Some of you may know that I was the host of 5D, last October’s highly successful conference on immersive design of narrative entertainment, held in Long Beach, California. Concerned with the new role of design in world-building, 5D is the brainchild of Production Designer Alex McDowell (Fight Club, Minority Report, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Watchmen) and his associate Chris Scoates, Director of the University Art Museum, USULB. 5D is all about effectively creating and using new approaches to design practice, combining artistry and technology in synergistic new ways to yield integrated, immersive worlds forming the core of rich, immersive storytelling, across all narrative entertainment media.

McDowell gave me his take on it: “To me building a world in the context of narrative media means to create a fully immersive environment that has storytelling embedded within it. It in no way negates the role of the other key creatives, but their role does not change radically – the director remains at the creative helm, the writers lay out the narrative structure, the cinematographer lights and shoots it, the game designer harnesses the game play; but the designer’s role changes radically. He or she does not just build a space to frame a story and actors. The immersive designer builds a rich world that begins in an interactive work space to allow character and story to develop, and by using flexible non-linear digital technology based process, creates a new kind of collaborative space that allows a new kind of storytelling to emerge.”

Clearly the design process itself is immersive, using technology to provide new and exciting ways for creative contributions to be brought into an entertainment whole that is more than the sum of its parts. Through all this I am very pleased to say I see a trend back to making the story king and all the stuff behind it as invisible as possible. After all, we must be able to immerse ourselves in the story and we don’t want technical distractions along the way.

Held in Stuttgart, Germany each year, FMX is without a doubt the largest and most exciting gathering of content creation people in Europe. Some of you also know that I host a number of FMX presentations each year, especially the Virtual Humans Forum. Last year I was fortunate to MC a group of 5D founders who presented a panel on 5D, and what it was all about. It was well received and this year Dr. Thomas Haegele, head of FMX, invited the 5D team to present an entire half day forum of speakers. In addition I’ll be hosting a video presentation of highlights of the Long Beach conferences which had some of the best and most fascination presentations I’ve ever seen at a conference

So why would you like to come? It depends. Our industry is evolving faster than CPU architecture. Both 5D and FMX are all about riding that evolving pressure wave right at the frothy edge. More than that, both are about sharing ideas. FMX is a really good place for smart people with great ideas to put their heads together in stimulating conversation. It’s rare that any of us have an opportunity to toss ideas around with brilliant and exciting minds like: Ken Perlin, Bay Raitt, DJ DesJardin, Chris Williams, Harrison Ellenshaw, Alex McDowell, Richard Edlund, Christophe Hà©ry, Kim Baumann Larsen, Paul Debevec and Danielle Feinberg, among others. At FMX you can actually make the opportunity to do exactly that. If you don’t know who these people are, Google them right now and you’ll want to trade ideas with them, get their insights and give them yours.

I personally find communicating with some of the most talented students I’ve ever met to be enormously stimulating. They may not be famous, but they are brilliant. Their ways of thinking have evolved in the matrix of a highly connected, technology dominated world. They see design and technology and storytelling and collaboration in new ways I find stimulating. Perhaps the most exciting thing is that most of these students intuitively understand that art and technology are not enemies. They see technology as providing tools for the creative mind. The positive energy I feel when I get together with gifted young people sprinkled with a few industry gods is astounding. I see the youth influencing the gods. I see the gods stimulating the students. I feel the vibration of intense excitement as unique visions float around. It’s like FMX is a supercollider of creative ideas, spinning them faster and faster until they collimate and smash together in an explosion of new insights.

You’ll have to make a lot of tough decision about what sessions you will attend. They’re all very interesting and you’ll have to miss some great stuff to see other great stuff. For example, the Virtual Humans Forum is at the same time as 5D.

If characters are your thing, come and meet my colleagues and me for cutting edge presentations on the creation of realistic virtual human actors for narrative entertainments. We’ll be covering such things as advanced techniques in rendering believable human skin; then two enlightening DD presentations on how the various incarnations of Benjamin Button were created and animated, featuring CG Sup, Jonathan Litt and Animation Sup, Steve Preeg. Last but not least we’ll take a look at tradeoffs in creating realistic game characters and their motion, by Bay Raitt from Valve and formerly of WETA, a legend in both film and game industries.

In addition there will be an all day intense forum on Interactive Content Creation featuring the latest cutting edge techniques and technology in the field. From user generated media to new ideas in creating on-line worlds and creating creative use of tools in Spore. You are sure to come away with new insight and your creativity bussing with motivation.

If you’re interested in the newest techniques in Visualization you won’t want to miss the all day forum on it. To me this is one of the most exciting exploding areas and it’s closely related to 5D concepts. Visualization tools and techniques are an essential chapter in the story of how immersive narrative media is being created. You’ll find heavy participation from Autodesk, The Jim Henson Company, Double Negative VFX Company, Proof, and the VFX Cartel.

