Highlights from the 2008 Digital Arts Festival The Inaugural 2008 Digital Arts Festival was a memorable event filled with exciting presentations, games, workshops and impressive works of digital art. For those of you that missed the program, here are some of the highlights: ★ The Digital Lounge ★ One of the most impressive rooms in the the Digital Arts Festival was the Digital Lounge, a dark and yet vibrant space filled with digital art, gaming & interactive displays. Here are the highlights: Marcell Marias brought us Solar & Wind If you walked into the digital lounge you will recall being greeted by "Wind" one of Marcell Marias' beautiful installation pieces. Marcell is the founder of LunaGlow a company that specializes in designing and fabricating unique sculptures that use digital technology and light as an integral design element. Marcell's pieces "Solar" & "Wind" were on display at the festival and imbued the event with elegance and artistry. At the center of his wonderfully crafted metal work you could get lost in a digital display of abstract and compelling visuals. WWW.LUNAGLOW.COM Amir Stone brought us Digital Graffiti & Blight Horizon One of the most innovative and captivating pieces was Digital Graffiti, a digital painting program that allowed attendees to pick up a light stick, wave it around and make markings on a 14 foot screen (via a high-def 6000 lumen projector). The piece brought new meaning to the term "digital art" as it combined dance, play, collaborative design & technology to create beautiful and compelling imagery. His other installation piece called "Blight Horizon" combined volumetric light projections through misty water to create an interactive and immersive experience. AMIR'S DXARTS PROFILE PAGE Tim Thompson brought us Fingerpainting with Planets One of the central installation works found in the Digital Lounge was Tim Thompson's Finger Painting With Planets. The piece combines hardware, software & a digital display to create a beautiful merger of science and art. The user places their hands on a multi-touch sensory device which procedurally reacts to the users' movements and generates sound and imagery in return. Imagine orchestrating audio-visuals by simply using the touch of your fingers. Amazing! WWW.NOSUCH.COM/TJT/ D.J. Michito Saturday night we had a blast with M'Chateau, aka Dr/Mr.M, aka Michito Iwata. A well known Seattle D.J that blew us away with his entrancing beats. He has been a member of the Fourthcity Collective helping spearhead events such as the Triple Decker Pioneer Square loft series and the more recent Decibel Festival. His music combined seamlessly with Amir's Digital Graffiti, projected on two 14 foot screens. Nothing like dancing to booming electronic dance music and creating art at the same time! ★ Featured Lectures ★ Inside the beautiful Redmond Performing Arts Center, seven presenters and five panelists went up on stage and delivered memorable lectures with subjects ranging from digital painting, to animation to game design & volumetric captures of extruded time. Curious to learn more? Below is a recap of each presentation with images and videos for you to enjoy. // KAMAL Kamal Siegel on The Evolution of the Digital Man Saturday morning was opened up by Arts Commissioner Kamal Siegel. Kamal has been the creative force behind the festival collaborating closely with the City of Redmond & Redmond Arts Commission to design and put together the program for the event. Kamal runs a digital arts business in Redmond that specializes in 3D modeling & rigging for characters. They were also responsible for developing the branding materials for this event (including this website). Kamal’s presentation revolved around “The Evolution of the Digital Man” and he reminded us of the long journey 3D art has gone through in the last 15 years. WWW.DIGITALDOUBLE.COM // MONTE Monte Michaelis on The Power of Flash Monte Michaelis is a Senior Designer at Smashing Ideas, the largest flash development studio in the nation. For the last 10 years, Monte has been specializing on flash animation and illustration. His portfolio includes works for Disney, Nickelodeon, PBS, Hasboro & Nintendo. Monte also teaches part-time at DigiPen. Monte’s presentation revolved around the power of Flash as a tool and vehicle for creative expression for modern day artists. He began his lecture by speaking about the nature of creativity versus business and then walked us through his process when using flash as a tool for animation. WWW.GAPINGMONTE.COM // CHRIS Chris Taylor on The Art of Game Design For the past 20 years, Chris Taylor has been one of the game industry’s most imaginative and dynamic visionaries. Responsible for games such as: Total Annihilation, Dungeon Siege and Supreme Commander. Chris shared valuable insights on the video game design process and told us about some of the challenges he's faced in his career throughout the years. He gave us plenty of advice on how to get one's foot in the door but primarily focused his lecture on empowering the listener to pursue his or her dreams. WWW.GASPOWERED.COM // STEPHANIE Stephanie Andrews on Relationships Between Art & Technology Stephanie Andrews is a professor for the DXArts program at the University of Washington and former Pixar Lighting Artist. Stephanie presented on how combining technology and art into one cohesive whole can bring about countless new possibilities for artists. She showed us some of her past & current installation works. Her most recent piece which combined 3D scanning, 3D printing, Motion Capture & dance to create “sculptural forms through extruded time” was an absolutely fascinating piece of work. WWW.STEPHNET.ORG // REMNANT Daniel Morrison & Jacob Picart on The Art & Science of Digital Effects Daniel Morrison (right) and Jacob Picart (left) came all the way from San Jose, CA on behalf of Remnant Studios (an effects and post production company) to share some insights on the art and science of digital effects and compositing. Daniel & Jacob’s