Recent Blog Posts

Cloud Computing: How GPUs will Change Your CG Dreams

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:59:00 GMT

The Dream

Here is my dream. I want the hardware to be able to calculate liquid and smoke simulations in real time and near real time updates with lighting changes. I want to be able to handle immensely complicated scenes without the viewport screeching to a halt, and without having to constantly hide things from view that then take even longer to un-hide again. Many of you may be thinking, well you can get that capability now. There are a few companies that specialize in creating workstations for the 3D animation and visual effects industry. This is true, but my dream is to be able to do this from anywhere in the world with a decent internet connection. To hop from train to train in Europe perhaps from France, to Germany, and on down to Italy without lugging a giant expensive desktop computer or an even more expensive laptop that almost makes my baggage exceed weight limits. I dream of a simple, light weight travel solution, without losing efficiency and productivity, and perhaps a warm beach and a cool drink.

The Reality

Companies like boxx have built desktop workstations that make apple fan boys jump up and down with excitement like it is Christmas morning. With NVIDIA's Maximus GPU system that became available last year workstations are able to provide immense boost in efficiency and productivity.

To continue reading- http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/news/2013/03/cloud-computing-how-gpus-will-change-your-cg-dreams/

VR Could Help People Lose Weight; Fight Prejudice

Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 21:19:00 GMT

COLUMBIA, MO - Internet-based interactive games and social media outlets have become intertwined with the physical realities of millions of people around the world. When an individual strongly identifies with the cyber representation of themselves, known as an avatar, the electronic doppelganger can influence that person's health and appearance, according to a University of Missouri researcher's study. Harnessing the power of the virtual world could lead to new forms of obesity treatment and help break down racial and sexual prejudices.

"The creation of an avatar allows an individual to try on a new appearance and persona, with little risk or effort," said Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz, assistant professor of communication in MU's College of Arts and Science. "That alter-ego can then have a positive influence on a person's life. For example, people seeking to lose weight could create fitter avatars to help visualize themself as slimmer and healthier."

In Behm-Morawitz's study, 279 users of a virtual reality community, Second Life, answered a questionnaire about their engagement with their avatar and relationships they developed online, as well as their offline health, appearance and emotional well-being. Self-presence, or the degree to which users experienced their avatars as an extension of themselves, was found to predict the influence of the avatar on people's physical reality. A strong sense of self-presence in the social virtual world positively promoted health and well-being of study participants. People with high degrees of self-presence in the cyber world reported that their experience with their avatar improved how they felt about themselves offline. Self-presence also correlated to greater satisfaction with online relationships.

"This study found no evidence of negative effects of a high degree of self-presence in the virtual world on study participants; however, that doesn't rule out the possibility," said Behm-Morowitz. "Users should practice moderation. Virtual entertainment, like other forms of diversion such as books or television, can be used in unhealthy ways."

Further research by Behm-Morawitz on virtual worlds will look at how avatars may be used to encourage tolerance of diversity. A person's race, gender or ethnicity can be altered in the virtual reality world and they can be put into simulated situations where they suffer prejudice and discrimination. Avatars can create the modern version of the book Black Like Me, in which the Caucasian author darkened his skin to experience life as an African-American in the Deep South of the 1950s.

"I am also interested in studying how using an avatar with a different race or ethnicity may increase empathy and decrease prejudice," said Behm-Morawitz. "This may occur through the process of identification with an avatar that is different from oneself, or through a virtual simulation that allows individuals to experience discrimination as a member of a non-dominant group might experience it."

The study, "Mirrored selves: The influence of self-presence in a virtual world on health, appearance and well-being," was published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.

Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz is an assistant professor of communication in MU's College of Arts and Science.

Kickstarter: 'Baby Snakes'

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 15:22:00 GMT

Fundar, a newly formed interactive game studio that brings "all ages fun and casual games" to market, has put "Baby Snakes" on its Kickstarter crowd funding page. "Baby Snakes" is the follow-up casual game to "Snake Mayhem," one of the first classic mobile games from the beginning of the mobile game era.

As a Kickstarter sponsor, partners will be able to help fund this proven business model for the booming casual mobile gaming market. All "Baby Snakes" Kickstarter funding partners will receive a version of the finished game-with new version upgrades and merchandise bonuses for premium funding, including "Baby Snakes" T-shirt apparel and toys http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/77546984/baby-snakes?ref=live.

"Baby Snakes" introduces a character-based puzzle-story/adventure with an appealing, all-ages baby theme for most smartphone and touch devices (iPhone, Android, select Tablets). Players select their favorite Baby Snake, boy or girl, with different power capabilities. Controlling "Baby Snakes" through animated levels is as easy as pointing with one finger. As the Baby Snakes grow, players must avoid running into animated challenges, creatures, and even their own tail. With increasingly difficult scrolling levels-the main objective of "Baby Snakes" is to eat all the pellets and powers-ups to achieve a high score.

"As the creator of 'Snake Mayhem,' I always wanted to produce a more robust, animated adventure game, but we were limited to the mobile technology of the day," said Eric Prince, founder of Fundar Games and executive producer for Baby Snakes. "Through Kickstarter and a whole new group of funding partners, we're happy to announce to our fans that we are bringing the familiar and loved game play of 'Snake Mayhem' to market with 'Baby Snakes'-now updated to match my original vision for a 'Snakes' game with a whole new cast of super cute and loveable characters."

"Baby Snakes" provides four different (Tougher, Slower, Faster, More Power) Baby Snakes to choose from. Players are challenged to navigate their Baby Snakes through increasingly difficult story-based levels. Baby Snakes must avoid animated obstacles, walls, and creatures, while solving puzzle challenges. Baby Snakes compete for high scores by eating pellets and power-ups, to win real-world prizes through in-game achievements.

Baby Snakes is seeking support funding now on Kickstarter. "Baby Snakes" is expected to be available for iPhone, Android and various tablets in December 2012.

Kickstarting 'The Goon'

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 15:18:00 GMT

Mobsters. Zombies. Killer robots. Demon priests. Sound like your typical animated film? Not quite. Now, it just has to get made.

David Fincher, Blur Studio, Eric Powell and Dark Horse Entertainment have come together to launch a Kickstarter campaign for the award-winning comic series "The Goon." (Learn more about the effort and watch Fincher, Blur Studio and Eric Powell introduce the project here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/624061548/the-goon-movie-lets-kickstart-this-sucker.)

