Speakers - PIXELvienna10

Francesco starts his career in the videogames industry in Italy back in 2004 as animator.
After the first experience on a small development studio he moves to Holland where he gathers experience on motion capture and production management. He mixes the real animation and technical animation work (also for the serious development) with lecturing and mentoring at University level.

After a parenthesis as production manager for Forge Studios, a successful art outsourcing studio in Italy (League Of Legend, Ryse, Crysis 2 and 3, FEAR 3…), he decides to gets his hands dirty again. So he joins Rocksteady Studios as technical animator and collaborates to the development of Batman Arkham Knight.

Recently he has moved to Stockholm to join DICE. There he is taking part to the development of Mirror’s Edge Catalyst working on the fronts of character rigging, cloth simulation and tools development.

• Talk - EA Cloth, art and technology of Mirror’s Edge Catalyst Cloth Simulation

  A presentation of the EA Cloth technology and the related authoring workflow used during the development of Mirror’s Edge Catalyst for the creation of awesome cloth and drapery simulation.

  Reasons to attend:
  – Knowing more about the state of the art of the clothing simulation
  – Having a sneak peek about what happen behind the scenes of AAA development
  – Learning some basic principles to make your life easier when it comes to cloth simulation

  Audience:
  – Animators and technical animators
  – Technology geeks
  – Gamers and Mirror’s Edge Fans
  – EA products and technology enthusiasts.
  – … Anybody who is simply curious is more than welcome.

Tobias Mannewitz is one of the founders of the design studio KARAKTER (Berlin).<br/>As an award winning creative director and consultant, his work spans across multiple themes and industries, developing solutions for clients such as Audi, Guerrilla Games or Crytek.

Being a frequent speaker at industry conferences, Tobias Mannewitz enjoys sharing his belief in brand identity, authentic design solutions through intrinsic ideation, and a holistic approach to IP development.

• Talk - The Dragons are growing – Coping with the increasing vfx challenges for HBO’s “Game of Thrones”

  The visual effects designs for “Game of Thrones” (HBO) are amongst KARAKTER’s most popular recent work. VFX concept designer Tobias shares a look behind the scenes, showing how the VFX team adapts and grows from season to season, to cope with the ever increasing expectations.

  The talk will answer frequently asked questions and provide anecdotes and works beyond the usual VFX breakdows found online.

Philipp started out as a media designer and then gravitated towards programming. His interest in combining both areas is what got him into the games industry. From 2007 to 2012, he ran a small studio named bobblebrook, which focused on Flash and ad games, and later iOS games. From 2012 to 2014, he spent two years working by himself on a critically well-received mobile game named “Ace Ferrara And The Dino Menace”, for which he created all art, code, music and writing. He now works as a programmer and game designer at Socialspiel in Vienna. Philipp also lectures and holds workshops at various universities of applied sciences.

• Talk - Visual Effects in “Ace Ferrara And The Dino Menace”

  A common conception about shaders is that they define material properties for in-game 3D objects, but shaders can be employed to create a wide range of visual effects, both two- and three-dimensional. In his talk, Philipp Seifried will show a variety of visual effects from his game “Ace Ferrara And The Dino Menace” and explain how they are created, from animated skyboxes to wobbly dialogue text. The talk will be aimed at both game artists and graphics programmers.

Dorian Iten trains artists across digital and traditional disciplines to understand and use light as a creative tool. He is the author of Accuracy: A Drawing Guide, and the digital painting instructor at Barcelona Academy of Art.

• Talk - Workshop: How to Shade

  The goal of this workshop is to improve your confidence in shading your drawings/paintings. It is filled with practical insights that complement Dorian’s Harnessing the Magic of Light talk. We’ll be drawing, bring your tools of choice! (Digital and traditional.)

• Talk - Harnessing the Magic of Light

  Understanding light is a Superpower. It allows you to see things you’ve never seen before and to create visually convincing images. Dorian’s unique perspective cross-pollinates computer graphics and insights from the Old Masters.