I’m particularly interested in how visualization is being enhanced by using the superpower of GPU acceleration. With massive numbers of parallel stream processors now easily and cheaply available, ultra high quality real-time previz animation is possible. So I’ll be attending Paul Hogbin’s presentation on GPU accelerated Lighting at DNeg. I’m also going to try and catch Autodesk’s Steve MacPherson and his presentation on the latest in interactive 3D, and art of virtual moviemaking.

Advancements in 3D Stereo will be emphasized in a series of talks and full-length screenings. One of my favorites is Bolt. What a wonderful story, and director Chris Williams will be talking about Disney's stereoscopic approach to story. Learn about the making of Coraline and Monsters vs. Aliens as well. It’s ironic that 3D movies were the big thing way back in the 50’s. I remember being scared silly in 1953 by the 3D House of Wax. Now the trend is back with new and better technology. Various current approaches to achieving 3D will be discussed and speakers will also delve into other 3D stereo applications such as games, theme parks, corporate presentations, sport coverage and even home entertainment.

Dig into the nuts and bots of hyper-realistic face animation with Dr. Paul E. Debevec, University of Southern California, as he talks about live facial performance scanning. There will be other talks, about the considerable advancements in motion capturing across the board. Steve Streeting, OGRE, discusses open-source realtime visualization. Dynamic realtime animation also plays a central role in the presentation of a virtual agent platform by Volker Helzle and Simon Spielmann from the research department of the Institute of Animation, whose outstanding and very popular tools for facial animation have been publicly available for some years now. You’ll learn how you can download and license these sophisticated tools. They’re free because they were funded by the German Government. But don’t let the price fool you. These are great tools.

The Spotlight Series
• the Echtzeit series, curated by Prof. Robert Rose from the University of Applied Sciences Augsburg, Faculty of Design
• Automotive Design with contributions from Mackevision, the Daimler AG and jangled nerves.
• Focus on China, curated by American Kevin Geiger, who has gained a wealth of insight into the region through his work as guest professor at the Beijing Film Academy and producer at Magic Dumpling Animation Studios.
• Early Days in France: As digital images were first earning their legs in the 80’s and early 90’s, French companies were at the forefront of developments in CGI. This glimpse back at the veterans of the industry. You’ll find this presentation both entertaining and humorous.

FMX is devoting a full afternoon to Zack Snyder's adaptation of the cult comic with talks by production designer Alex McDowell and VFX supervisor John DJ Desjardin, while Pete Travers from Sony Pictures Imageworks reveals details about the making of Doctor Manhattan, the blue skinned nuclear super-hero. This should be a fun reveal for everyone.

FMX is not only about the forums. It’s also a great place to find a job. In these difficult economic times, but when times get tough, people want entertainment, so there are still jobs in our industry. It’s about fun. This is the main venue for studios and other employers to seek top talent. The recruitment section is very active with interviews being held right there. Companies give short presentations on their business and needs and job seekers come prepared with resumes and disks of their work. It’s quite possible to walk away from FMX with an awesome job commitment.

FMX/09 will be populated with speakers you will want to have conversations with. Unlike some of the other big conferences, FMX is really there to promote interactivity among attendees and presenters. I personally spend a lot of time interacting and find it extremely satisfying. I learn a lot and I have to say the caliber of the audiences is generally very high with telling questions popping up during Q&A. This is something fairly new. When I first started hosting European some time ago; audiences didn’t used to know what to do with Q&A sessions. It’s almost as if they thought it rude to actually as a question. But things are changing and I’ve hosted more than one wildly interactive Q&A at FMX. They can be so much fun that a few years ago, we had 14 top industry experts asking if they could participate in the Virtual Humans Q&A. The Q&A is usually held in a separate session from the main forum ‘ worth going to.

But where the hair really comes down is after the sun sets. FMX is legendary for it’s after hours parties where with a little of that amazing local beer and some wild music and dancing, the adrenalin gets pumping and something magical happens. I’m an old guy and even I don’t hit the sack until after 3:00 AM on party nights. Everybody goes and it’s a great time to see some of the industry greats as real people having fun. I think the Americans are the most interesting.


There is something about getting this far away from Hollywood that seems to let industry legends Americans drop all their protective guises and get into the moment. I have some photos that I’ve promised not to publish that could prove this point. Last year after one of the parties I went back to my hotel, ran into a gang from Aardman Animation and joined them. It’s like that. People are very inclusive here. We drank Weiss bier and talked nearly until the sun came up…and I had a 10:00 AM call. Somehow I made it. I absolutely always come away from FMX feeling inspired, motivated and like I had a great time of it. You will too. So, find a way to invest in that Air ticket and a hotel and do it.