For over 12 years, Eric Powell's comic book "The Goon" has amassed fans around the globe with its fantastic world of mobsters, zombies, killer robots, giant fish-men and mayhem. Two years ago, David Fincher and Blur Studio optioned "The Goon," developed a feature-film script written by Powell and created a proof of concept clip to show Hollywood studios the incredible potential of a Goon animated movie. While the clip generated lots of enthusiasm, the movie still isn't green-lit, primarily because PG13 animation is a challenging concept for studios.

After investing hundreds of thousands of their own money and countless hours of effort, the team has opted to reach out to "The Goon" fan base, comic book lovers, the movie industry, and frankly anyone willing to donate, with a Kickstarter campaign to take their development efforts to the next level.

The proof of concept short featured the voices of actors Paul Giamatti as Franky and Clancy Brown as The Goon, both of whom will reprise those roles for the film. Slated to co-direct are Blur Studio co-founder Tim Miller and Jeff Fowler, a director who has been with Blur for 10 years. Miller was creative director on the "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" opening title sequence and is also on board to direct "Deadpool" for Fox and "Gravel" for Legendary Pictures; Fowler directed the Academy-Award nominated animated short "Gopher Broke" and has helmed many commercials and projects at Blur Studio.

Blur Studio is an award-winning production and animation studio in Venice, California, made up of Oscar-nominated artists who have created stunning story-driven CG work for feature films, commercials and games for over two decades. Executive Producer David Fincher is the critically acclaimed director of Seven, Fight Club, The Social Network and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Video Editing: Making The Switch From Mac To PC

David Bourne — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:04:00 GMT

In my work as a video editor and as an instructor, I try to focus on the importance of storytelling over the importance of the tools. But it's hard. Good storytelling elements never change, whereas video editing tools change like the weather.

For example, I often get asked by my small business clients, "What's the best editing software or hardware these days?" This question bugs the heck out of me.

I want to tell them, "Don't focus on the tools. Focus on storytelling, because that's what matters most." But I understand the question all too well. As small business owners, my clients want the same things that I want: an efficient, organized solution that gives them a better, more creative result.

But don't get me wrong here. It's not the "What tool is best?" question that bothers me. It's that I spend so much time and energy focusing on the tools myself!

The Background

In my 21 years as a visual storyteller, I've switched from tape-based AB roll editing to Premiere on the Mac, to the Media 100, then back to Premiere on the PC. I've tried Avid, I've been a faithful Final Cut Pro user, and I recently even tried to like FCP X.

I was super excited about FCP X before it came out, but after trying it, I knew it was time to switch. I simply did not like it for many reasons that I won't go into now. I knew that Apple was going in a different direction than I was. The MacPro needed a major update that has still not come as of September 2012. Apple seemed to put faith in their expensive and slow-to-grow Thunderbolt option, so that did not excite me either.

I dreaded a move to another editing solution, but I knew it had to happen. Switching takes time, energy and money but I knew I had to do something. My 4-year-old Mac Pro was bound to die and I'd be up the creek.

- Was the Dell/Nvidia Combo Worthy of the Switch?

That's when Dell threw me a curve ball out of nowhere. They were looking for Mac users who would consider trying a Dell Workstation. As you can see in my initial response and project history <http://wilderize.com/pcmacvideo/> , I told them yes but don't expect too much. I love my Macs and had no plans to switch back to a PC.

At first, I was skeptical. It was not because of Dell, though. I had used Dells for many years when I worked at Duke University and at UNC. My skepticism came from the difficulty of integrating two platforms: the Mac and Windows. I plan to keep using my 4-year-old Mac Pro, so the difficulty of throwing a Windows machine into my workflow did not excite me, even though I knew the Dell would be a faster editor.

By the end of my review process, I discovered many advantages to adding a Dell.

Check out my list and see why even a Mac user should consider a Dell solution.

1. Adobe's Premiere Pro Has Become a Top Choice

I switched back to Premiere Pro after being a Final Cut Pro user for four years. Premiere is better at handling DSLR footage than FCP, and it has better integration with PhotoShop, AfterEffects and Audition.

Adobe's Mercury Playback Engine does a great job with the color conversion. When used with Nvidia Quadro cards you get very fast, realtime edits and quick output renders. I'm using the Quadro 5010M and it screams.

Premiere's program files and media will work on both the Mac and the PC with few problems. This is a huge advantage, especially since Adobe has put Premiere on the cloud. I can now use two copies of all their cloud software: One set on the Mac and one on the PC. You had to buy two copies to do that before.

2. Cross-Platform File Sharing has Gotten Better

Like most of my small business clients, I edit everything myself, so file sharing between machines has not been a big issue. When I added the PC into my workflow, it became a problem. I use Gigabit ethernet for networking, but direct disk access is best.

Thankfully, the new XFAT file system that works with Windows 7 and OSX version 10.6.5 or above, allows me to swap ESATA or USB3 hard drives between platforms. (Never mind that my MacPro does not have a good USB3 solution.)

3. The Dell Workstations are Very Capable

Like I said earlier, Dell and Nvidia gave me an awesome machine to try out and to keep. The M6600 laptop has a fast processor, a built in ESATA port, two USB3 ports, Firewire 600, 3 internal drives (two 2.5 in. drive slots, one micro drive) and there is still room for a DVD burner. The 17 in. display is wonderful and the Quadro externally displays via SVGA, HDMI, or a Display Port.

One big recent surprise to me: Apple no longer sells a 17 inch laptop! The 15 in. Retina Display is certainly great, but I'm not sure it makes up for the smaller physical size.

Speaking of size, I must add that the larger size of the Dell comes with a tradeoff in thickness and weight over the Macbook Pro, but that's the tradeoff for more flexibility and power without having to add Thunderbolt peripherals.

4. Windows is Better than it Used to Be

Please excuse my Mac bias, but Windows annoys the heck out of me. My last experience was with Vista, so it could not have gotten much worse than that. All in all, working with Windows 7 on the Dell has not been too bad.

One thing that helps a lot: most of my daily productivity apps (Evernote, Gmail, and Dropbox ) are now on the cloud. I miss the beautiful simplicity of the Mac OS when I'm editing on the Dell, but in a way that is good. It keeps me focused on what I'm supposed to be doing: editing video!

5. Apple has Shifted Focus from Professional Video Editors

As a professional editor, I feel like like Apple has given us the proverbial finger. And we were their darlings for so many years! (Students of brand loyalty and emotional connections to products can learn a lot by looking at Apple's shift in this market.)

FCP X now caters to the middle, where there are more numbers of folks buying. This is not good for many video pros nor for small businesses who need more flexible solutions.

