Autodesk Marketing Seminar and Stereoscopy in General

So while I didn't get tickets to This Happened #6 (cos they were booked up within 120 seconds or something), I DID manage to attend an Autodesk marketing seminar held in Dublin's Morgan Hotel on Fleet St on November 27th. The seminar, titled "Create Animate Integrate - Dublin", was presented by 3 three autodesk staff showing off new Autodesk tools for 3DS Max and Maya, but also took the opportunity to show off Toxic, their new compositing tool. They also took time to discuss their acquisition of XSI Softimage, which has been debated to quite an extent (I don't think it is good for the industry, but if Avid were in difficulty, then its good news that XSI was acquired rather than discontinued).

The main features autodesk were showing off was the support of STEREOSCOPY effects in their main titles. This really tickled my fancy. It goes without saying that these new effects exceed those that you might remember from the red/green cardboard glasses you got with comic books when younger. Without getting into too much detail on the technicalities, the resutls are really, really great. Jeffrey Katzenberg (Dreamworks) spoke about 3D cinema being as big a break through as colour, and it might well be. I got to see Tim Burton's 'A Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D' before Christmas and the steroscopy effects enhanced it, though the changes weren't INCREDIBLE, but that's because it wasn't originally shot for 3D (it was only shot with one camera, not two). What DID look great were the trailers of Disney/Pixar's 'Bolt' and especially their 'Monsters Vs Aliens'. I'd love to get the chance to develop a 3d/stereoscopy installation or environment using projectors of multiple surfaces. With stereoscopy, I think a really incredible experience could be created...pity people don't happen to have 3D glasses in their breast pocket...