Portfolio Section on CGW.com

Portfolio - Sep/Oct 2014

Siggraph — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 07:00:00 GMT

Each year, the "been there, done that" crowd at SIGGRAPH continues to be impressed by the animations featured in the Computer Animation Festival's Electronic Theater and Daytime Selects. And this year was no different in that regard.

The theater itself was outfitted and dressed nicely, says Cogswell Polytechnical College's Jerome Solomon, this year's chair. "A large screen from RealD. Awesome, beautiful digital projectors from Christie. The work looked better than ever. We also added some fun for our attendees, like serving popcorn on premiere night."

This year, 477 juried submissions were received from 40 countries, and of those, 35 were accepted into the festival, along with 26 invited entries. The works span a number of categories, including: Animated Feature Film, Computer Animation Shorts, Games, Short Film, Student Projects, Commercial Advertisements, Visual Effects, Visualization and Simulations, and Compilations. For the first time, awards were given in every category. "We have more awards this year because it is a major achievement for an individual to make it in to the Computer Animation Festival's Electronic Theater. We felt people earned the right to be acknowledged with an award for their achievement."

Solomon points out that the level of student work this year was quite high, with three of the nine award winners being student projects.

"The work is just incredible. It's such a difficult process to cut from nearly 400 pieces from around the world, down to 35. So, you were truly seeing the best in the world at SIGGRAPH," Solomon says. "It was a great room to be in because you were probably sitting next to someone who has done something amazing. It was a very cool experience for all our attendees, and it only happens at SIGGRAPH."

The excitement was not limited to the Theater. Daytime Select was totally different this year. "I kept saying it was going to blow people's socks off their feet!" Rachel Corres curated the work. There was stop motion, traditional animation, Demoscene, Canadian animation, and even some great live-action short films. "We wanted to make Daytime Select something different than just another place to see 'more CG.' It was a must-see event and a pleasant and unique surprise for our attendees." - Karen Moltenbrey

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Portfolio - Aug/Sep 2012

Siggraph — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 07:00:00 GMT

Each year, art and technology, innovation and craft converge at the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival (CAF), featuring animations from various genres—full-length and short films, music videos, real-time projects, visualizations/simulations, and more.

“We are proud to have presented an eclectic array of pieces, ranging from the visually stunning animated shorts and VFX breakdowns to gorgeous and informative scientific visualizations,” says The Creative-Cartel’s Josh Grow, who returned once again as the CAF chair for the second consecutive year at SIGGRAPH 2012. “Our jury reviewed hundreds of entries from all over the world and created a selection of works with the highest level of originality, craft, storytelling, and technology.” For the past several conferences, SIGGRAPH has opted for a more film-festival-like atmosphere. While the 2012 CAF still embraced those elements, the organizers brought back the classic Animation Theater to the program. Now called the Daytime Selects, these reels consisted of “amazing content that we just couldn’t fit into the two hours of the Electronic Theater,” notes Grow. More than 600 pieces were submitted for consideration to this year’s festival. Of those, nearly half were from students. A jury of industry professionals then selected 29 projects for the evening Electronic Theater program. More than 60 projects (divided into three reels) were part of the Daytime Selects, as were three additional reels of content (animation, entertainment, and art) from the Japan Media Arts Festival.

“The content gets better and better. This year’s show was particularly difficult to put together due to all the amazing content we received from every stretch of the industry,” says Grow. “The CAF is the best of the best from all over the world,” Grow continues. “And it’s the one place to see all the greatest minds in our industry come together and celebrate their hard work and achievements.”

A selection of images from this year’s Computer Animation Festival (courtesy of ACM SIGGRAPH 2012) appears on these two pages. –Karen Moltenbrey

Portfolio - Oct/Nov 2011

Various — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 07:00:00 GMT

Art of Pixar

On November 22, 1995, Pixar Animation Studios forever impacted the future of fi lmmaking, storytelling, and the medium of animation with its first feature film, Toy Story. Released nine years after the founding of Pixar, Toy Story exhibited years of creative and technical achievements from a small group of passionate computer scientists and animators, led by present-day president Ed Catmull and chief creative officer John Lasseter. The feature, marking the birth of the new medium of computer animation, went on to become the highest-grossing fi lm of 1995 with $362 million in worldwide box-office receipts. Lasseter, director of Toy Story, was honored with a Special Achievement Academy Award for his “inspired leadership of the Pixar Toy Story team resulting in the first feature-length computer-animated film.”