Dell, on the other hand, is going over backwards for the pro video market. They make it very clear that they want our business.

- What's the Answer to the Question Now?

Ask me today "What tool is best?" and I will recommend Premiere Pro with a Quadro card in a Dell workstation. Or if you already love OSX, buy a Mac and know that you will be super compatible with the majority of the world's PCs.

David Bourne is the Owner of Bourne Media.

Bill Moggridge, Stanford Professor & Developer Of Laptop, Dies At 69

Bjorn Carey — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 14:11:00 GMT

Bill Moggridge made our world function a little more smoothly and beautifully. He has many credits to his name: Developer of the laptop computer design. Director of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Co-founder of IDEO, a world-leading design firm. A member of the design faculty at Stanford for nearly 30 years.

He found delight in the design of everyday objects; the smallest details made the biggest difference to him.

In addition to teaching undergraduate courses in the Mechanical Engineering Department's Design Division, Bill Moggridge was a popular mentor and adviser to graduate students. (Photo: Mayo Nissen / Creative Commons)

"I've always been interested in the perfect spoon. It is delectable in a multisensory way: the appearance, the balance and feeling as you pick it up off the table, then the sensation as it touches your lips and you taste the contents," Moggridge said in an interview with Smithsonian magazine last year.

He died in San Francisco on Sept. 8 after a battle with lung cancer. He was 69 years old. He is survived by his wife of 47 years, Karin; his sons, Alex and Erik; and his brother, Hal.

The first laptop

Moggridge was born in London on June 25, 1943; his father was a civil servant, his mother an artist. He studied industrial design at London's Central School of Art and Design (now the Central St. Martins College of Art and Design) in London, and in 1969, opened his own design firm, Moggridge and Associates, in the top floor of his London home.

Some of his first commercial designs were for Hoover UK, the household appliance company, and they provided a glimpse of things to come: a toaster that could have passed for a "Star Wars" droid, and a scarlet space heater that looked like a candle flame frozen mid-flicker. He turned ordinary household products into desirable works of art.

In 1979, he made a prescient move to Palo Alto, Calif., where he set up his new design group, ID Two, in the heart of innovation and high-tech design.

The venture paid off almost immediately when, through a chance encounter, Moggridge met John Ellenby, an engineer who had just founded GRiD Systems Corp. Personal computers were still bulky devices, and Ellenby was interested in developing something more portable. He needed someone to design it, and Moggridge jumped at the opportunity.

One of Moggridge's design philosophies was to ask people what they wanted in an object, and then design something that fit those desires, rather than the other way around. The computer needed to fit in a briefcase, so Moggridge would have people carry around objects of different sizes and weights to gauge what was an acceptable load to bear over the course of a day.

He would eventually produce a form so perceptive to users' needs that computer makers have yet to truly expand beyond its central elements. The GRiD Compass 1100 was a slim, matte black rectangle, made of a lightweight but sturdy magnesium alloy, that featured an electroluminescent display that folded down over a low-profile keyboard - all original concepts, and central to the now ubiquitous "clamshell" laptop design.

"In the early days, we were designing computers without computers, on drawing boards. [Personal computers] didn't really exist yet for most people," said Dennis Boyle, a close friend and an early partner at IDEO. "Having a screen that would fold down on the keyboard - it's almost like having a door on the side of a car now."

The father of interaction design

By all accounts, Moggridge was delighted with his precedent-setting design - it contained more than 40 patentable features - but he didn't have much time to bask in its success. A new challenge quickly presented itself.

"My role at the beginning was to design the physical form of the product. But when I had an actual prototype and I took it home, I was amazed that really everything I'd done wasn't very interesting or important. And that the thing that was really important was what was happening between me and the software behind the screen," he said in a later interview.

This realization sparked Moggridge to pioneer a design approach called interaction design - which he initially called "softface," for software interface. Though the inspiration took off from a need to create better ways to engage with the new digital world, the goal-oriented approach would become central to all his work - what do people need in a design, and how can we give that to them?

For example, when designing a product for the elderly, he would fog his team's vision by smearing Vaseline on their glasses, and have them wear gloves to give them the sense of arthritic hands. The motivation was clear: The best design required particular insight into how the person would use the product or service. Like the laptop design, this approach was as cutting edge then as it is standard practice today.

It was around this time that Moggridge visited Stanford and expressed an interest in working with students. "It was love at first sight," said Bernie Roth, who taught product design courses with Moggridge for years, and is now the academic director of Stanford's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, also known as the d.school.

In addition to teaching undergraduate courses in the Mechanical Engineering Department's Design Division, he was a popular mentor and adviser to graduate students. Moggridge applied the same thoughtful tenacity with which he approached his own work to his students' efforts. "[Bad design] hurt him viscerally. And so he would sit down and help work out how to make it better," Roth said.

"He was older than us, but he didn't seem older," said Bill Burnett, one of Moggridge's graduate students, and now executive director of Stanford's design program. "He was as curious and open to new ideas as anyone at any age."

Burnett recalls how Moggridge would bike to campus every Saturday morning and spend a couple of hours challenging him to improve his designs. "I imagine those two hours every week were worth thousands of consulting dollars, and yet he freely gave them," said Burnett. "He took teaching and advising to heart. I use Bill as my example of what you have to do to be a good teacher."

The diplomat of design

At Stanford, Moggridge met David Kelleya mechanical engineer teaching in the design program; in 1991, the two, along with Mike Nuttall, would found the Palo Alto-based IDEO, perhaps the world's foremost innovation and design firm. At IDEO, Moggridge began to focus on encouraging a design approach that revolved around interdisciplinary cooperation, and greater attention to the human experience of a product or brand.

That combination of creative and analytic thinking helped inspire the framework for Stanford's lauded d.school, created by David Kelley in 2004. Moggridge signed on as a consulting associate professor at the d.school in 2005, and although he continued his work at IDEO, he found time to write two seminal books, Designing Interactions (2006) and Designing Media (2010).

In 2010, he was named director of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and left IDEO and Stanford to move to New York and help reinvent the museum. "It broke my heart. But they couldn't have made a finer choice," said Roth. "He was one of the foremost designers in the world, an elder statesman of design."

Moggridge would say that he devoted the first phase of his career to designing products, and the second phase to leading teams of designers. At Cooper-Hewitt he was embarking on the third phase, which he described as raising the profile of design, through education and communication.

