The three of us just got back from campus, where we viewed a SIGGRAPH presentation. Basically, a whole bunch of cool computer animated movies. There was the usual stuff in there – the generic “behind the scenes” crap from Industrial Light & Magic, DigitalDomain, etc. But the good things were the independent stuff, the small arthouse things… some really funny short (and longer) movies.
One was a real-time flora-scaping demo, where a guy with a tablet drew an animated 3D garden as the audience looked on (not us, the original audience; these were all recordings and replays of things from the last ACM SIGGRAPH conference). It was pretty nifty.
There was another one which was a bunch of dice rolling around in rhythm to the music, making all sorts of patterns and animations. Simple, but nice.
One of the last ones, “9”, was really good… set in a junkyard, it told the story of “9”, the last of a group of little stuffed men, as he defeated the monstrous mechanical dog/wolf/thing that hunted down all his companions. The animation was fluid and well done, the scenery impressively detailed… really cool.
All in all, not a bad way to kill two hours. I did miss out on going to the gym as a result, but, I can make that up on Saturday. :)
