At the Orpheum theater on 2 August 2005, Luxology announced it’s next release of it’s fabulous character modeler, Modo 201. Luxology also divulged how it can generate complex new applications that integrate fully together though an effort they called Nexus. Using the Nexus application engine, Luxology is able to combine modeling, rendering, and in a future release animation. Expect Modo 201 before the end of the year.
With the recent disclosure, that Apple Computer will slowly transition Mac OS X from PowerPC architecture to Intel architecture, new trade shows and events now become relevant. No longer can the Mac user rely that product announcements will come at Macworld San Francisco, NAB, WWDC, or Apple Expo Paris. Look over the upcoming dates and trade show links for the 2005 and 2006 seasons.
Start Date | Trade Show Name
08/23/2005 | intel developer forum 2005
08/30/2005 | entertainment media expo 2005
09/09/2005 | international broadcasting conference 2005
09/19/2005 | oracle openworld 2005
09/19/2005 | demo fall 2005
09/21/2005 | apple expo paris 2005
10/04/2005 | combined exhibition of advanced technologies 2005
10/07/2005 | audio engineering society AEC convention 2005
10/17/2005 | HP technology forum 2005
10/19/2005 | educause 2005
10/24/2005 | fall processor forum 2005
11/01/2005 | seybold new york 2005
11/15/2005 | streaming media west 2005
11/16/2005 | interBEE 2005
11/30/2005 | seybold san francisco 2005
12/07/2005 | DV expo west 2005
01/05/2006 | consumer electronics show 2006
01/10/2006 | macworld san francisco 2006
01/20/2006 | NAMM show 2006
02/13/2006 | demo 2006
03/07/2006 | intel developer forum 2006
03/09/2006 | cebit 2006
03/21/2006 | game developers conference 2006
03/29/2006 | musikmesse 2006
04/24/2006 | national association of broadcasters 2006
05/02/2006 | interop las vegas 2006
05/23/2006 | streaming media east 2006
06/06/2006 | computex taipei 2006
09/08/2006 | media-tech showcase 2006
09/08/2006 | international broadcasting conference 2006
09/08/2006 | audio engineering society AEC convention 2006
09/18/2006 | HP technology forum 2006
09/19/2006 | interop new york 2006
09/26/2006 | intel developer forum 2006
10/23/2006 | oracle openworld 2006
09/26/2006 | photokina 2006
11/15/2006 | DV expo west 2006
During Siggraph 2005, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Cloak Media proudly presented its credentials to the visual communications community. This is what I learned:
Los Angeles is still the world center for rich media and visual delights. Be it the video game industry, the visual communication education arena, or just plain visual entertainment, Los Angeles reigns as its fulcrum.
Over the course of two days, The Arts Institutes sponsored a vendor job fair with the likes of Imaginary Forces, Intel, Papaya Studios, Laika, Activision, and Lucas Arts all willing to talk with animators, compositors, pipeline architects, and programmers about contract or full time employment opportunities.
The bulk of studios and design firms also has regular trade show booths to talk with future clients and future employees. Large studios like Digital Domain, Sony Imageworks, and Pixar had a extra day on the show floor. From what I could count, at least 100 positions were available, for an applicant pool of over 600 who decided to submit a resume for review. Good luck to all who met with employers and may all find future happiness.
On Intel white boxes, the structure of the chipset is well understood and documented, however on the Apple Power Mac G5, Linux cannot be fully implemented and has many gaps in service. As of today, neither audio nor Mac-on-Linux work. I do not believe the latest crop of dual 2.3 GHz is supported at all through the GNU GPL, and only through Terra Soft Solutions paid subscriptions to Linux, currently priced at $30 with no manual, or $60 with a manual but without support, and finally $90 with 60 days support, can it install at all.
This makes Linux very price prohibitive to even attempt to run on my test bench. Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger costs at retail around $115 on an individual license, and just $180 for a five seat license (just $36 a seat) for a family. If compared to a full blown Mac OS X Server 10.4 Tiger model, then Linux would make a financial difference ($430 each license for 10 client Mac OS X Server). In my analysis, even though the operating system originates as open source, your ability to install and support that OS may make the initial “free” license very expensive. This does not include the niceties of having a multi-billion dollar company further developing the OS and bundling excellent applications for free like iTunes, iDVD, iCal, and GarageBand.
I will stay with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and Mac OS X Server 10.4 Tiger until Linux is fully support on my test bench platform. It was a very short test, that ultimately ended without any experience in the Linux operating system.
It may seem odd, but in a high performance computing environments, it sometimes makes sense to run another UNIX variant on your stock PowerPC based Apple Mac. Over the course of several iterations, I will try to install Linux kernel 2.6.10 on a Power Mac G5, along with ancillary tools. I will report back on the results and performance testing as compared to the tried and true Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.2 release.
To a capacity crowd gathered at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in Los Angeles, CA Apple Computer extolled the benefits of Mac OS X in the field of animation, motion graphics, and advanced compositing. Showcasing the latest release of Shake, version 4, experts from South Park animation, Luma Pictures, and the Shake team walked us through the rich feature set.
Apple’s presentation was artfully orchestrated using a full high definition presentation system, which allowed the artists work to shine. Luma Pictures educated the crowd on the ease of deploying advanced PHP web applications to monitor and track visual effect shots for enterprise collaboration.
On 2 August 2005 Apple announced its first ever multibutton mouse, called the might mouse. Expect a full report later on this week on this singular product.
Apple Computer and Autodesk showcased their latest offerings in compositing at Siggraph 2005. Apple hosted a Shake User Group Meeting, while Autodesk premiered 3ds Max version 8 along with other applications in their suite of visual effects applications. Apple Computer used the Siggraph event for major news on application development and hardware releases.