Since then, Pixar’s computer animation has been embraced by generations young and old alike, and has inspired many of today’s computer artists. This past summer, Disney/Pixar released its 12th CGI feature, Cars 2. Along the way, the studio also has created a number of beloved CG animated short films. Beginning with Pixar’s second movie, A Bug’s Life, the studio has presented a short film at the start of each subsequent feature. Often, they serve as a technological test for the artists working on a new technique.

To truly appreciate the artistry behind the more recent fi lms, we think a road trip is in order, a journey through time to witness the progression of this art form through the work of Pixar (and later, Disney/Pixar) artists as they continue to improve on the techniques and technologies used to create these treasured fi lms. On this page spread, we present images from the studio’s features, and on the next, images from its various shorts.

Portfolio - June/July 2011

Siggraph — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 07:00:00 GMT

Animated shorts. Commercials. Visual effects for live action. Games. Music videos. Long animated short fi lms. Scientifi c animations. Real-time animations. Images from all these genres and more will be featured in this year’s Computer Animation Festival, held yearly during the SIGGRAPH conference and exhibition.

Always a highlight of SIGGRAPH, the festival showcases the breadth and depth of digital animation by professionals and students as they push the boundaries of CG technology. This year, the festival jury, headed by The Creative Cartel’s Joshua Grow, reviewed nearly 900 submissions to the showcase, of which 77 were selected for various genre screenings. In addition to these pieces, several invited selections will also captivate audiences during both the Electronic Theater and genre reel screenings.

“Every year we are seeing the bar getting raised higher in terms of technology and artistry,” Grow says. “This year’s submissions prove that.” Grow, who has been a SIGGRAPH volunteer since 2002, served as student volunteer chair and festival producer and technical director. In 2012, he will continue his role as Computer Animation Festival director.

While the format of the festival has changed during the past few years, for the 2011 show, the committee is maintaining the tradition of the Electronic Theater, showcasing the best of the best for three nights and a Thursday matinee, while also keeping the fairly new festival format, offering screenings through the day with seven “amazing” production sessions, notes Grow.

Among the particularly noteworthy festival animations are those that received the coveted trio of awards: William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg’s “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore,” Best in Show Award winner; Damian Nenow’s “Paths of Hate,” Jury Award winner; and Tomer Eshed’s (The Konrad Wolf Potsdam-Babelsberg Film and Television University) “Flamingo Pride,” Best Student Project Prize winner.

A selection of still images from the festival is featured on these two pages. –Karen Moltenbrey

Portfolio March 2011

Various — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 07:00:00 GMT

Bahrain artist Khalid Al-Muharraqi, owner of Muharraqi-Studios, often incorporates the style of the Middle East into his work. In fact, the Portfolio section in the March 2011 issue showcases a number of of these images. While Muharraqi embraces this culture in his art, he does not limit himself to the style of the Middle East, as evidenced here.

“I try to reflect in my work the things that I am interested in,” he says. Muharraqi uses a range of content creation tools for his work. His main software is NewTek’s LightWave, although he also utilizes Pixologic’s ZBrush, Adobe’s Photoshop, and Luxology’s Modo.

Portfolio - January/February 2011

Various — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 08:00:00 GMT

Digital art encompasses many forms: sculptures created with 3D software and output using rapid prototyping, stunning virtual landscapes, beautifully rendered 3D objects or scenes, and computer-generated portraits, to name a few. For years, digital artists have created such imagery using CG tools, including an extensive palette from Autodesk.

As the CG software and hardware have advanced over the years, so, too, has the art. Also contributing greatly to the growing complexity in digital artwork have been the recent advancements in GPU-accelerated rendering solutions, enabling artists to expand their creativity further than ever before. In celebration of this creative evolution and the 20th anniversary of Autodesk’s widely used 3ds Max content-creation and animation software, the vendor—with support from Nvidia, maker of graphics accelerators-—sponsored a Rendering Revolution contest, a still-image architectural visualization competition.

The term “rendering revolution” describes the broad changes taking place in rendering as GPU-based computing power brings revolutionary workflows, speed, and performance capabilities to many aspects of the rendering process. “We have reached a point where artists can scale their rendering resources according to deadlines and other requirements. This will help artists and designers to explore ideas in a way that has never before been possible,” says Ken Pimentel, Autodesk director of product management, visual communication. “The submissions we received for this contest showcase what can be done with new rendering technologies, such as Quicksilver, Iray, and V-Ray RT.”

