Developers of Autodesk Lustre color grading software receive Academy Award

    Autodesk is congratulating the original developers of Autodesk Lustre software for being honored with an Academy Award. On February 20, 2010, Mark Jaszberenyi and software engineers Gyula Priskin and Tamas Perlaki received the award for design and development of Lustre software for digital color grading for film and television. This marks the fifth time that a technology development from Autodesk is recognized and honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

    “These are the innovative geniuses behind the earliest versions of Lustre. Autodesk Lustre software is a key component of Autodesk’s Digital Entertainment Creation solutions. Customers around the world count on Lustre when realizing their creative visions, even in stereoscopic 3D."

    Scientific and Engineering Awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognize achievements producing a significant influence on the advancement of the motion picture industry. Lustre helps enhance creative look development, while providing artists with greater control over final color and lighting effects in film and television projects. Lustre has helped shape the look and feel of hundreds of films, including “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Monsters vs. Aliens,” “The Da Vinci Code,” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl."

    “Autodesk congratulates Mark Jaszberenyi, Gyula Priskin and Tamas Perlaki on their much-deserved Academy Award,” said Stig Gruman, vice president, Autodesk Digital Entertainment Group. “These are the innovative geniuses behind the earliest versions of Lustre. Today, Autodesk Lustre software is a key component of Autodesk’s Digital Entertainment Creation solutions. Customers around the world count on Lustre when realizing their creative visions, even in stereoscopic 3D.”

    “Bringing Lustre to market was a team effort,” said Jaszberenyi. “Autodesk was instrumental in marketing and distributing Lustre, ensuring that the software tool was made available to many world-leading colorists. Autodesk has continued to innovate and support Lustre, making it the successful and widely used product it is today.” Jaszberenyi left Autodesk in 2007 to restart Colorfront, a digital intermediate and post-production company in Budapest.

    In addition to Lustre, the following Autodesk technology has been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences:

    In 2007, Duncan Brinsmead, Jos Stam, Julia Pakalns and Martin Werner received a Scientific and Technical Award for Maya fluid effects technology. In 2005, Jos Stam, principal scientist at Autodesk, along with Ed Catmull and Tony DeRose, was honored with a Technical Achievement Award (Academy certificate) for research on subdivision surfaces and contributions to the motion picture industry. In 2002, Alias/Wavefront won an Academy Award of Merit for the development of Maya. In 1999, designers of the Flame and Inferno visual effects systems (now Autodesk Flame and Autodesk Inferno) received a Scientific and Engineering Award.