X-Radiation

May 20th

The suit was ready at the front desk first thing in the morning. We started the day early and made our way to an art school in Xi’An to give a presentation for both the art school students and the students and staff from the Maya Group studio and school (no relation to Autodesk). The folks at SideFX gave me some T-shirts and mouse pads and I used these to great effect to energize the crowd by tossing a few of them out at the start. It was a similar presentation to the one I’d made the other day. During the Q&A, there were only a couple of questions but as soon as I made it clear that those who asked questions got a T-shirt we were flooded.

We moved the afternoon seminar a few blocks away to an auditorium at the Maya Group School. I presented an introduction to crowd animation and some Q&A as well as passing out some Houdini instructional DVDs. After this presentation Mr. Hu arranged some photo ops with the staff and students of The Maya Group and they made me an honorary dean of the Maya School.

Mr. Hu hosted Daniel and I to a 72 course vegetarian dinner in a private dining room the size of a Westside condo. The chef is a Buddhist monk who manages to make tofu really taste like chicken. We had a private serving staff of 10 beautiful women as well as a private en suite bathroom. The restaurant actually had about a dozen such rooms. Between courses 46 and 47 we attended a private concert by musicologists playing 1500 year old instruments uncovered in archeological digs in 1978. The toasts were nonstop and we knocked back 7 bottles of baijiu. I got to meet some really great folks: Mr. Nu, Mr. Ree, Mr. White and Ms. Li Li. Mr. Nu and Mr. White introduced me to a few Chinese drinking games. Mr.Ree decided I would be his Shifu and he my disciple. Once this relationship was consecrated by a secret ceremony Mr. Ree was required by the dictates of ancient Chinese customs to drink three times for every drink I took.

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6

May 19th

Special Agent Shaw picked us up and took us back to the Shaanxi Animation Industry Platform building. I participated in a town hall with the Platform’s key managers to talk about their specific animation questions. They introduced me to an architectural visualization of an animation campus called Town Star that Xi’an is planning to build in the next few years. The Town Star complex has twin forty story towers dedicated to hosting vertically integrated animation and post production facilities. The campus also plans to feature restaurants as well as museums with exhibits on the history of animation. They are also planning a school on the campus to teach the next generation of animators. After showing me their impressive plans they asked me to provide some specific advice on what else to include and I gave them my ideas.

We toured the studios at the Shaanxi Animation Industry Platform building then headed for another family style lazy susan Chinese meal featuring apple-wood smoked Peking duck. Best damn duck I ever ate.

After lunch we headed over to Mr. Oong’s studio located in an old pharmaceutical factory. They brought me into their audio studio where I busted out some raps on the mic. They gave us a Kung-Fu demonstration using their Motion Analysis performance capture system. Next up they demonstrated their Minolta laser scanner and Zprint 3d printer. On our way out we stopped back in the audio suite where they’d added a beat and mixed down the rap I’d recorded earlier.

We travelled to the edge of town to visit Mr. Oong’s museum. Apparently his father was visiting an area about 100 miles from Xi’an where the locals were tearing down ancient houses that ran along a river for building materials, paving stones and latrine liners. He organized a project to move the buildings brick by brick to a new museum location and reconstructed the entire neighborhood. I joined a traditional Chinese folk band on the stage in the courtyard of one of the reconstructed domiciles for a rendition of Public Enemy’s “You’re Gonna ger Yours”. I also advised them on techniques for digitizing antiquites.

It was a long day. We got back to the hotel . This was the last we saw of Special Agent Shaw but I think he was following us the rest of time to secretly ensure our safety and document our whereabouts. Ms. Fu brought the suit to my room for a final fitting and took a few more measurements. I selected a couple of matching ties, sent Ms. Fu home and fell asleep.

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6

May 18th

I ran into Daniel and Tim at the breakfast buffet. Discussed the day’s strategy. Special Agent Shaw picked us up. Thanks to his excellent driving skills aggressively navigating the Xi’an traffic we arrived at the Shaanxi Animation Industry Platform building. After a brief introduction to the Platform Directors Mr. Lu and Ms. Soon I was lead into a press conference where several journalists asked me to compare and contrast the American and Chinese animation industry as well as advise them on how the Central Chinese Government could support the animation industry in China. Following the press conference I addressed a crowd of 350 journalists, government officials, industry professionals and students giving them an introduction to SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia as well as a personal history of my work in visual effects and animation.

We took a break for lunch in a private room within the building. There was a contingent of Japanese executives working on animation in China as well as the heads of various animation companies working in the Animation Industry Platform building. The Xi’An Director of Propaganda and the Director of the Xi’an Department of culture joined us as well.
After lunch I gave a one-on-one interview with China Central Television (CCTV) where I talked about my favorite projects and informed the journalist that stereoscopic 3D was the new hotness in animated feature film production in America.

