Blogmania!

This afternoon I am washing clothes, so I have had some time to just sit around and blog. I feel like I need to catch up with my life. That seems like a weird thing to say, but I think it is something bloggers would understand best. I certainly didn't feel like this before I left for China and started blogging. Somehow I get some sort of satisfaction with sharing my life with others now, even if those others are a simple few. I never really had a problem with doing this before, but using this sort of medium is different.

Granted I don't share everything in this blog, as Jean pointed out to me. I certainly don't want to share all my emotional feelings through this blog, but I do like to use it to describe my happiness, my sadness and my frustrations. If you guys want to hear more about other things, let me know and I will try to make the read more enjoyable for you guys if you think it is boring.

Anyways, since I have gotten back into San Clemente I have been quite busy with work and SIGGRAPH. SIGGRAPH is the division of ACM that deals with computer graphics. Each year they put on a big convention for people in the industry. This does not only mean people who make 3D animated films, but people who develop software for 3D applications, design engineers from companies like Lockheed Martin and NASA, researchers and many more. People attend the convetion sometimes to just see thing, present research papers, promote software and even recruit new employess. I went to SIGGRAPH because of my affiliation with The Barnyard. I also attended a lot of the special Softimage events. Graham was also really great by introducing me to a lot of people he knew. I was not looking for a job, so it was not for me to pass out resumes, but for the future when I will be looking for another job in the industry. Through Graham I was able to talk to some great people at Softimage, Sony and Side Effects.

Besides going around and shmoozing with people I got a chance to go the Softimage User Group. Anthony, my boss from Mesmer in Seattle, and Jason, my current supervisor, gave a nice presentation about Omation. I also got to see how artists at Studio Ghibli in Japan were able to use 3D techniques to fake some traditional 2D looks. Believe it or not, Howl's Moving Castle is not entirely a traditional 2D cartoon. There are quite a few 3D components. There is also a great new tool for quickly getting facial animation called face robot. This is available in version 5 of the software, so there was a lot of buzz around XSI during the whole week of SIGGRAPH.

On the last night of SIGGRAPH Adam, Graham and I were able to go to the VIP party that Softimage was holding at the Standard Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The party was pretty swank. The bar was open, but I was not drinking (I will explain more later) and the views of the city were amazing. There was even a pool on top of the building. Across the street the promotional video for Softimage was being projected onto the side of the building, so we were able to see our friends faces plastered on the side of a building. It was surreal at times. Adam and I could totally understand how people who get into these sorts of LA scenes go crazy and overdose on blow and stuff like that. There are pictures of the party at the XSIBase review of SIGGRAPH. Just scroll down to 'Softimage Party at Standard Hotel ... '. I even got in one of the photos! Haha, I am way in the back chatting with Adam in my yellow Element shirt. I will give $5 to the first person who finds me. Just email me a copy of the image with me circled.

Lastly I am going to talk about the first night at SIGGRAPH. Adam and Graham grabbed me on Monday evening to go to SIGGRAPH. I didn't plan on going, but it would be good for me to show up, so people would know my face when they need to later. We got to LA at around 10:30 or 11:00 in time to meet Matt Lind and his buddies at the Biltmore Hotel in LA. Most people were staying at the Biltmore, so it was a reasonable ending location for the night. We spent most the time just chatting about usual 3D stuff and having drinks. Little did Adam and I know what we were getting into. We kept buying each other drinks and before we knew it we had gone through about five in two hours. Normally this might have been ok, but I swear the Biltmore makes some of the strongest drinks I have ever had (that were still drinkable). Seeing as how I have stopped drinking more than 3 drinks at a time and how Adam had not eaten much that day we were in trouble. Adam was sloshed and so was I. The only difference was that I ended making a couple trips to the bathroom. The bar ended up closing, so we went to Denny's for some food. I ordered some potatoes and then went back to the bathroom. It was in the stall that I started to wonder, what could I have ate that day that was red. I couldn't think of anything .... scary. Luckily there was someone in the other stall who seemed to be in worse off shape than me. He may have been feeling better, but he certainly made it sound worse. He gave me some comic relief by asking god why he was doing that to him between his sobs. He must have been in bad shape. The night ended at 5:00 am when we pulled into the Omation parking lot. I got him just in time for a nap before going to work the next day. All I can say is that I was not very productive before driving back up to SIGGRAPH for the Softimage User Group.

And just like everyone else, every time before, I will say "I am never going to do that again".