He wanted every child in America to be exposed to design, and specifically design thinking, by the age of 12, and for students to have the option of taking higher-level design courses in high school. His goal was for design thinking to expand beyond commercial interests and to permeate all facets of life, so that leaders of corporations and nations would have better tools for innovation.

Master of simple pursuits

In 2009 Moggridge received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the National Design Awards. Friends and colleagues, however, remember his ever-present smile or his habit of presenting them with original poems. Or his general elegance and affability, a special charm that brought people together, and brought out the best in them.

"He would be in a meeting, and if the group seemed down, or if he thought the focus [of the design] was drifting too far from the needs of people, he would start singing - perhaps an old British drinking song - and that would cheer us up," Kelley said.

Chris Flink, a graduate of Stanford's product design program who now co-heads the consumer experience practice at IDEO, was also touched by his long friendship with Moggridge. Flink remains in awe of how someone as successful as Moggridge remained so grounded.

"Some of his career pursuits were focused on making more superficial things beautiful and better. But the things that matter most - that happened in the context of his life and home - were the things that he was even better at. He mastered those as well," said Flink, who is also a consulting associate professor at the d.school. "It's such a rare thing to have someone that was such a great contributor on the world stage, and a master of the lived life at home and the enjoyment of the simplest things, like picking mushrooms in the woods around his house, and relationships with the people who were closest to him. That's the kind of success that few can claim authentically."

SIGGRAPH 2012: Graphics Is As Exciting As Ever

Kathleen Maher — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 17:41:00 GMT

I stayed at SIGGRAPH all the way through, and I even heard the bag pipes play "Amazing Grace" when SIGGRAPH closed. If anyone knows why they play "Amazing Grace" at the end of trade shows, please let me know. Playing a hymn to send everyone home is just the kind of absurd conflation of the sacred and the profane that we Americans handle with aplomb. Never mind, SIGGRAPH is kind of sacred to the people who come to learn and share techniques for creating digital imagery, and that kind of power is certainly god-like. This year, I made it to a few papers, I walked the aisles several times, I talked to a whole lot of people, and still I went away feeling that I missed a lot.

Here are a few things I didn't miss:

1. The return of the head-mount. There were enough head-mounts on display this year to bring back fond memories of 1988 and the early days of virtual reality. Canon brought a slick head-mount display to enable people to explore digital environments for design. Canon also demo'd augmented reality applications with head-mounts. Along those same lines, Epson brought along a pair of glasses, which they're calling Moverio. These were semi-transparent glasses, so you could view digital content without completely blocking out your surroundings. It works. When I tried it, I had no trouble shifting my focus to the digital scene in front of me, but I was comfortably aware of my surroundings. Along those same lines, Christie showed off a CAVE system the size of a closet. No, it wasn't a head-mount but it was pretty convenient.

I thought it was a pretty good SIGGRAPH, didn't you?

2. Digital reality, the ability to bring information into the real world and back out again, is developing rapidly. At SIGGRAPH 2012, Cubify brought its very low cost printers, and Objet brought its slightly more expensive printers. 3D3 offered to scan your face and send you your 3D-you. At the Foundry, we heard about using 3D scans as backgrounds for content creation. French company Lumiscaphe demonstrated cloth simulation, which they achieved by scanning in materials, and applying a displacement map to create a 3D effect.

3. The number of raytracing companies are multiplying like rabbits. We have no idea how these sweet companies that arrive every year intend to survive, but their young entrepreneurs are indomitable. The newest companies are taking advantage of the GPU, and they're trying all sorts of tricks to overcome the memory limitations of GPU rendering. Some of the companies with staying power include V-Ray from the Chaos Group. They were in Nvidia's booth taking advantage of the new Kepler based Maximus systems.

Software just gets better. (Source: JPR)

Caustic Graphics is a division of Imagination. The company is working on plug-ins for the major 3D vendors including Visualizer for 3ds Max and Maya, and Neon for McNeel's Rhino. Luxion's edge is push-button raytracing, and this year the company has added a tool to enable rendered 3D models in browsers called KeyShot VR. The new tool comes with an upgrade to KeyShot, and it works in browsers that support HTML5.

4. Software is going to get a lot better over the coming year. The tools for taking advantage of parallel processing, putting GPUs and CPUs to work cooperatively, are improving, and software developers are committing to them. At SIGGRAPH this year, many of the papers demonstrated the tools the studios have developed to push hardware acceleration. These tools start out as proprietary, but the studios are increasingly cooperating on the development side, and by the time it's a paper at SIGGRAPH, the software vendors are looking at ways to put them to work. That's how we know to expect big things in the 2012-2013 season.

I'm still assimilating a lot of what I learned this year, but I have one idea that I can't shake. Maybe 10 years or so ago, we talked about the major problems of computer graphics having been solved. It's true, too. Scientists and engineers know how to simulate reality, but it still requires enormous effort to re-create the real. That's a job that's never finished. Thank goodness. It gives us a reason to go to SIGGRAPH every year.

SIGGRAPH: Tuesday

George Maestri — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 14:28:00 GMT

The trade show floor opened this morning, and the show got into full swing. The trade show seemed a bit bigger and more fleshed out this year, perhaps indicating that travel budgets are getting healthier. As usual, the show floor was a mix of software and hardware companies, publishers, production studios, and animation schools.

It was nice to see a Side Effects Software booth at this year's show. The company is celebrating 25 years in the business, and in that time, they've created a number of ground breaking technologies. Side Effects recently announced a major price cut to Houdini, their high end animation and visual effects software, which is used at a number of top studios. The base version is $1995, which includes modeling, rendering, and animation tools. For $4495, you can upgrade to the VFX package, which has some of the best particle, fluid, and cloth tools available.

Luxology was exhibiting right behind the Unity booth, and Luxology's new version of Modo, surprisingly enough, has a number of tools that connect it to Unity. Modo 601's new character tools go a long way towards making Modo a full-fledged animation solution.

Speaking of Unity, the company is previewing the upcoming 4.0 release, which is promising more realistic rendering, particularly for mobile games. The new Mecanim character tool will also make adding characters to games a lot easier. The game engine has become quite popular, partly because it has so many different ways to publish games. The current version allows games to be distributed on up to 10 different types of platforms.

Canon doesn't normally attend Siggraph, but this year they had a large booth where they were showing off the Canon MR (Mixed Reality) technology. This is a form of virtual reality where 3D objects and animation are combined with real time video images. This allows you to see an augmented reality. One demo showed consisted of some car seats in the middle of a blank floor. When you put on Canon's MR goggles, you see a virtual rendering of the car surrounding you. This technology shows promise for all sorts of visualization needs.