For the afternoon session I presented information about the history of computer graphics in film. I think I lost the audience a bit during this part of the presentation. This was followed by 45 minutes of questions and answers.

We had a family style dinner on a lazy susan in a private room in a Chinese restaurant that had the largest lobsters I’d ever seen sitting in the tanks in the lobby awaiting their sizzling fate. Mr. Lu’s wife, the Shaanxi Provincial Director of Propaganda, joined us and we engaged in the Chinese tradition of toasting each other with shots of Baijiu. Mr. Yan from Yelloon Animation and Mr. Oong who runs another animation studio as well as the museum of Shaanxi Folk Art joined us as well. The restaurant staff wheeled a television into the room and turned on the Central China Evening News. About half way into the broadcast they ran the interview from earlier in the day. Things got a little hazy after that but Special Agent Shaw’s professional driving ensured our safety on the way back to the hotel. Ms. Fu arrived at the hotel, suit in hand, for a first fitting and I let her do her thing over a glass of Macallans before crashing out for the evening.

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6

This one goes out to Mikee and all my homies at the Hamilton Whisky Society.

After dinner Santa Gundam and Rie lead us  to a small whisky bar called Alco-Hall.

For relaxing times...

I proceeded to totally geek out with the proprietor, Nashimoto-san, over all things whisky. He’s a total whisky otaku and the bar has one of the most amazing collections of whisky I’ve ever seed in one place. He probably has over 1000 bottles in his stash. We made a few selections and also tasted his recommendations.

Nashimoto-san is also the regional Glen Livet whisky ambassador and shared a little bit of Glen Livet new make with us. Oishii!

Lots of pictures of whisky bottles after the jump!

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Kobe Beef meat locker. Cooled with big blocks of ice.

Santa Gundam, AKA Inappropriate Santa, lead us on a beef and whisky expedition to Kobe. We took the Shinkansen to Kobe for a gourmet Kobe Beef foodgasm. Had a bit of a delay as Santa Wrong Station bailed off the train one station early but we made up for lost time had one of the most amazing dinners ever.

Blow by blow after the jump!

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Went to Nakano with Paul. Checked out the otaku collections and ate takoyaki at Gindaco. Yum!

We found a sort of Tokyo version of Philz Coffee called Wada Coffee.  Not quite the same as Philz, but enjoyable. Mom and pop shop. Pop heats water  over an open fire in a metal kettle and strains it through a filter one cup at a time while Mom does the table service.

Met up with various Santas to check out the Team*Lab design studio.

Very cool stuff. It’s sort of a tech incubator and hacker co-op. Our host Takashi Kudo introduced us to the team. They have been working on some impressive CG animations that retain the look and texture of traditional Japanese art. First we watched “100 years sea” then they showed us a project called  “Flower and Corpse” which was recently on display at the Louvre. We had a nice round table discussion with some of their animators, designers and developers.

One of their creations, SketchPiston, combines crayon physics with various interactive techniques. I think my favorite is the SketchPiston V.4  Bamboo Play Room they made for Wacom. It’s a music synthesizer combined with crayon physics. Way cool!

Ate a nice dinner of Kaiten Zushi near the hotel and dropped in to a seriously epic karaoke session in Shibuya before hitting up the Maruhachi Izzakaya for some late night eats.

The day after SantaCon we met Nori, our Man in Osaka for a tour of the Suntory Yamazaki distillery near Kyoto. We took the Hikari #505 from Tokyo to Kyoto then transferred to the Kyoto line for the trip to Yamazaki Station where Nori met up with us. Nori is a great guy who showed us around Osaka and the Nissin noodle museum last year.

Panorama of one side of the Suntory Yamazaki distillery

After the distillery tour we visited the whisky tasting room where we sampled Yamazaki and Hakushu 12 year old whisky. It was delcious. The Yamazaki is one of the smoothest most drinkable whiskies out there.

My friend Satoru Shimizu arranged a gift of 10 year hakushu in a very nice bottle for me and my friends. After the tour we hit the gift shop with gusto,  procuring several expressions of Suntory products that you just can’t find in the states including a cask strength 15 year old and several cask strength sample expressions, each aged in a specific wood meant to be a component in the final Yamazaki or Hibiki product. I also picked up a small bottle of the corn grain whisky they use in the Suntory blends.

