James Bannan08 August 2007, 1:35 AM
TECH.ED |80s rap, hacked legs and penguins being squashed flat. Microsoft's Australian developer conference, Tech.Ed 2007 on the Gold Coast, is now open for schmoozing.
Microsoft's annual developer love-in, Tech.Ed 2007, kicked off officially this morning, with well over 2000 attendees packed into the main auditorium of the Gold Coast Convention Centre.
After a rather strange (but lovingly retro) Microsoft-centric version of “Bust A Move”, we were made welcome by Microsoft blogger Frank Arrigo, in one of the loudest shirts imaginable – you certainly couldn’t miss him. Frank’s main theme was on the strong focus on innovation, new products, idea sharing and social networking (the face-to-face human kind rather than the “I have over 500 friends on MySpace kind).
 Big and bright - Frank Arrigo! |
 Ready for Tech.Ed? |
The keynote speaker was Michael Twigg, the Production Resources manager from Animal Logic, the Australian-based CG shop which has produced an incredible amount of product in areas of TV series/advertising, visual effects (VFx) and animated features. The did a load of work on The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded, as well as more recently producing all the design and effects work for 300 and Happy Feet.
 Michael Twigg - Animal Logic |
Michael demonstrated the various techniques Animal Logic designers use to produce various visual effects, accompanied by clips from the various big name feature films.
His focus was very much on the importance of collaborative efforts between technicians and artists – those who know how the tools work and those who have an end product in mind – as well as the compromise between genuine innovation and consolidation of existing tools and techniques.
 Animal Logic - The Matrix Reloaded "Twins" |
Not surprisingly, the best audience reactions came from seeing the level of level detail and rendering in a scene from 300 where a leg gets hacked off, and definitely the biggest laugh came from a result of when the 300 and Happy Feet designers got together for a few drinks. A cute tap=dancing penguin got squished into a bloody streak by a snowball...heh heh heh.
Oh, and of course, much of this was done with Microsoft technologies. Just in case you couldn't spot the link between penguins and software development! It's not like any other developer community uses a penguin as its mascot...
James Bannan is attending Tech.Ed as a guest of Microsoft.