A number of studios were also exhibiting. Pixar had a large booth where they were showing off some scenes from Brave as well as other projects that use Renderman rendering technology. One fairly new feature is Pixar's on-demand render cloud for Renderman. This allows studios to scale up their renderman renderings by using Pixar servers to do the heavy lifting.

Stepping off of the trade show floor, the emerging technologies exhibit is always a way to get a peek into the virtual future. Some of the more interesting projects on display was MIT's Moodmeter, which took a video image of the crowd standing in front of it, and placed smiley, frowny, or neutral faces over each person's head, depending on their facial expression. Standing in the crowd, you kind of wanted to smile for the MIT cameras. Another cool little display was called SpalshDisplay, which used LED lights and foam beads to simulate the action of splashing water. Finally, Disney's interactive plants created a virtual flower behind a real one. Touching the real flower caused the virtual one to react. It was a simple idea, but quite addicting.

SIGGRAPH: Monday

George Maestri — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 18:31:00 GMT

Mondays at Siggraph are usually fairly quiet. The show really heats up when the trade show opens on Tuesday, so most of the people at the show on Monday are there for the papers, panels, and art exhibits. Still, there were quite a few things to see.

The keynote speaker this year was Jane McGonigal, the Chief Creative Officer of SuperBetter Labs. She's an advocate of using game technology to better the world, and uses alternative reality games (ARGs) to conduct research, build communities, connect with markets, and solve real-world problems. She wants to make it as easy to save the world in real life as it is in an online game.

Perhaps 3D printing can be part of this master plan, allowing people to print objects as needed. This technology continues to move towards the mainstream, and there were a lot of printers being shown. Some companies even allowed you to print your own objects. MakerBot was showing it's $1749 Replicator, which is the second generation 3D printer from them. This extends the original MakerBot by creating bigger objects with more precision. It's also gives the average person an affordable entry into 3D printing. Along similar lines, the DIYLILCNC people were showing their open source do-it-yourself 3-axis CNC machine made out of plywood.

Another cool 3D printer is by MCOR, whose Matrix 300 uses plain old copier paper as the printing medium. The printer cuts out sections from paper, then glues the layers together. The final result are very smooth and light models that resemble a very tough version of paper mache.

On the press release front, Lightwave has announced version 11.5 of their 3D modeling, animation, and rendering software. Tighter integration with Z-Brush is one of the main features, along with some very cool dynamics and fiber/hair simulation. Their new iridescent car paint material will also add a lot of zing to your renders.

Not to be outdone, Maxon has announced the next version of Cinema 4D. New features for the 3D suite include a very nice sculpting system that is based on their production proven Bodypaint engine. The package continues its tight integration with compsiting by adding a seamless connection to NUKE, along with the ability to manipulate 3D lights, textures, and objects within Photoshop.

The show kicks into full gear today, with the opening of the trade show. It should be a very busy day for all involved.

George Maestri is contributing editor to CGW. He can be reached at: maestri@rubberbug.com.

SIGGRAPH: LA, We Love It!

Kathleen Maher — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 15:21:00 GMT

Siggraph returns to LA and the clans gather from all over the world

Siggraph is a hardy organization built from the work of true-believing volunteers working within the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) is addicted to LA.

Los Angeles, home to the US movie industry and big chunks of the game development, advertising, and other graphically oriented industries, brings money to the strained coffers of Siggraph so it can take its show on the road, back east where young graphics professionals are eager to show what they can do, to Europe where the adventurous scientists push explore immersive 3D and augmented reality, and to Asia where graphics meets robotics and force feedback. Hollywood is a big spender, but it isn't always the great innovator.

Movies stars, swimming pools, LA hosts Siggraph 2012 (Source: JPR)

France is coming to the show with a group of freshly incubated companies from business cluster Cap Digital and PREDA (Paris Region Economic Development Agency). Included in the bunch is 4D View with new scanning technologies, Golaem crowd simulation software, Ayotle motion capture, new renering technology from Mercenaries Engineering and many more. Twelve companies in all will be showing new technology from the Paris region.

Every year we see an explosion of new rendering companies arrive at Siggraph from all over the world. They come with big hopes, but they're leaping into a pond with some very big and very mean fish. This year clouad rendering is going to be the cool technology also, papers on real time rendering for games are going to be a be draw.

The Techtile Toolkit transmits the haptic feedback from one source to another (Source: the Tachi Lab)

In the Emerging Technologies portion of the show researchers look for the line between the digital and the real, and they try to blur that line. TachiLab The Emerging Technologies award winner comes from Tokyo's Tachi Lab. They're bringing the Techtile Toolkit, a method of transferring haptic feedback.

All that's what we're expecting to see, next we'll tell you what we actually did see.

Epic Graphics

Andrew Burnes — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 16:49:00 GMT

Last year at GDC 2011, Epic Games unveiled their Unreal Engine 3 Samaritan demo in partnership with NVIDIA, giving gamers a preview of next-generation graphics. Pushing three GeForce GTX 580s operating in SLI to their limit, Samaritan wowed all with a level of fidelity previously unseen in a real-time demonstration. At GDC 2012 Epic showed the Samaritan demo once more, but instead of three GTX 580s the demo was powered by a single 'Kepler' graphics card, later revealed to be the GTX 680, our flagship GPU.

Unbeknown to most, Epic was also showing its closest partners a first look at Unreal Engine 4, the studio's next-generation development platform said to feature all of Samaritan's enhancements, a new development pipeline, and a raft of new technology. Sadly, all footage and info was embargoed, preventing us from telling you about the demo's stunning visuals and technological advances.

Today, that restriction was lifted, so below you'll find an in-depth, technically-minded interview with Unreal Engine pioneer Tim Sweeney, two glorious HD videos, and two-dozen super-high-resolution screenshots that will give you your first proper look at the next-generation of videogame graphics. Please note, each asset was captured in real-time on a single GeForce GTX 680 and was in no way edited, Photoshop'd, or pre-rendered.

Exclusive Interview: Tim Sweeney On Unreal Engine 4

There's a holy grail in every industry. For energy, it's nuclear fusion; for medicine, it's a cure for cancer; for space exploration, it's faster-than-light propulsion. The holy grail of anything is by definition difficult, expensive, or simply the stuff of science fiction. Perhaps that's why we want it so bad.

The holy grail of computer graphics is real-time Global Illumination. Global Illumination is a way of rendering the game world by simulating the behavior of light as it bounces from surface to surface. But emulating nature at the photon level is a very expensive business, which is why Global Illumination has only been used selectively to render complex CGI scenes in films.