After shopping we went downstairs to the Yamazaki Whisky Library and tasting bar. I wish I could get a library card and check out bottles from this library. It’s an amazingly extensive library of whisky from all over the world.  I guess I’ll just have to be content with photographic evidence for now.

We spent a couple of hours and quite a few yen trying out the different whiskies available with The Yamazaki 25 year old at one end of the spectrum and the New Make at the other end. It was a fine time and by the end of the afternoon we’d worked up quite an appetite so we revisited Aoki-san, the Taisho at my  favorite restaurant in Kyoto called “Okariba” for some of his Omakase specialties. You can see my earlier post about Okariba here.

This time our meal consisted of the following items:

Grilled Wild Boar Skewers

Steamed Bear Shoulder in lemon shoyu

Smoked goose

Venison

Horse Sashimi (Basashi)

Misoyaki Vegetables

Grasshoppers

Bees and bee larvae

Okinanwa Snake Whisky

Giant Killer Bee Whisky

A Very Large bottle of sake

As much beer as we could drink.

We made it back to Kyoto station in time to catch the last Hikari Shinkansen of the evening back to Tokyo. We called it a night since we had to get up early for our flight to Okinawa the next day.

SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 dovetailed nicely with SantaCon 2009! You can read about it at the CG Society web page!

Here’s Santa Magari’s Tokyo Santacon web page!

Santa Magari did an excellent job dis-organizing the event in spite of the difficulties involved. We gathered at the traditional spot in front of Hatchiko at Shibuya station and headed over to the LABI electronic store to the wide eyed stares of kids and their parents. Santa loaded up on cheap booze at the next sleigh stop, the DONKI store. After getting his drink on Santa marched through Shibuya to Yoyogi Park where there was some kind of Eco/Peace/DJ Techno festival thing going on. Things looked pretty grim until Santa took the stage and danced for about an hour. Santa passed through Omotesando on the way to the sleigh to Odaiba. Arriving at Odaiba a hungry santa stopped to grab a bite at the FamilyMart and proceeded to walk down the beach. There was a group of amateur astronomers who encouraged Santa to check out Jupiter and her moons on the way to the mall. Santa promply made an ass out of himself at the mall then headed over to the 1/5th scale Statue of Liberty anchored in Tokyo Harbour before calling it a night. The Santas went their separate ways. I ended up at Andy’s Izzakaya in Shimbashi with Santa Sneery, Santa Mike, Santa Sasha, Santa Naoko, Santa I-chan, Dr. Santa and several Santas to be Named Later.

More pictures after the jump!

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Today we gave our presentation on crowds during the courses sessions at SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 in Yokohama.  I was very happy with the content and variety of  presentations. I owe a debt of gratitude to each and every presenter who agreed to be part of the course.

A Fuzz of Crowd Animators L to R: Mihai Cioroba, Paul Kanyuk, Tak Yoshida, Marc Salvati, Stephen Regelous, Xray Halpein

After the talk Paul, Tak, Mihai and myself went back to Toki for a celebratory noodle dinner and coined the term “A Fuzz of Crowd Animators” to refer to a group or herd of crowd animators. It’s sort of like “A Gaggle of Geese” or “A Murder of Crows”.

More pictures after the jump…

Stephen filling us in on Massive 4.0

I spent the second day of SIGGRAPH Asia attending the conference and getting ready for my presentation on Friday. In the morning I went over to the exhibiton hall and caught up with Leyla, John and Richard from Side Effects Software. My friend Matsuno-san from OxyBot came to the show. We went over to the nearby mall for an Indian food lunch with Tak, Mihai, Paul, Matsuno-san, Soren, M. Kennedy ans Stephen.

In the afternoon I attended a session called Chiptune Marching Band which was a great workshop run by Jamie Allen and a Japanese guy named Joe. They walked us through building a oscillator and amplifier circuit with the parts they provided and then circuit bending it into a musical instrument. It was a stellar workshop! You can check out their web page here:

http://chiptunemarchingband.com/

After the workshop we marched through SIGGRAPH Asia playing the instruments on the way to the art gallery to include them into a presentation on Chiptunes. Later, I donated my “Xrayzaphone” to one of the particpants after the instrument she built mysteriously disappeard. The thing looked like a bomb anyway, so I’m not entriely sure I would have been able to get it on the airplane.

That evening we attended a nice reception held by NVIDIA, spent some time talking to Laura and Dominic then headed out to a small club in Yokohama for a party organized by Polygon Pictures. The music was a lot of fun with a techno drum trio as well as a Residents “cover” band called “The Yokohama Residents”. I used the word “cover” loosely because while they may use the Resident’s visual tropes and audio inspiration their particular brand of music was much more dance friendly… but still enjoyable.

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