On the heels of a successful worldwide launch of its latest computer-animated feature, Madagascar, DreamWorks Animation will have its biggest presence ever at Siggraph 2005, the world's largest computer graphics conference, taking place this week at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

With more presentations planned than any other major studio this year, DreamWorks Animation will present four courses, two panels and seven sketch presentations. The studio will also chair three sketch sessions and two birds of a feather talks.

In the conference's spirit of sharing knowledge and information with the community, the studio will showcase the technology and creativity behind Madagascar in a major course entitled "Madagascar: Bringing a New Visual Style to the Screen," as well as in a series of sketches and panels that focus on specific breakthroughs in CG foliage, water and characters, which were accomplished with this latest feature. Some of the highlights of these efforts will also be shown in a highlight reel during the conference's Electronic Theater presentations shown daily throughout the week. The following are more details on each talk:

• Courses:
  • Introduction to Articulated Rigid Body Dynamics
  • Madagascar: Bringing a New Visual Style to the Screen
  • Crowd and Group Animation
• Panels:
• The Open-Source Movement and the Graphics Community: How Can Open-Source, Third Party and Proprietary Software Models Coexist?
  • From University Lab to Movie Screen and Back Again: How does Research change Production Tools and How Do Production Needs Influence Academic Research?
  • Sketches:
  • Moving the Jungle in Madagascar
  • The Wig System
  • Procedural and Customizable Vine System in Madagascar
  • Sketch-based Modeling
  • Artistic Depiction
  • Beautiful Things
  • Collisions
  • Effects Omelette: Surfing Zebra, A Madagascar Effects Breakdown
• Birds of a Feather:
  • Linux for Entertainment Birds of a Feather
  • CGQA: Testing and Computer Graphics

In addition to the various presentations and panels, the studio will unveil artwork and footage from several upcoming films, such as Wallace & Gromit -- The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Over the Hedge, Flushed Away, Shrek 3, Bee Movie and Kung Fu Panda in its booth (#1131) on the convention floor.

Further, the studio will open up its campus in Glendale, California to educators and students from all over the world in its second annual Educator's Symposium. During the Symposium, various studio execs and key production artists and technicians will meet with educators and invite them to participate in sessions that would allow for them to understand how to better prepare their students for careers in the animation industry.

Source: Business Wire