The design mandate was simple: Participants had to create a still image of an architectural scene incorporating the 3ds Max 20th anniversary logo in a recognizable and creative form. While artists could use any 3D software package for creating the work, the final image had to be rendered within either 3ds Max 2011 or 3ds Max Design 2011 using the native GPU rendering solutions (Quicksilver or Iray), or any GPU-accelerated, third-party renderer that works within the Max environment.

The results, though, were hardly simplistic, with submissions ranging from digital sculptures, to CG modern art, to architectural structures, and so much more. The winning entry, submitted by Chinese artist Qingfeng Chen, features an artistic rendering of the logo. The image was inspired by a diverse pile of steel pipes Chen noticed on a construction site. Secondand third-place prizes went to German artist Benjamin Brosdau and Italian artist Dionissios Tsangaropoulos, respectively. Those images, as well as stills from the other finalists, are featured on these two pages.

Portfolio - November 2010

Various — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 08:00:00 GMT

Portfolio - June 2010

Various — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 07:00:00 GMT

The Art of Ziv Qual

At 15 years of age, when digital artist Ziv Qual was first introduced to computer graphics, he was quickly hooked. “When I was first exposed to CG, I immediately knew that was what I wanted to do,” he says. Since then, he has trained himself by experimenting with the medium, furthering his skills and knowledge with tutorials and help from online forums.

Today, Qual is head of 3D at MDSimulation, a studio in Israel. While a professional CG artist, Qual also considers himself a hobbyist, with a preference toward fantasy. “I make a good living out of CG, but it is also my greatest passion,” he says.

As with any good artist, Qual’s work has evolved over the years. “Experience is always the key to evolving,” he explains. “Over the years, the ‘evolution’ occurs on two levels. First, you learn to develop an eye for details (lighting, colors, composition). Second, you learn from experience through the development of new technical approaches and solutions to achieve your goals. I think that improvement shows in the portfolio of any artist who is passionate enough to keep an open mind to new experiences in CG.”

According to Qual, his content creation process varies somewhat from project to project, particularly if he is building environments or crafting characters. “One thing I came to realize over the years is that rendering out many different passes to compile your final image in Photoshop gives you a great deal of freedom and can speed things up, as opposed to taking care of everything in the 3D stage,” he explains. In addition to using Adobe’s Photoshop for textures, the artist also employs Autodesk’s 3ds Max for all the 3D work (modeling, animating, rendering, and so forth), in addition to Adobe’s After Effects for post processes. On the hardware side, he had used a Boxx computer for some time, but has since upgraded to a new 64-bit, double quad-core machine.

While Qual bypassed traditional art training and focused directly on CG, he admits that the medium can be tricky. “In 3D, every aspect of the process—modeling, texturing, lighting, rendering, and so on—is complicated and requires a lot of skill to achieve desirable results,” he continues. “Many steps of the process rely on the other steps, and if you want to change something, it often means going back and redoing previous steps. The hard part of creating CG is knowing how to advance from step to step correctly to achieve the final result.”

Nevertheless, Qual would not switch to any other medium. “I love doing CG because it provides a wide range of tools that allow me the freedom to create anything I can imagine.” –Karen Moltenbrey

Portfolio - July 2010

Various — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:00:00 GMT

Theater experiences are meant to entertain. But the annual SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival does so much more. It is the place where creativity and innovation meet technology and industry.

This year, that trends continues. “We are proud to present a unique mix of independent creations and works by prominent production houses and studios, a mix of personal visions, and mainstream computer animations and visual effects,” says Isaac Kerlow, festival director.

Of the approximately 750 submissions, 94 will be featured as either jury selections or invited works; in both instances, the pieces are pushing boundaries in terms of originality, craft, storytelling, experimentation, and technology. Student works are also well represented, with 21 pieces by these novices. In terms of a global reach, 55 of the animations come from artists abroad.

For the past few years, the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival has been evolving, and this year marks the return of the popular Electronic Theater. “We have brought back the Electronic Theater, the tribal SIGGRAPH experience with an identical program three nights in a row, and we have included most of the jury selections in it,” says Kerlow.

In addition, there will be special screenings of TV commercials and cinematics, longer short films, and student projects.

“This year, the festival jury voted on submissions strictly within categories, and that proved to be a good system to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges,” Kerlow explains. To this end, the 2010 juried content falls within one of 10 categories: Computer Animation Shorts, Music Videos, TV and Web Commercials, Visualizations and Simulations, Student Projects, Animated Feature Films, Visual Effects for Short Films and TV Programs, Visual Effects for Live-Action Feature Films, Real-Time Animation, and Miscellaneous.