That's about to change. With Unreal Engine 4, games will be rendered for the first time with Global Illumination in real-time. To understand the implications of this we spoke to Tim Sweeney, the founder of Epic Games and mastermind of all things Unreal.

What are the key design goals for Unreal Engine 4?

We have three big goals. First, to define the next generation of graphics capabilities that are achievable with DirectX 11 PC's and future consoles. Second, to deliver a toolset with an unprecedented mixture of power, ease-of-use, and polish. And finally, to scale the technology and its feature set up and down the spectrum of future computing devices, including iOS and Android, and mainstream PC.

What is the target platform for UE4? What kind of hardware are gamers going to need to run UE4 based games?

Unreal Engine 4's next-generation renderer targets DirectX 11 GPU's and really starts to become interesting on hardware with 1+ TFLOPS of graphics performance, where it delivers some truly unprecedented capabilities. However, UE4 also includes a mainstream renderer targeting mass-market devices with a feature set that is appropriate there.

How does the technology in UE4 compare to that of the 'Samaritan' demo?

The 'Samaritan' demo we showed at GDC 2011 was just an early prototype to test out some next-generation ideas our graphics team had. UE4 technologies go well beyond that, starting with a new real-time indirect lighting pipeline that fundamentally changes the kinds of scenes that can be supported.

What is Global Illumination and why is it so important to game realism?

Global Illumination refers to the calculation of light bouncing around a scene. GI is responsible for many of the subtle shading effects and ambience we see in real-world environments, as well as glossy and metallic reflections. Introducing real-time Global Illumination into Unreal Engine 4 is the biggest breakthrough in lighting since Unreal Engine 1 introduced real-time Direct Illumination in 1995.

Please give us an overview of how the algorithm works from generating the octree, to cone tracing, to the gathering pass.

The technique is known as SVOGI - Sparse Voxel Octree Global Illumination, and was developed by Andrew Scheidecker at Epic. UE4 maintains a real-time octree data structure encoding a multi-resolution record of all of the visible direct light emitters in the scene, which are represented as directionally-colored voxels. That octree is maintained by voxelizing any parts of the scene that change, and using a traditional set of Direct Lighting techniques, such as shadow buffers, to capture first-bounce lighting.

Performing a cone-trace through this octree data structure (given a starting point, direction, and angle) yields an approximation of the light incident along that path.

The trick is to make cone-tracing fast enough, via GPU acceleration, that we can do it once or more per-pixel in real-time. Performing six wide cone-traces per pixel (one for each cardinal direction) yields an approximation of second-bounce indirect lighting. Performing a narrower cone-trace in the direction of specular reflection enables metallic reflections, in which the entire scene is reflected off each glossy surface.

[Editor's Note: If the above sequence seems alien to you, it's because it is. Global Illumination requires a totally new lighting pipeline. In a traditional game, all indirect lighting (light that is bounced from a surface) is calculated in advance and stored in textures called lightmaps. Lightmaps give game levels a GI-look but since they are pre-computed, they only work on static objects.

In Unreal Engine 4, there are no pre-computed lightmaps. Instead, all lighting, direct and indirect, is computed in real-time for each frame. Instead of being stored in a 2D texture, they are stored in voxels. A voxel is a pixel in three dimensions. It has volume, hence the term "voxel."

The voxels are organized in a tree structure to make them efficient to locate. When a pixel is rendered, it effectively asks the voxel tree "which voxels are visible to me?" Based on this information it determines the amount of indirect light (Global Illumination) it receives.

The simple takeaway is this: UE4 completely eliminates pre-computed lighting. In its place, it uses voxels stored in a tree structure. This tree is updated per frame and all pixels use it to gather lighting information.]

Other game engines also claim to have real-time GI in one flavor or another. What makes the UE4 implementation unique?

Techniques such as Light Propagation Volumes have shipped in past games, and provided an approximate solution for real-time diffuse Global Illumination. The SVOGI solution in UE4 is unique in that it allows a full-scene indirect specular and reflective solution. This solution is key to the realistic rendering of metallic and glossy surfaces.

DirectX Compute is used extensively in the renderer. Tell us a bit more about that.

In the UE4 Elemental demo, the majority of the GPU's FLOPS are going into general compute algorithms, rather than the traditional graphics pipeline. This shouldn't be surprising, as the core of the traditional pipeline is fed by fixed-function hardware and will ultimately be saturated given more performance at a fixed resolution. But the compute pipeline has unlimited forward scalability, so the compute trend should only grow in the future.

How has the PhysX engine evolved in UE4? How is it used in the demo?

We used PhysX for all collision queries in UE4, and all the physics objects you see in the interactive part of the demo (hammer, statues, planets etc).

From an artist's perspective, how does making a game using UE4 differ from existing graphics engines?

Despite the advanced graphical feature set, the tools are actually the most unprecedented part of UE4. The combination of power and ease-of-use goes way beyond our past engine efforts, enabling artists and designers to take control of far more of the pipeline than was possible in the past.

Nvidia's VGX Technology

Alex Herrera — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 19:49:00 GMT

Nvidia fills its annual Graphics Technology Conference (GTC) with details on all kinds of uses for its GPUs. This year, the company showcased VGX, a technology for harnessing its new Kepler GPUs as remote renderers to serve many, potentially distant and heterogeneous client platforms. (See "Nvidia launches the Kepler era," http://gfxspeak.com/2012/05/15/nvidia-launches-the-kepler-era-of-virtual-gpu-computing-and-accessible-hpc/) Virtually every analyst and techno-rag in the business has opined on VGX, debating its merits and prognosticating on its long-term prospects.

But beyond all that's been discussed publicly, there's another strategic, under-the-radar angle on VGX to consider, one that doesn't appear on any Nvidia marketing collateral and that no one is talking about. It's one that ties in quite elegantly with Nvidia's future direction hawking non-x86 platforms. Apparently the result of coincidence rather than intent, VGX may prove a valuable technology to help grease the skids for a future business thrust that will be even more critical to the company's long-term prospects: Project Denver.

With Project Denver, Nvidia promises a high-performance 64-bit version of ARM to challenge x86 for homes in mainstream, corporate, and consumer PCs, as well as workstations and servers. For Nvidia, it opens up much opportunity far beyond low-power mobiles. Nvidia's first disclosures of Denver came on the heels of Microsoft's early 2011 announcement that the Windows 8 generation OS would support ARM platforms in addition to x86.