  Pssst! Join Dorian on his workshop on avoiding three common shading mistakes.

Lee was working recently in Finland on the feature “Iron Sky”, in addition to being the VFX Supervisor on the film “Renee” and working on the pilot “Exit Stratergy” Previously serving as the CG Supervisor at Lucasfilm Animation in Singapore, Overseeing the 3D production of Star Wars The Clone Wars working with over 100 artists. Lee has been an instructor at the Digital Animation and Visual Effects School in Orlando, FL. Worked with Gerry Anderson on his “New Captain Scarlet” Series. Previously he was a CG Supervisor at Zoic Studios working on the Sci-Fi Channel’s Mini Series and first season of “Battlestar Galactica.” The mini-series was nominated for an Emmy award, and won a Visual Effects Society award in 2004. The first season episode “33” was also nominated for a 2005 Emmy. His other projects for Zoic have included work as a Visual Effects Artist on “Firefly,” which won the 2003 Emmy for special visual effects, the pilot for a new ‘Lost in Space’ series, Steven Bochco’s pilot for NYPD 2069, and the “Sketchernauts” commercial for Sketchers shoes.

Lee has a broad visual effects background and his experience includes work on feature films, music videos, commercials, theme park attractions, fully animated episodic television, and video games. While at Foundation Imaging, he worked on the Robert Wise Director’s Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and spent several seasons on “Star Trek: Voyager.” Additionally, he worked on “Roughnecks: The Starship Trooper Chronicles” and “Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future” Lee was nominated for an Emmy in 2002 for his work on the ABC made-for-television movie Superfire. He was also a teacher at the Foundation Institute.

Prior to his career in the world of visual effects, Lee worked in IT operations and support for JP Morgan Bank in London. He created his own company, Digital EFX, where he specialized in visual effects and web site design, and he sold television and film-related merchandise. Lee is also a model maker and has created miniatures for film and television productions, including Cartoon Network’s “Space Ghost Coast to Coast.”

Lee’s interest in filmmaking, miniatures and effects began at an early age watching the Gerry Anderson series Thunderbirds and Space 1999 while growing up in Great Britain.

• Talk - The VFX of Star Trek Voyager, 20 years on

  A look back at the earlier days of CGI on Television.
  Star Trek Voyager first aired in 1995 using mostly miniatures with a few very select (and very expensive) CGI shots created for the intro sequence. During it’s 7 year run to show slowly transitioned to an all CG VFX show. While simple when compared to today’s huge budgeted shows, the VFX team was still pressed hard to produce many ground breaking and award winning shots.

Born in New Zealand, I started my career as a TV cameraman for ten years, After moving to Australia, I started my own Computer Graphics company at Film Australia. Since then I’ve been fortunate to work for Animal Logic, Pacific Data Images, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Lightstorm, Weta, Lucasfilm, and now Quantic Dream in Paris. Along the way I’ve worked on projects like Avatar, Spider-man, Men in Black, Monster House and Shrek.

• Talk - The Changing World of Previs and Virtual Production

  The line between filmmaking and ‘post’ production continues to grow smaller this year with the arrival of VR/AR. Previz and Layout began the change by letting directors and studios see key parts of their movies before they even set foot on a film set. Avatar blurred the line even more by ‘filming’ the entire movie in Virtual Production. Now computer graphics are key parts of the projects from concept, to filming, to post production. So what is the next goal? To be able to shoot finished VFX shots live on the set?

Stuart Sewell has been passionate about cinema and art from an early age, so it was natural for him to study art and sculpture before attending film and television school at Bournemouth, with an introduction in photography.

In the two decades that followed, he journeyed through the prosthetics and the special effects departments of numerous film, television and commercials productions. Subsequently three of the film projects he contributed to were nominated for Oscars in special make-up: The Sea Inside, Saving Private Ryan and Frankenstein. The Hours was also nominated for a BAFTA in make-up. After the horror movie The Descent, he moved into 3D and visual effects where he has decided to focus his passion for cinema and great story telling.