“The 2010 Computer Animation Festival continues the tradition of showcasing the best in computer animation and visual effects,” says Laura Henneman, this year’s festival manager. “I want attendees to enjoy and learn from the festival. My hope is that attendees will have an endorphin rush as they watch the screenings, and that they learn from the interesting and timely talks and panels that we have organized. The Stereo 3D screenings will attract major interest, while the panels and talks promise to be informative and useful as artistic and technical references.”

A selection of still images from some of the festival animations appears on these pages.

Portfolio - April 2010

Unleashed: — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 07:00:00 GMT

When you mention the name Naughty Dog, what comes to mind is a range of imagery—from the cartoon look of Crash Bandicoot and anime look of Jak and Daxter, to the painterly style and graphically detailed look of the widely popular Uncharted and Uncharted 2. The talent of the artists behind those highly acclaimed titles is as diversified in genre and medium as the aesthetics of the game art they create. Collectively, they produce amazing works admired throughout the computer game industry. Individually, they are artisans, pursuing their own passion outside of the work arena with the same intensity and creativity they illustrate daily at their desk.

Now, the public has the opportunity to see the scope of their talent that transcends the video game arena, as a number of these Naughty Dog colleagues display their art at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects’ on-campus gallery in Los Angeles. The exhibit features approximately 30 pieces, which range from traditional and digital sculpture, to photography, to matte paintings, and more.

“Naughty Dog obviously has been around for many years and has always been a top game studio. The quality and caliber of the work they are doing as a team just gets higher and higher,” says Gnomon founder Alex Alvarez. “Now we get to see their personal art, who they are as individuals.” The gallery artwork is strictly personal work, he adds, though many continue to do fantasy art that has a fantastical, sci-fi feel and vibe—some more so than others.

Gnomon opened its gallery a few years ago, enabling a number of talented folks—many who lecture and teach at the school or work on DVDs for The Gnomon Workshop—to display their works. Most galleries in Los Angeles focus on fine art, leaving the entertainment artists with few available venues. “To me, the artists we know who are focused on games and entertainment are among the most talented in the world, and I think many others feel the same way,” says Alvarez. “That is why we decided to put this gallery together.”

Former student Melissa Altobello, now at Naughty Dog, had approached Alvarez about featuring pieces from her colleagues at the school. “I think it is inspiring for the students to see this caliber of artwork that the professionals are doing. It gives them a target and shows them why they are at the school,” he says.

Portfolio - Dec 2009

Siggraph — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 08:00:00 GMT

The SIGGRAPH Art Gallery has a long tradition in presenting unique, inspiring pieces of work, from sculptures, to interactive pieces, to prints, and more. In the past, most of the art was juried, although depending on the chair, curated works appeared as well. Last year, Penn State Altoona’s Rebecca Strzelec established a curated gallery alongside the juried gallery, setting the tone for this year’s format, which covered a number of themes within the discipline of design computation—among them, “generative fabrication”—within a separate space.

“Generated fabrication shows extraordinary work inspired by the physical and biological world, which takes advantage of new production techniques enabled by computation,” says Bentley Systems’ Makai Smith, SIGGRAPH 2009 Curated Art chair. “The innovative structures, sculpture installations, and complex forms in the gallery showed how the computer has unlocked a new field of inquiry in art, architecture, and design.”

The installations, 14 in all, presented design ideas based on one of two themes: generative design and digital fabrication. As Smith explains, digital fabrication shows that the computer—as a medium for artistic expression, sculptural fabrication, or architectural structures and design—has the potential to enter the work at many points along the creative process.

“The theme of the gallery combines two of my professional experiences: in digital fabrication and in computational design software. I saw the gallery as a unique opportunity to show how these two very different worlds can come together,” Smith adds. “I selected the pieces, in consultation with an advisory committee, to show the ideas of the theme across a range of scales, from the nano-scale to large public buildings, and in different forms, such as art, sculpture, furniture, lighting, and architecture.”

Smith believes attendees found the work beautiful and inspiring. She also thinks that it piqued their curiosity about deeper ideas behind the work. “I hope some investigate further what they saw, to discover some of the first principles that make the works possible,” she says. “At SIGGRAPH, people connect with ideas as well as each other, so I wanted to show them amazing work by internally recognized artists that is grounded in techniques which attendees can use in their own practice.”