Now, Nvidia has known for some time that a business model based solely on discrete GPUs wouldn't sustain its market position indefinitely, particularly not in the age of microprocessors with integrated graphics, like Intel's Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge, and AMD's Fusion. That recognition drove Nvidia to ARM-based SoCs for mobile applications, and the result is the now-successful Tegra line. With Denver, Nvidia will be looking to push ARM further, and that's a sensible strategy, given Nvidia's rock-and-hard-place position at the moment.

The chances of long-term success through hitching its wagon to x86 are poor for Nvidia, given the daunting technical and legal challenges of being an x86 supplier, as well as the prospects of facing formidable Intel on its home turf. But the Denver option is a path rife with risk as well. ARM today is nowhere near ready for prime time duty in the enterprise, key obstacles being the aforementioned lack of 64-bit support, and the enduring demand for legacy x86 support. Nvidia and the ARM consortium can fix the 64-bit issue, but there's absolutely nothing they can do about addressing the lack of support for legacy x86.

But here's where the interesting synergy with VGX lies. Legacy x86 isn't as big a problem when the x86 machine is no longer a physical x86 machine on the desk, but is a virtual x86 machine in the datacenter. Enable a more enterprise-acceptable solution for non-x86 clients, and those non-x86 clients will be more likely to proliferate ... non-x86 clients exactly like the ones Project Denver is intended to spawn.

Nvidia itself points out that a key motivation behind VGX was to both enable and exploit the growing and inevitable trend of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) in the enterprise. IT departments are struggling with managing the diverse array of heterogeneous clients that employees are bringing to work and demanding to use, including tablets and smartphones. With VGX, each client need only a VGX-aware Citrix or VMWare client, and presto, no more (OK, far fewer) worries about lack of legacy x86 out on corporate desks. Employees can bring their own hardware, and the company issues a PC "application" that runs on the VGX server, displaying on the client, regardless of hardware make-up.

Given how a technology like VGX will help to ease the implementation of heterogeneous, non-x86 enterprises, it's not a big leap to wonder if greasing the skids for Denver was another (secondary perhaps) motivation for VGX. We asked Nvidia that very question - is VGX helping to pave the way for Project Denver? - and the answer was "no". We believe the real answer is that VGX and Denver were parallel threads, promoted on their own individual merits. But we also imagine that Nvidia has some point recognized the positive role VGX could play in paving the way for Project Denver's eventual high-performance non-x86 clients. And it will be keeping that in mind as it lays down the rest of its cards over the next couple of years.

Nvidia made the right call in not pursuing the x86 path. That's not because the prospects of x86 are poor, but because the challenges and pitfalls associated with that path are extremely daunting. ARM was the next logical ISA choice, given that it represents on mobile devices the near-monopoly x86 does in corporate clients. Nvidia would love nothing better to cross over from mobiles to PC-class clients riding the back of ARM, and it will fix some of the technical challenges, like 64-bit, to make it happen. But in the end, technologies like VGX might prove just as critical in pursuing that goal, laying a more welcoming foundation for eventual Project Denver offspring in the enterprise.

Alex Herrera is a senior analyst with Jon Peddie Research. His work appears regularly in GraphicSpeak (http://gfxspeak.com).

Nvidia GPUs Render Stunning Visuals In Transformers Ride

Dominick Spina — Wed, 30 May 2012 19:13:00 GMT

Universal Studios took the wraps off its latest attraction recently, a $40 million technological tour de force stuffed with more high-tech gadgetry than an electronics superstore.

The new Transformers: The Ride at Universal Studios, Hollywood, is purpose-built to deliver a more immersive jolt than audiences have ever experienced.

Transformers: The Ride

Cost to build: $40 million

Building size: 60,000 sq. ft.

Height: 60 ft tall

Ride track: 2,000 ft long

Ride vehicle: Custom platform can roll, pitch and rotate 360 degrees

Audio: 5,000 watts/vehicle

Screens: 14 screens (oversized front projection, rear projection, flat and compound curved)

Projectors: 34 total, projecting imagery at 4K x 4K (4096x4096 pixels)

A fleet of custom-designed motion-platform vehicles takes 12 passengers at a time on a simulated ride through a Transformers battlescape, pausing before towering screens depicting attacking Transformers in photorealistic 3D. This is where several elements come together to make riders feel like they've entered a real robotic rumble:

These dual projectors make 3D magic.

The 3D imagery boasts 4K x 4K resolution, or four times greater than the typical movie.

Some of the ride's 14 screens are curved around the audience, deepening the illusion of being immersed in the action. Each vehicle is like a flight simulator, whose motion is synchronized to the on-screen action. Every vehicle is outfitted with a 5,000 watt, 14 channel audio system to heighten the experience.

The ride's impressive visuals were painstakingly rendered at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) over the course of two years. The challenge: render all-new content using huge datasets in 4K resolutions, in 3D, at the correct perspective for each screen (some of which are compound curved). It turned out to be harder than the folks at ILM expected, but the team leveraged NVIDIA GPUs to make the high-resolution magic happen.

Chick Russell, Universal Creative's show producer, said, "We were using every single server and computer that ILM had. This was the most complex project ILM ever worked on."

Check out this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2kuSCaL0KU&feature=player_embedded for NVIDIA's exclusive behind-the-scenes visit.

Jeff White, the visual effects supervisor at ILM, said, "Almost all of our work is in 3D. The Transformers, the robots, the backgrounds - all of it is the heaviest, most complicated characters we can possibly work with. Optimus on the first film was over 10,000 pieces - every robot is easily over a million polygons.

"The real key to the creative part of the process is the ability to iterate fast," he said. "That's why the NVIDIA GPUs are such a big part of our work. When you're able to animate Optimus or Megatron and see them play back in real time, it is so key to judge their real performance. Because these characters are so difficult to work with, that's where we rely on the speed of the Quadro GPUs, for that real-time feedback."

Of course Universal Creative needed a sophisticated way to blast all those pretty pixels onto the screens. They do that through an array of 34 Christie projectors with custom 3D lenses.

Russell summed it up neatly: "This is without a doubt the most technically advanced ride that Universal Studios has ever done."

The ride opened the end of May at Universal Studios, Hollywood. Tell them NVIDIA sent you.

BONUS: Win an NVIDIA T-shirt! Simply leave a comment at http://blogs.nvidia.com/2012/05/nvidia-gpus-render-stunning-visuals-in-transformers-ride/# Respond with your best guess of the Transformer part below, and the movie in which it appeared, to be entered to win.

