Count down begins - Stellar cast of gurus to speak at CGOverdrive 2010 - 18th -20th June

The fifth edition of CGOverdrive will feature an exceptional spread of seminar tracks to better cater to the learning and development needs of an expanding range of CG specialists and students in the region. The increase in demand for more specialised knowledge is a clear reflection of the continued growth and coming-of-age of the Computer Graphics industry in this region.

Topics at this iconic 'for CG artists, by CG artists' event ranges from 2D Concept development, Stereoscopic 3D, Modelling for films & games, Visual effects, Storytelling, Animation, Rigging, Programming for Games, MMORPG to open source projects development and more. Be it a veteran animator or an aspiring story artist, there are more than 30 Tracks that will help in their professional growth.

In a bid to make CGOverdrive more accessible to students and professionals, the event this year will be held at Suntec Singapore from 18 - 20 June 2010, Friday to Sunday.

Up close and personal with World Renowned Speakers
Participants to CGOverdrive 2010 will get up close and personal with industry veterans responsible for some of the biggest Hollywood blockbusters, hits on TV and sell-out video games.

Animators can look forward to gain knowledge in creating engaging character animation beyond the purely physical motion. The secret is through crafting the illusion of a thinking and feeling character, which will be explained in the classic 12 principles of animation laid out by Disney animators. Presented by Melanie Beisswenger, Professor/Animator, who worked on animation for the Academy Award winning feature film "Happy Feet", the stereoscopic 3D feature film "Fly Me to the Moon" and the BioShock game launch trailer;the "Character Animation - From 12 Principles to Advanced Concepts" track will revisit these basic principles and expand into further ideas and concepts to create a believable character performance. Melanie shared, ""I love to talk about how to create a great animated character performance and I enjoy sharing my personal influences and inspirations. At the same time, I am looking forward to getting inspired by all the other great talks going on at Cg Overdrive. In particular, I am very happy to have been a part of the animation and education community in Singapore and I am excited to see what the future generation of animators in Singapore will achieve."

With a wider choice of games related topics this year, avid gamers and gaming professionals alike would be thrilled with tracks like Modelling, Pipeline of 3D online game with Flash components and Texturing and Developing games for Nintendo Wii and other platforms.

Those who are into story development should flock to "The Role of Story Artist in Pixar Animation Studio" track by Pixar Animation Studios Story Artist, Alexander Woo. Alex has worked on various TV shows and films, including Star Wars: Clone Wars, The New Frontier, Ratatouille, and the upcoming Pixar film Newt. True to their philosophy of "Story is King", the track will touch on various duties of a story artist at Pixar, and elaborate on the day to day processes a story artist goes through to help Pixar directors craft their films.

CGOverdrive will see the unique gathering of more than 30 heavy-weights from the industry with years of experience and impressive achievements and portfolio in their respective fields. There are familiar faces like Shuzo Shiota, CEO of Polygon Pictures and Paul Wollenzien, Co-CEO, Creative, Rune Entertainment, Feng Zhu, Founder, FZD School of Design, as well as first-time speakers like Boaz Livny, Principal / Author, Vision Animations, Inc., and Hampus Soderstrom, CEO of Nabi Studios.

In addition to the exciting line-up of topics in everything CG, job seekers looking for a head start or advancement in the CG industry will find opportunities in the complimentary recruitment talks by Lucasfilm Animation Singapore, Polygon Pictures, Rune Entertainment and more. Lucasfilm will be giving an overview of their divisions in Singapore and the renowned Jedi Master Program where talented individuals get the opportunity to work on world-class productions. Rune will also be on the lookout for potential candidates for apprenticeship in Canada. Yoichi Ataka,COO, Polygon Pictures who would be presenting on the 'Strategies for CG Studio in Asia' shared, "I have participated in the 1st and 2nd CGO since 2006 mainly for recruiting purpose, but I've always been impressed by the passion of the organizers about this event. They are excellent at bringing world-class speakers/lecturers for the purpose and the sessions are truly useful as well as inspirational for the young artists in Asia.
I am looking forward to participate in CGO2010."

Setting the Foundation for 3D Contents
The future of 3D is looking promising as the animation, films, gaming and TV industries continue to embrace 3D content. Consumer interests and demands have driven the surge in 3D content creation and the knowledge required for it. With the spotlight on 3D Stereoscopy, the "Stereo Compositing with Nuke and Ocula" track dedicated to a case study on techniques for film VFX compositing will be featured at CGOverdrive. The track will cover the entire workflow from shooting, problems encountered with the footage, and problem-fixing before compositing with CG background.

Speakers Matt Plec, Product Designer and Janice Tso, Digital Artist and Freelance Demo Artist of The Foundry will give an overview of essential stereoscopic terminology followed by a presentation on the shoot, which utilised Silicon Imaging SI-3D cameras integrated with the P+S Technik Mirror Rig. The track will also covers the challenges of working with the stereo footage from a compositing perspective when attempting to do keying, rotoscoping, plate cleanup, convergence adjustment, correction of color and polarization mismatch and camera tracking.

Matt shared with Animation Xpress Asia Pacific, "Janice Tso and I will be presenting a stereoscopic compositing project that The Foundry put together with help from friends at Inition and Framestore in London and RiseFX in Berlin. It's a great example of a typical stereo compositing shot: what to watch out for and how to handle the common problems. We'll talk about how the material was shot, what was done to prepare the plates for comp, and show how the final composite was put together. We'll be using NukeX (of course!) and we'll walk through doing the plate prep manually as well as show how Ocula can be used to do it much more quickly and accurately."

He added, "Personally, what I'm most excited about at this show is how it brings people together from all over. There seems to be a lot happening in the region but like anywhere else, there are different kinds of work and client requirements everywhere you look so shows like this are a great opportunity to get the big picture of where the industry is today and where it's going in one intense shot."

In addition to learning advanced skills and knowledge in their respective fields that are relevant to their own needs, participants will also find opportunities to establish valuable contacts and networks at the event. CGOverdrive 2010 is part of the week-long Infocomm Media Business Exchange (imbX) event, Asia's largest infocomm and media event.