David's Blog

TFU Demo

2008-08-19T09:29:33Z

The playable demo of The Force Unleashed is coming out Thursday on Xbox 360 and PS3...check it out!

Technorati Tags: The Force Unleashed, Star Wars

Comment from Nick on "SIGGRAPH Trends"

2008-08-19T07:44:13Z

I'm gonna go for 25k in New Orleans, I give it a bump for people curious to see what it's like post-Katrina.

SIGGRAPH Trends

2008-08-19T04:38:09Z

I'm always curious about the attendance and exhibitor numbers for SIGGRAPH as a barometer for computer graphics.

Here is what I could find from this year's SIGGRAPH dating back to 1996...

Year	Location	Attendance	Exhibitors
1996	New Orleans	28500	321
1997	Los Angeles	48700	359
1998	Orlando	32210	327
1999	Los Angeles	42690	337
2000	New Orleans	25986	316
2001	Los Angeles	34024	303
2002	San Antonio	17000	225
2003	San Diego	25000	240
2004	Los Angeles	27825	229
2005	Los Angeles	29122	250
2006	Boston	19764	230
2007	San Diego	24043	230
2008	Los Angeles	28400	237

I got these numbers from financial reports or the home page for that year's SIGGRAPH (here is SIGGRAPH 99). For 2008, I took the attendance from the final presentation of SIGGRAPH and I counted the number of exhibitors in the show floor guide booklet.

Here are a couple of charts to look at these numbers graphically...

SIGGRAPH had its largest attendance ever in 1997. Then there was a downward spiral until 2003. Since then, SIGGRAPH has been fairly stable.

My prediction for SIGGRAPH 2009 in New Orleans:

20,000 attendees
230 exhibitors

Technorati Tags: SIGGRAPH attendance, SIGGRAPH

Startup Sound

2008-08-18T00:07:31Z

My last post before I do my SIGGRAPH brain dump.

Thanks to Spaghetti for the hook-up.

Technorati Tags: Startup Sound

Comment from Bubba on "Worst. Fight Scene. Ever."

2008-08-08T16:08:48Z

I vote Russ vs Vista.

Comment from Bubba on "Am I Paid Enough?"

2008-08-08T15:54:37Z

This is glassdoor.com Pixar section so you don't have to create an account.

Note: Salary may vary by years of experience, location, and other factors.

Technical Director (5) $90k - $110k Average Salary $98,400
Cartoonist / Animator (1) $83k
Engineer (1) $165k
Management Assistant (1) $49k
Production Coordinator (1) $38k
Senior Software Engineer (1) $120k
Story Artist (1) $155k

Comment from Bubba on "Am I Paid Enough?"

2008-08-08T15:46:13Z

Another good site to compare is glassdoor.com it is a beta and you have to create an anonymous account to view salaries.

Here is their Pixar section
http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/Pixar-Salaries-E5118.htm

They do give a few free pages like Google's salaries
http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/Google-Salaries-E9079.htm

Worst. Fight Scene. Ever.

2008-08-08T15:18:32Z

What do you think? Is it this one (The Ghost)...

... or this one (Star Trek)...

...or our third contender (Gymkata)...

Vote early and vote often!

Technorati Tags: Fight Scenes

Am I Paid Enough?

2008-08-08T14:59:55Z

It is tough to know how you are paid in relation to others around you because salary information is normally kept private.

...except for people working in America via H-1B visas.

Check out this website with salary information for people working via H-1B.

The actual data is available (and is huge). It's much quicker to skip past that to the the interactive web query version.

For example, here is what I got when I asked for Pixar in California...

Big ups to Neil for the hookup.

Technorati Tags: H-1B, Salary

Comment from Ian on "Best SIGGRAPH Memory"

2008-08-07T23:26:55Z

That's what I thought when Terminator2 first came out ;-)

Best SIGGRAPH Memory

2008-08-07T08:34:43Z

Here is a video of the coolest thing I've ever seen at SIGGRAPH. It looks like liquid that is "alive"...you have to see it to believe it. People sat and watched in amazement seeing liquid do things your brain says it can't do.

Technorati Tags: SIGGRAPH

Comment from Bubba on "SIGGRAPH 2008"

2008-08-06T17:03:43Z

Do you use OSX at work?

Comment from David on "SIGGRAPH 2008"

2008-08-06T16:10:35Z

I can't comment on internal work stuff.

Comment from John Roquemore on "SIGGRAPH 2008"

2008-08-06T14:16:30Z

Well I know you go all the time to this, but it is still cool that you get to go for work.

It would pretty cool to see Tippett talk about Iron Man, and there are a few classes on shading that look cool. Do you guys use OpenGL or DirectX stuff for your tools?

You Trey have a great time.

John

SIGGRAPH 2008

2008-08-06T08:16:47Z

It's time to get my learn on!

SIGGRAPH is less than a week away.

I'm looking forward to hearing about DirectX 11 and Intel's new Larrabee graphics card. Both should have presentations at SIGGRAPH.

There is always way more stuff to see/do than you have time for, but that means there is never a dull moment.

Who's going? Let me know and we can meet up.

I plan on posting to twitter while I'm at SIGGRAPH. If you are going, you should get a twitter account and do the same. It's easy and you can read/write updates via your mobile phone. Let me know what your account name is and I'll track your updates.

I'm taking my new laptop with me and plan on posting blog updates at night.

Technorati Tags: SIGGRAPH 2008