View 2011

It was at Siggraph conference that I met Maria Elena Gutierrez. For year now, she has been in charge of organizing the ViewFest and the View Conference in Torino (formerly known as Virtuality).

I remember Virtuality very well. Me and my friends, still studying or working on music videos, got inspired and compelled to push our skills so much because we wanted to be like the amazing people we saw there. 

I remember we sat at a pizzeria in the evening after this event, wishfully predicting what we were going to do in 10 years. One will be in Pixar, one in Dreamwoks. Maybe the other will be in Digital Domain or in Weta or perhaps in Japan. Cheers to that! I still remember the excitement in our eyes.  We did not sleep much. The following weeks were spent trying to work on some crazy project, like a sculpt project, a gutsy simulation or even a short about Evangelion, full CG, fully realistic. 

The short did not happen. But 10 years down the road, sure enough, one of us is at Pixar, one at Dreamworks, and one married a lovely Japanese lady and started an international business in Torino.

That is why I am excited to be on the other side this year. I'll be the one presenting at View. On the 22nd I will talk about the emigrant experience of a shader writer. And on the 24th I will teach an advanced workshop on shading on SIMD architectures.

I hope some of you can make it.