A selection of images from the Generative Fabrication gallery –Karen Moltenbrey

Siggraph 2009 CAF - Part 2

Siggraph — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:00:00 GMT

Carlye Archibeque is no novice when it comes to the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival. In 2007, she was assistant producer; in 2008, producer; and this year, chair. Having held those positions and having attended the conference and exhibition for the past decade, she has observed a number of changes in the festival, as each chair integrates his or her own aesthetic and technical sensibility through their many choices—everything from the wording of the Call for Entries toward a specific theme or specification, to carefully selecting the members of the jury.

Continuing with last year’s structure, this year’s festival includes presentation sessions related to making CG video content, from biomedical research visualizations to narrative animations. “The great thing about the festival sessions is they straddle the line between ultra-technical and entertaining,” Archibeque says.

And, of course, the theme of the entries themselves seems to vary year to year. For the narrative animations, Archibeque says there seems to be more of a sense of levity and hope in the stories than in past years. On the flip side, a lot of the darker-themed films are “pretty dark,” she adds. For pure look development, there is a lot of fluid and debris work in everything from commercials to visual effects films. Also, artists are playing with lighting and rendering in a number of submissions this year.

“Last year, the festival used its sessions to educate [show-goers] on the history of the CG industry. For example, there was a whole day devoted to the history of animation,” says Archibeque. “I took that concept and chose to focus on different aspects of the CG world where digital tools create visualizations that impact both the entertainment and personal parts of our lives.” For instance, there is a day of Talks and Panels on the history and progression of 3D urban planning tools that span pencils to 3D rendering of the reconstruction on parts of New Orleans after Katrina.

More than 800 entries were submitted to this year’s jury, with less than 150 juried pieces appearing in the festival, along with less than 20 curated pieces. Of the juried submissions, approximately 300 were from students.

So, how does this year’s festival compare to last year’s? “Every year is different. I have had an interesting and educational involvement in the festival for two years before I planned my own. After being involved in both the traditional structure and last year’s experimental restructuring, the goal was to provide the attendees with an experience that is a happy medium between the two, where new content can thrive and good traditions can live on.”

Presented on these pages is a sampling of images from animations that appeared in the festival. –Karen Moltenbrey

Siggraph 2009 CAF - Part 1

Siggraph — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:00:00 GMT

The art of animation has long been celebrated at the annual SIGGRAPH conference. For years, the Electronic Theater and Animation Theaters presented juried selections

during evening and daytime shows, respectively. Last year, the structure changed, refl ecting a traditional competitive festival format. This year, change is in the air yet again amid the colorful backdrop of New Orleans. Evening and afternoon performances are on tap once again in a fusion of sorts of the previous festival formats.

The Evening Theater comprises two 50-minute reels: the Jury Chair’s Reel, which highlights the top-ranked jury fi lms arranged by this year’s jury chair, ILM’s Miles Perkins, and the Festival Chair’s Reel, which contains a selection of top-ranked juried content curated into the Computer Animation Festival by this year’s festival chair, LightStage’s Carlye Archibeque. Each night opens with a real-time demo, including Fight Night 4, played on the big screen in real time by their respective designers.

The Afternoon Theater, meanwhile, splits the remaining selections and places them in thematic reels. For example, the Digital Schoolhouse reel contains all the scientifi c visualizations, urban-planning demos, and other material that enlightens the viewer about a specifi c subject, such as the universe, using CGI tools. Other highlights include a kid-friendly reel, dubbed Young at Heart, and one that borders on film noir, called The Underneath, which “is full of amazing pieces that dip into the dark side of narrative animation,” says Archibeque.

In addition to the theater presentations, the festival will contain session content. “I love a good theme, and for the reels that make up the theater content, I wanted to have a purpose and a reason for each being programmed the way it was, not only thematically but also structurally,” says Archibeque, who is also executive producer.

Archibeque says she built the festival with a nod to the 2009 SIGGRAPH theme “Network Your Senses” by looking at projects that use multiple technologies, as well as technologies with multiple applications—for example, stereoscopic fi lm techniques being used for entertainment as well as biomedical purposes, or GPUs, which create real-time content but may be incorporated into the VFX workflow. “It makes for interesting collisions of strains of the intelligently creative people who attend SIGGRAPH.”

This year, more than 100 projects will be featured at the festival, including those appearing on these two pages.

—Karen Moltenbrey

Portfolio - May 2009

Siggraph Asia — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:00:00 GMT

One of the more interesting displays at the annual SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition is the Art Gallery, whose changing theme each year brings with it new visual experiences. In December 2008, SIGGRAPH Asia kicked off what may become a similar Art Gallery tradition, when the premier conference for the computer graphics industry made its initial debut in Asia.