presentation revolved primarily on the special effects production and planning process. They went through it step by step and also provided us with tips, tricks & resources they’ve found to be valuable when running a small special effects shop. WWW.REMNANTSTUDIOS.COM // DAN Dan Colvin on Digital Fine Art Dan Colvin is an award winning cinematographer and veteran digital artist. He was creative director for Microsoft Research during most of the 90’s and has since then been exploring new ways to push digital media as an art tool. Dan presented on his approach to making digital art which pulled from his background and classical training in painting and combined it with the use of modern day digital tools. WWW.COLVINART.COM // PANEL Industry Panel Sunday afternoon featured an all-star panel with presenters (from left to right): Ed Fries (CEO of Figure Prints), Scott Morgan (Musician & Test Lead at Microsoft), Ruth Caspary (Texturing Lead for SEGA), Kenny Lammers (Technical Art Director for MGS) & Abbott Smith (Educator & Freelance Art Director). The panel was moderated by Kamal Siegel and questions varied from “what was your childhood dream” to “is outsourcing something artists should be worried about?” The discussion was very enriching, informative and inspiring. // ROB Robert Caldwell on The Digital Medium Robert Caldwell is an independent film-maker with over twenty years of experience and thirteen films under his belt. He is the founder of Celumbra, a film studio where Robert gets to collaborate with experts from ILM & Pixar. Robert spoke to us about the “digital medium” and its ability to expand our expressive power. The bulk of his presentation focused on examples of “excellence” in art. He dissected a music piece by Mozart and drew direct correlations between its patterns and rhythms to that of seen in the recent Hollywood hit “Batman Dark Night”. His presentation was fascinating to say the least. ★ Short-Film Night ★ The only ticketed event was Saturday evening's animated short film night which featured over 30 short films, including those made by DigiPen & Ringling animation students. Four of the 30 films featured were received through the art submission process (one of which won second place in the digital arts competition). All remaining films were curated into the show by Arts Commissioner Kamal Siegel. ★ Hands-on Workshops ★ Between the High School and DigiPen campus, attendees had the option of participating in five different captivating workshops ranging from digital painting to ZBRush, to game art and more. Here are the highlights: // Peter Peter Moehrle on Digital Painting Techniques If you attended this workshop you were truly in for a treat. DigiPen's Peter Moehrle is a veteran background and matte painter who's worked on films such as Mulan, Tarzan, Lilo & Stitch, Ice Age & many others. As a member of DigiPen's stellar faculty, Peter graciously offered two workshops on Digital Painting which gave an introductory exploration of his approach to using Photoshop as a tool for digital painting. Axel Anders, a digital photographer, came out of the workshop saying "Even though the workshop was meant to be an introduction I learned many new things about Photoshop I never knew before." PETER'S ONLINE PORTFOLIO // Rob Rob Kmiec on Making Art for Games Rob Kmiec, another one of DigiPen's illustrious faculty members, delivered a workshop on the creative process where students got to create silhouettes, thumbnails, color comps and various other things in combination with a character design template Rob provided. Once they finished designing their characters, students learned how to use Photoshop as a coloring tool. Rob introduced some fundamental digital painting techniques, including creating custom brushes and making use of layers & selection tools. // BEN Ben Cammarano on Creating Effective Portfolios Ben Cammarano, the director of Art for Microsoft Games Studios gave a lecture for artists on how to put together effective portfolios. He then also provided one-on-one portfolio reviews for artists interested in getting their work seen and critiqued. Ben supervises projects like Halo Wars, Gears of War 2 and many others. WWW.MICROSOFT.COM/GAMES // Kenny Kenny Lammers on ZBrush Training Kenny Lammers, a Technical Art Director working for Microsoft Games Studios, came to provide us with four ZBrush training sessions. He covered the basics and also a few tips for those more advanced users. Zahra Haghiri, one of the attendees, came out and said "That workshop was amazing! I don't understand why more people don't use zbrush. It's so much better and faster! KENNY'S ONLINE PORTFOLIO // Konica Konica-Minolta on 3D Scanning Brion Bickett & James Clark form Konica-Minolta came and gave a captivating workshop on the art and science of 3D Scanning. You not only got to see first hand how the hardware and software work when capturing 3D data but you got to take home a free scan of your own. Attendee Kalim Anders was very excited to go home with a 3D laser scan of his face and said he was going to try to make a mod where he used his actual face onto the 3D character. WWW.MINOLTA3D.COM ★ The Game Lounge ★ Probably the best attended space was the game lounge see the report below: Game Crazy brought us The Game Lounge Game Crazy set up shop with their plethora of game selections. You could virtually play games on any console imaginable. One of the most popular games was Mario Cart on the Wii. Four players sat back on giant bean bags (provided by Plush) in front of a 10 foot projection screen and had at it with the special wiimote steering wheel. It's no surprise the Game Lounge was a constant roar of game craziness! WWW.GAMECRAZY.COM Classic Arcades You can't have gaming without the classics. Vintage arcade systems were scattered throughout the event including: Robotron, Pacman & Frogger. There's nothing like going back to your roots and being reminded of how the pure and simple gameplay mechanics of casual gaming were responsible for starting it all.