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May Ask A Scientist

May 9th, 2009 · No Comments

Tuesday, May 12, 7:00 PM
Ask A Scientist! Presents “The Science of CG Animation” with the DreamWorks dream team.

To those of us who grew up watching Popeye and The Flintstones, animation seemed like a pretty simple concept. You could even make your own respectable frame-by-frame cartoon with nothing but a notepad and pencil. These days animation is a whole different game — entailing technical innovations that make cels and gouache look like artifacts from Bedrock. Tonight we’ll learn how the art and science of computer generated animation has evolved from a single pixel on a screen to fully rendered scenes that can be hard to distinguish from live action. Our DreamWorks dream team will walk us through the building blocks of a CG animated project, explaining the science and math behind the transformation of tiny dots of color into fluid that flows, fur that bristles, and feathers that ruffle.

SPEAKERS: From PDI/DreamWorks Animation: Andrew Pearce, Director of R&D; Eric Tabellion, R&D Software Engineer; and David Eberle, R&D Software Engineer

At the Axis Cafe, 1201 8th Street (btw. 16th & Irwin, bottom of Potrero Hill) San Francisco.

Tags: May09 · Science