• Talk - From ANALOGUE to DIGITAL – and back again…

  Stuart Sewell will explore past experiences over his twenty five years in the film industry and will talk about how the industry has changed and is now embracing past methods again. Knowing how special effects where done in the past will help you do visual effects in the future.

Ken made his way to the animation world via the stage – recieving a wealth of instruction and experience including method acting and improvisation, children’s theater, dance, mime, juggling, and stage combat – as well as a 20+ year career writing, recording and touring with Chicago-based rock bands Birds at the End of the Road, Mother Factor, and Red Elephant.

Ken’s feature film credits include: “Monsters Vs. Aliens”, “Shrek Forever After”, “Megamind”, “How to Train Your Dragon: The Gift of the Night Fury”, “Kung Fu Panda 2”, “Puss in Boots” for DreamWorks Animation, and most recently on “The Peanuts Movie” for Blue Sky Studios.

• Talk - The Power of Pantomime: Creating unique characters through purposeful movement.

  With the aid of an actor, Ken will introduce animators to an in-depth analysis of the physical cues that humans use to tell stories to one another, and demonstrate how to caricature these elements to produce unique and memorable animated characters.

Stefan has a lifelong experience directing writing and producing feature films, TV series, short films and computer games, in a variety of styles of animation, mixed media and live action. Some well known films are ‘Asterix and the Vikings’ and ‘Terkel in Trouble’. Stefan was nominated for an Academy Award for best animated short ‘When Life Departs’ in 1997.
Right now he is working as a supervising director on the ‘Talking Tom and Friends’ web series for Arx Anima.

• Talk - Big Ambitions and Small Budgets

  It’s always about the good story for me. 2D, 3D and mixed media, are all just tools to get the story across. A limited budget, is not necessarily a limitation, it forces us to think about new ways creatively and technologically.

Johannes Figlhuber is a Concept Designer working at Airborn Studios in Berlin. Since the start of his career in 2009, he has been working in various Studios and on games like “The Secret World”, “Might and Magic: Heroes VI” and “Sacred 3”. His most recent released project is the award winning “Ori and the Blind Forest”.

Check out their work at: www.artstation.com/artist/airbornstudios

• Talk - The Art of Ori

  In “The Art of Ori”, Johannes will talk about the art direction for “Ori and the Blind forest” and some of it’s biggest challenges. He will also talk about the process of creating the art and bringing it to life in the game.

Thomas studied MultiMediaArt at FH Salzburg, worked with Bertolini.Music (music for 25 episodes of “Tom Turbo”, music for “Blue Gold: Water Wars), worked with idee+klang (sounddesign for entire BMW Museum Munich, recordings with thomas d., onscreen music for “Im Winter ein Jahr”).
In 2010 scopeaudio was founded where we do a lot for TV (ATV is regular client) and cinema (eg. 2014 österr. Filmpreis für Beste Filmmusik) productions.

• Talk - Music and Sound Design in CG Environments

  Sound is key to control the emotions of an audience. Therefore a proper Sound Design is essential for a CG environment where there is no location sound. The presentation will cover basic psychological issues regarding sound perception, and the linked emotions according to a picture (movie, game, etc.). Different approaches in the use of music and sound in general will be presented in order to gain realism or to create an aesthetic surreal environment.

Benjamin worked as cutter for several austrian production companies and television networks, Such as Dor-Film, ATV, Pro7 Austria, PulsTV and others, before studying animation at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.
In 2011 he founded the group “Neuer Österreichischer Trickfilm” together with Johannes Schiehsl ans Conrad Tambour. His film HELDENKNAZLER has won many awards at international film festivals. He directed the belgium-german-austrian television series “Lilly The Witch” as well as the title sequence for the new Tom Hanks-movie “A Hologram for the King”. Currently he is working on animation sequences for the documentary “Tracking Edith” by Peter Stephan Jungk.

