 3D convergence.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/08-12-2008/0004865843&EDATE=

Last, but certainly not least, I wanted to point everyone to check out this exciting demo of a new plug-in being developed by Jasper, a long time MoBu guru and all around great guy. Check out his latest work here:

http://www.brekel.com/?page_id=148

And that’s all from me for now. Can’t wait to get MoBu2009 out the door....


Curtis Garton