While the conference is modeled after the US-held SIGGRAPH, the Art Gallery chair for SIGGRAPH Asia devised a unique theme for that region’s show. (SIGGRAPH 2008, held in Los Angeles, chose the theme “Slow Art,” focusing on fundamentalism.) The title of the Asian show, “Synthesis,” refers to a kind of creative chaos, “a random transformation of structured knowledge and exploration in digital arts and emerging technologies,” says Tomoe Moriyama, SIGGRAPH Asia Art Gallery and Emerging Technologies chair. (The Singapore exhibit combined both those programs, merging their experimental histories.)

All told, the combined exhibits featured more than 30 projects and works. According to Moriyama, the Art Gallery presented pieces that transformed, melded, and transcended current Asian paradigms. Emerging Technologies presented a “rich resource of delicate, aesthetic technologies and vivid, innovative ideas that defined the future of computer graphics and interactive techniques.”

Similar to the US counterpart, the Asian Art Gallery featured curated work, as well. That, along with other related events, including collaborative panels with the Japan Media Arts Festival, further highlighted the area’s creative communities and demonstrated its possibilities.

Singapore, host of SIGGRAPH Asia 2008, has welcomed many international festivals and art shows, including ARS Electronica. “Common to all these events is an undercurrent of creating tools, interfaces, and platforms for information sharing, collaboration, or externalizing knowledge in order to share it with society,” explains Moriyama.

“At the end of the last century, our society changed greatly, and the new media art and technology fields changed along with it. There were so many intersections between different areas of science, engineering, technology, and art that, as with the 3D boom that comes into and out of fashion, the fruitful digital art evolution of the 1960s is sometimes forgotten,” Moriyama continues. “Yet, when contemplating the peak and the origin of current trends in Asian digital content, we should not forget the underlying experimental arts and sensor experiments. At all times, there are infinite difficulties as well as pleasures for the explorers on the frontiers, as they establish new fields beyond the list of previous possibilities.” —Karen Moltenbrey

Portfolio - January 2009

Robert — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 08:00:00 GMT

These two pages contain concept art from the video game Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy, created by the artists at High Moon Studios. Several alumni and a former instructor from The Art Institute of California–San Diego held roles in the game’s production. “This is the type of title that just about every Game Art & Design student strives to be a part of in their professional career; it’s great to see recent grads, some less than a year out of school, participating in a project of such high caliber. We are extremely proud of our graduates, and it’s amazing to see their hard work come to life in a game such as this,” says Jean Branan, director of career services.

Most people would not classify the 3D imagery found in a video game or a film as “art.” Perhaps it’s because they are looking at moving sequences rather than still frames. Yet, if folks had the chance to see the beautiful sketches that form the basis for the animated imagery, they would indeed agree that the term “art” is fitting.

A few months ago, The Art Institute of California–San Diego, in collaboration with High Moon Studios, presented a gallery exhibition of artwork from Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy video game. The third-person action title features a blend of hunter-prey activity with dramatic escapes, all designed around the Jason Bourne character’s signature combat style, popularized in the trio of feature films and described in the best-selling novels.

The Art Institute had a special interest in the game: Several of its alumni assumed a role in the development of the game.

“Given the success of the Robert Ludlum trilogy and the popularity of the Game Art & Design and Media Arts & Animation program, The Art Institute of California–San Diego was thrilled to showcase the talent of its alumni and faculty member who took part in the game’s evolution,” says Jody Auslund, public relations/communication coordinator at the school. “The focus of the exhibit was to showcase the talent of our alumni and the caliber of student coming out of our programs.”

This is the first time the school has hosted such an exhibit, though its graduates have worked on numerous popular games in the past, including Guitar Hero World Tour for the Wii, Midnight Club Los Angeles, and EverQuest II.

The eight students who worked on the Bourne game include: Charles Bradbury, environment artist; Tyler Wanlass, associate prop artist; Don Ott, associate prop artist; Jason Copeland, prop artist; Carlos Dominguez, technical artist; Jess Morris, cinematic animator; Chad Campbell, associate character setup artist intern; and Michael Vincent Castro, associate game designer. Alan O’Brian, a former Game Art & Design instructor at the school, assumed the role of animator.

All the images showcased at the exhibition were crafted in Adobe’s Photoshop CS2, and each image was created to provide a specific mood.

“I get to play for a living. As someone who transitioned out of the engineering industry into games, it’s a dream come true,” says Dominguez. —Karen Moltenbrey