View Full Version : SIGGRAPH report.
Brent Turbo 07-31-2003, 09:01 PM Hey folks, just got back from SIGGRAPH and here are my impressions:
1) Maxon booth: Small, untidy, confusing layout, bad location, and little attention. I was shocked at the small size of the Maxon booth, after seeing impressive booths from Alias, Softimage, Lightwave, Discreet and even Hash (animation master). I mean, the Hash booth had awesome demonstrations, lots of seating, and was creating quite a stir at the exhibition. Serious dropping of the ball here.
2) Emerging technologies: This year's emerging tech was bland city! It was mostly a bunch of stuff that "interacted" with your body. Like you walk around this room, and there are beeps and tones depeding on how you move your arms. Zzzzzzz... The only completely amazing thing at emerging was High Dynamic Range displays. They were actually one of the best things at SIGGRAPH period. Basically, they're LCD panels that are 30x brighter than an ordinary display, and can get 10x darker in the black areas. They were showing examples such as an interior scene, brightly lit through the windows, and the screen was actually casting light into the room! And in the bright spots of images, there wasn't any blooming or distortion, there was just even more detail. It was amazing, and once people see these next to regular displays, opinions about image quality are going to start changing FAST.
3) Parties! I only got to go to one, the Side Effects Houdini party at Deco's. It was quite the party, with free beer and well drinks, snacks, and a ton of people. There was a DJ spinning some pretty awful music, but after a few free drinks, it became very dancable. Watching a bunch of us CG nerds trying to dance is always a trip.
Overall, the show was pretty good, and I recommend it to anyone who like to gawk at new tech, and party hard at night.
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AdamT
07-31-2003, 09:20 PM
1) Maxon booth: Small, untidy, confusing layout, bad location, and little attention. I was shocked at the small size of the Maxon booth, after seeing impressive booths from Alias, Softimage, Lightwave, Discreet and even Hash (animation master). I mean, the Hash booth had awesome demonstrations, lots of seating, and was creating quite a stir at the exhibition. Serious dropping of the ball here.
Hmm, bummer. OTOH, it takes really big bucks to put on a glitzy show at Siggraph, and I just assume Maxon put that money into developement.
Man, I want one of those HDR displays!!
seeing impressive booths from Alias, Softimage, Lightwave, Discreet and even Hash (animation master).
trying to compensate for something......huh?!! ;)
flingster
07-31-2003, 09:49 PM
Brent Turbo: thanks for this was really curious as what was going on....those hdr displays sound pretty amazing.
as for small and untidy....i guess costs are an issue...but at the end of the day you are in the same market as people with big booths! Oooh Errh. and essentially its about getting press coverage...and drawing some of the industries best talent and movers/shakers into talking about your products....so maybe it was a missed opportunity....we'll never know for sure.
:hmm:
JoelOtron
07-31-2003, 10:24 PM
These guys were apparently at Siggraph in '02 and I've been eagerly awaiting word on any developments.
Did you happen to hear anything about these guys while you were there Brent?
http://www.cs.princeton.edu/gfx/proj/wnpr/
Brent Turbo
07-31-2003, 10:35 PM
Originally posted by pit
trying to compensate for something......huh?!! ;)
If you saw Weta Digital's presentation at the Alias booth, you'd think otherwise. It was stunning, and they offered some real behind the scenes stuff, and even showed off some original maya scene files. The Alias booth had it all, really. Presentations from almost all the top VFX houses, a demo reel with just about every drool-worthy movie from the last 2 years. Amazing stuff!
Also of note, the Pixar booth was showing off Renderman on the new G5, rendering out film-res frames of Finding Nemo. The dual 2.0ghz G5 was rendering signifcantly faster than a dual 3.06ghz Xeon, which was interesting to see, and let's just leave it at that (please start another thread if you want to bash processors/OSes. Preferably on another web site entirely. Thanks!)
If you wanted to get hired, this year's SIGGRAPH was the place to be. There was a hiring frenzy going on there, particularly in the games industry. EA and Rockstar were on a major blitz to get new employees. Other places were accepting demo reels, too, such as Rythym and Hues, but ILM wasn't as interested, and they made a loud announcement at one point "listen, we don't want your demo reels!" Guess a lot of people wanted to get paid less and work harder, huh?
Again, about Maxon's booth, I'm sure they'll say it was a complete success, but from what I saw, there were barely any people hanging out there, the presentations largely went unnoticed, and compared to everyone else's blockbuster demo reels, Maxon didn't really have anything to show for themselves. The one attempt to get people to stop at the booth (the obligatory booth-babe) wasn't successful because she wasn't even a babe, and she just kinda slouched on a stool for most of the time.
That Adrian Guy
07-31-2003, 10:37 PM
IS there a demo reel for maxon on the net? I haven't seen it yet.