Disney/Pixar's Action-Adventure 'Brave'

Thu, 24 May 2012 13:05:00 GMT

Studios have capitalized on film projects for years through a variety of avenues - from action toys, to theme-park attractions, to theatrical performances, to cruises with characters. Now there are inspired adventures.

As Disney prepares to release the animated feature "Brave," audiences can now step out of the theater and become immersed in this world with Adventures by Disney's first-ever Pixar-inspired itinerary, "Scotland: A Brave Adventure." Disney/Pixar's "Brave" tells the tale of the courageous Merida, the film's headstrong teenage protagonist, who defies ancient tradition and challenges destiny to change her fate. (For an in-depth look at how the movie was created, be sure to read the June-July 2012 issue of CGW.) This nine-day, eight-night quest through Edinburgh, the Isle of Skye, the Isle of Lewis and Inverness takes families through the rugged Highlands, allowing them to experience first-hand the history, culture, nature, legends and lore of Scotland that inspired Merida's story of bravery.

Adventures by Disney offers themed guided tours - sharing the stories of the world through various international itineraries. For "Scotland: A Brave Adventure," Adventures by Disney's trip-planning specialists worked directly with the expert storytellers on Pixar's "Brave" production team to incorporate the castles, landscapes and legends that inspired the lush settings and memorable characters in the film - creating a Scotland experience that could only come from Disney. Guests will discover locations that inspired Pixar's creative spark during visits to the historic Black House of Arnol and the Gearrannan Blackhouse Village, both of which served as reference for the Witch's cottage, and Dunnottar Castle, one of the inspirations for the DunBroch family's home.

Beyond the drawing board, the culture of the Scottish Highlands will come to life through authentic, hands-on activities - a hallmark of Adventures by Disney itineraries. On the Isle of Skye, adventurers will partake in traditional highland games, make Scottish pastries - a favorite treat of Merida's triplet brothers - and take lessons in Celtic music and dance. While traveling through Inverness, guests will participate in two of Merida's favorite activities - horseback riding through the Caledonian Forest and archery at Glamis Castle. In Edinburgh, families will learn the art of tapestry-making at Dovecot Studios.

Another signature of an Adventures by Disney vacation, families will visit the country's most treasured historical sites - including Eilean Donan and Edinburgh Castles, the ancient Callanish Standing Stones and Dun Carloway Broch on the Isle of Lewis - but in unique ways that only Disney could dream up. Rather than just walking the shores of Loch Ness, guests will go on a canoe expedition where they will search for "Nessie" and discover the picture-perfect Urquhart Castle. In the capital city, travelers will tour the Royal Mile, including privately-guided visits to the Palace of Holyroodhouse - the Scottish home of the Royal Family - and the National Museum of Scotland, where they will learn fascinating details of the ancient period in which "Brave" is set. Each departure features two knowledgeable Adventure Guides who will serve as leaders, storytellers, companions and personal concierge - taking care of all the details for a truly hassle-free travel experience.

"'Scotland: A Brave Adventure' combines the creative genius of Pixar Animation Studios with Disney's ability to bring iconic stories to life with in a whole new way," said Josh D'Amaro, Vice President, Adventures by Disney. "For the first time ever, our guests will be fully immersed in the legends and locations that inspired the film. 'Brave' is the perfect tale for Adventures by Disney to share; Merida's experience speaks to the importance of the family bond - a cornerstone of any Disney vacation."

Facebook IPO

Darren Hayes — Fri, 18 May 2012 20:16:00 GMT

Today we witnessed one of the most incredible Initial Public Offerings (IPO), as Facebook went public. Analysts had estimated that after going public, the company's valuation may reach $100 billion. They were close. It's valuation was $104.2 billion.

The usage of this social media giant is staggering - with more than half a billion users worldwide, and that number continues to grow exponentially. There is no question that the company has enjoyed enormous success, but as a former investment banker, I must remind you that true investors don't care about what you did yesterday, but "what will you do for me tomorrow?" There are some significant challenges that lay ahead for the company. Serious questions have been raised about the effectiveness of marketing through social media Web sites. Only this week, General Motors (GM) announced that they were dropping Facebook as a conduit for their advertising campaign.

GM, the third largest US advertiser, felt that Facebook garnered only half the user clicks that Google could accomplish. Nevertheless, a more daunting test awaits the company in the short term in the guise of new European Union (EU) privacy legislation. The Data Protection Directive (Directive 95/46/EC) is being overhauled as the EU Parliament seeks to introduce new draconian online privacy legislation. This legislation is largely the antithesis of what exists for online companies in the US.

Under the new legislation, which could be introduced as early as 2013, consumers will not be opted-in by default to having their information shared with third-parties, and companies like Facebook will be required to seek permission from the user before sharing personal information. Furthermore, consumers will have the right to request that their information be permanently removed from an online company's databases.

What is particularly surprising about the legislation is that a consumer may request that their personal information be transmitted to another service provider. In essence, this means that Facebook must facilitate the transmission of their personal information, can then force Facebook to delete their records on their system, and move on to the next big social media site with very little effort from the customer. Privacy by default will inevitably have a serious impact on advertising revenues for Facebook, which received around 85% of their $3.71 billion in revenue last year from advertising.

There are approximately 500 million citizens of the EU. An EU mandate has already been issued to online companies to provide a new standard for using cookies; consumers must be allowed to opt-out of their information being shared with third parties. Online companies have been warned that failure to comply will result in significant fines, and an inability to provide a solution will result in a new standard being imposed on them later this year. The Obama Administration has also made it clear of its intentions to abate online privacy concerns by hoping to introduce new legislation and imposing fines on companies who have tried to circumvent existing laws. They have acted vigorously through the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Google has been in the headlines numerous times as a result of FTC probes, but Facebook has also settled with the FTC relating to privacy improprieties. We should acknowledge the success of Facebook and its creator Mark Zuckerberg. It is difficult to comprehend that this type of technical innovation could occur anywhere but here in the United States. It is this type of ingenuity that will continue to help America remain competitive. Although I ask that investors do their due diligence, it is indeed a great day for our country.

[Editor's note: According to news reports, Facebook's $16 billion IPO has made Zuckerberg the 29th richest person in the world, surpassing Google's co-founders.]

Darren Hayes is a professor at Pace University's Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems in New York and chair of Pace's Computer Information Systems Program who began a 10-year career in the financial services industry in 1990 as a stock analyst with Cantor Fitzgerald at the World Trade Center.