Margaret's travels near and far: August 2012

Sunday, August 12, 2012

A bleep-load of sketches

OK, so scanning those SIGGRAPH sketches I realized just how far behind I am in my scanning! here's a whole load of train people, around town people, and scenery.

It's that time of year again - SIGGRAPH! I only got to go for 2 days, so it was a pretty heavy schedule - there was a 9am session that I wanted to go to so that meant a super-early flight. And the flight was delayed (which is why I picked the super-early one - these things happen).

I got there on time for the ParaNorman session (cool stuff). I was dead tired that day but it's still awesome - the art gallery had the usual goodies of projections, lights, lasers, and it sort of blends into Emerging Technologies with plants and fabric. EMFs seemed to be a theme - there were AM radios in shielded boxes, and when you pulled a rope the shields were removed and suddenly you heard the radio station - as in that is all around you. The exhibit was called "saturation." There was another cool one with plants and a lead plugged into the dirt and a mirror - and if you touch the plant you see the electrical field change.

Then there is the heartbeat watch - it keeps time based on your heartbeat (runs faster when you are). And the running horse - a series on loops of wires with LEDs that light up one at a time that look just like a running horse. Then there are the creepy things like the teddy bear that moves when you touch it and the thing they hook you up to to stimulate your hand to move without you moving it.

There were awesome sessions on Brave and Paperman - both did a lot of work to give the animators control over the hair and clothing - and some interesting work on images as always. I did a quick run of the trade show floor to get some pens from PNY - I got one last year and it was great for sketching, but I dropped it in Bhutan - and scored a t-shirt from BOXX.

The hotel was nice, although I didn't actually spend much time there - I went to the evening show of the Computer Animation Festival (and this year the entire thing gets the WTF award) and then had something to eat and then crashed and got up at 6:30 to do it all again for a second day!

Then it was back home! The last session ended at 5:15 and believe it or not I got through the LA freeway system and through LAX security in time to get on a 6:10 flight. Boy was I happy to not have to wait for the 7:40 because I was exhausted by then.