AdamT
07-31-2003, 11:42 PM
I suppose part of the problem was that pretty much everyone was jamming to get BP2 done in time for Siggraph. Didn't leave much time for other stuff.
squidinc
08-01-2003, 12:16 AM
Originally posted by That Adrian Guy
IS there a demo reel for maxon on the net? I haven't seen it yet.
there is for 2002 but it's not at all impressive, hopefully now R8 has taken hold the demo reel for maxon should be a little better next time
Brent
I failed!.......my comment was supposed to be a joke, hence the ;)
I do not doubt the impressive representation of the named companies, but as long as Maxon keeps stunning us with high quality software, at an uncompared output pace, they could show it off in the basement - lights out - and still gain recognition from customers as well as competition.
Anyway, thanks for your Siggraph impressions - keep it coming.
Cheers
xsculpt
08-01-2003, 06:57 AM
Hi guys,
I love this software but I know for a fact that its demo graphics and presentation leave something to be desired. No money? For Maxon? they jumped from 20 something in sales to 3 in sales behind lightwave and discreet in a year.
they're starting to get it with the bodypaint example files yet still there's a ways to go. Why is everyone into maya, cool graphics man. gets em every time. You want to attract the big boys? Ain't gonna happen in a small disshelved basement space with the lights out...
I think this software deserves better.
imho, mr
You didnŽt get the point! :rolleyes:
IŽll give you a hint: keyword is "quality"......
brammelo
08-01-2003, 08:39 AM
As long as Maxon doesn't use the same budgets for those things, they won't be able to give the same impression. Having great software is one thing, but that doesn't mean that your marketing strategy can be on the same "level" as the other guys.
B.T.W. Pit, I loved the reference you made to "basement presentations" - Maxon (or C4D) really has something of an underdog qualification - us against the rest. Kind of guerilla tactics.
They'll do better next time, no doubt.
Cheers,
BaRa
yeah i for one gotta say i am extremely impressed with what maxon has done in sales and output in the past 3 years. they have consistantly not just improved but leaped ahead in significant areas such as stablity and workflow and support all that at an outstanding price. you gotta take into account that alias and others have huge budgets 20+ years in the making. maxon i think is still a young company. but maxon's gains are huge each year. if you look at other software and there customer replies in each respective forums many are disappointed from upgrade to upgrade. not so its seems with maxon users. i can't remember getting excited about point releases for those other software when i had used them. just a small point.
did maxon really jump from 20 to 3 in sales. if they did then thats probably why they didn't need all the glamour at their booth right. no need to spend money to attract customers if the software can do it by itself. man i am getting overly excited thinking about 8.2 upgrade and cinema4d in general. uh oh i think i need to use the bathroom.:blush:
michaeli
08-01-2003, 01:16 PM
I found these two pics in Siggraph section:
http://www.vitaldistraction.com/images/sig-2.jpg
http://www.vitaldistraction.com/images/sig-1.jpg
the post: http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=78549
:applause: :applause:
squidinc
08-01-2003, 03:29 PM
Originally posted by michaeli
I found these two pics in Siggraph section:
http://www.vitaldistraction.com/images/sig-2.jpg
http://www.vitaldistraction.com/images/sig-1.jpg
the post: http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=78549
:applause: :applause:
hehe, I gotta go to one of these shows man, the maxon booth doesn't look that bad :drool:
wuensch
08-01-2003, 03:50 PM
Hey that is BodyPaint 2 in the second pic---
maybe the update price is not to high and I have to reconsider ;-)
OLli
That Adrian Guy
08-01-2003, 06:15 PM
LoL... bodypaint version XXX :drool:
(Oh well! I'm pretty happy with my ball and chain, so I can't drool too much)
....yea right!
:drool:
:drool:
:drool:
Hee hee
Boone
08-01-2003, 06:55 PM
Was this MAXON's first appearance at a SIGGRAPH? Just wondered...:shrug:
Originally posted by Boone
Was this MAXON's first appearance at a SIGGRAPH? Just wondered...:shrug:
I think they've been there four or five years now. They had a booth when I went two years ago.
Boone
08-01-2003, 08:43 PM
Oh, I see.
Maybe MAXON should get a small, but impressive team to create a short film for their demo-reel. That way they'll get a more inspired audience...:hmm:
LucentDreams
08-02-2003, 06:52 AM
Funny the demo reel clips were getting great response. Brent didn't see it at a busy point (what was being demoed when you were there) Hey I'm not a maxon employee and I'd say it went really well, granted he is right it was a small booth for sure, and a little messy I guess though in part due to our size.
As for alias, what new stuff did they have? Sketchbook was the only app they were showing off, otherwise it was all simply show that was their whole purpose at this siggraph since they had nothing new released.
Funny you mention pixar showing the G5 off, the apple booth wasn't odd, no?
Lot of maya users were over at the maxon booth over the time of the conference, got a lot of nice comments regarding the exchange plugins and the new maya navigation controls and reversrse orbit so that maya users c0ould move seamlessly from one to the other.
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