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IEEE Symposium
on Visual Languages
Seattle, Washington September 10-14, 2000 |
Film making is undergoing a digital revolution brought on by advances in areas such as computer technology, computational physics and computer graphics. This talk will provide a behind the scenes look at how fully digital films --- such as Pixar's "A Bug's Life" and "Toy Story 2"--- are made, with particular emphasis on the role that geometry plays in the revolution. I'll use our Academy Award winning short film "Geri's game" as a running example, and I'll highlight the two main technical innovations behind it: the use of subdivision surfaces for geometric modeling, and the use of simulated cloth dynamics.
Tony DeRose is currently a Senior Scientist at Pixar Animation Studios. He received
a BS in Physics in 1981 from the University of California,
Davis; in 1985 he received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California,
Berkeley. He received a Presidential Young Investigator award from
the National Science Foundation in 1989. In 1995 he was selected as a
finalist in the software category of the Discover Awards for Technical
Innovation. In 1998, he was a major contributor to the Oscar winning
short film "Geri's game", and in 1999 he received the
ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award.
From September 1986 to December 1995 Dr. DeRose was a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. He has served on various technical program committees including SIGGRAPH, and from 1988 through 1994 was an associate editor of ACM Transactions on Graphics.
To date, Dr. DeRose has written more than 50 scientific papers, 8
patent applications, and one book. His research has focused on
mathematical methods for surface modeling, data fitting, and the use
of multiresolution techniques. Recent projects the use of
subdivision surfaces in character animation and the construction of
animation controls for expressive characters.
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