• Talk - Animating Austria

  “Neuer Österreichischer Trickfilm” will offer a sneak peek of their work on documentaries, visual effects, commercials and animated feature films. Find out how the Viennese Animation Studio got Tobias Moretti credited and Tom Hanks moving…

Johannes Schiehsl started doing his first animated films with Lego and colored paper at the age of twelve. He created the legendary point-n-click adventure game “Professor Brösl” and the award winning 3d animation film “Fintio” together with Conrad Tambour during his graphic design studies at the “Höhere Graphische Vienna”.

He went to the Czech Republic to start his animation studies in 2005, and continued his studies at the renowned Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg, where he created several very successfull short films “A6/A9”, “Birdstrike” und “Zoopraxiscope”.

His graduation short film “366 Tage” was screened at many festivals and received several awards. It became the first animated film ever to be nominated for an Austrian Film Award. The story was inspired by Johannes’ own social work service as medic for the red cross.

Since then he worked as a director on the series “Lilly the Witch” and “Ich kenne ein Tier” and is currently developing his next film. He is honoree of the culture price by state of Lower-Austria and is teaching animation in Vienna and Hagenberg.

• Talk - Animating Austria

  “Neuer Österreichischer Trickfilm” will offer a sneak peek of their work on documentaries, visual effects, commercials and animated feature films. Find out how the Viennese Animation Studio got Tobias Moretti credited and Tom Hanks moving…

Conrad Tambour attended the Höhere Graphische Bundes- Lehr und Versuchsanstalt Wien XIV and graduated with a degree in graphic design.
In 2002 he released the computer game “Professor Brösl”, which he codeveloped with Johannes Schiehsl and got nominated for the Golden Nica at Ars-Electronica.
Subsequently he was working as an animator for e-learning Projekt DMA of Kunstuniversität Linz and began to study animation at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.
His graduation film “The Visit” featuring the voices of well known Austrian actors Erni Mangold, Erwin Steinhauer, Klaus Ofczarek and Ingrid Burkhard was awarded with many prices and received international attention at more than 70 festivals.
In 2011 together with colleagues Benjamin Swiczinsky and Johannes Schiehsl he founded the animation studio “Neuer Österreichischer Trickfilm” that focuses on establishing a story driven animation business in Austria.
Since then he has worked on numerous projects for the company and as a director of the TV series “Lilly the Witch”.
Conrad Tambour is a honoree of the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau prize. He teaches Visual Concepts and Design at the FH Hagenberg”

• Talk - Animating Austria

  “Neuer Österreichischer Trickfilm” will offer a sneak peek of their work on documentaries, visual effects, commercials and animated feature films. Find out how the Viennese Animation Studio got Tobias Moretti credited and Tom Hanks moving…

Alexander Grenus works as project manager and designer at stillalive studios. He worked on the award winning action-adventure Son of Nor and the recently released Bus Simulator 16. Currently he is the project manager and designer for the upcoming strategy game Drone Swarm.

He released his first game in 2007 and worked as an artist for architecture and product visualization, before he joined stillalive studios in 2012.

• Talk - Indiegame.at: Indiegames made in Austria

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  The austrian indiegamedev community is on fire! New studios pop up on every corner, meetups and usergroups have been established and there is almost no day without a gamedev related event. If this isn’t proof enough, take a look at the amazing indie titles from the last couple of years and there will be no doubt left about how much creative talent Austria has to offer. But still, there are developers out there, looking for the right people to connect to. Indiegame.at is here to guide young talents into the scene and answer their first questions – How do you pitch your game to media outlets, platform holders or opinion leaders? How do you connect with other gamedevs? How do you get important insights and learn to successfully launch your game?

  Indiegame.at is a one stop shop for gamedev insights.
  Indiegame.at is a non profit network of, by and for the austrian gamedev community to strenghten it’s ecosystem, increase its visibility and connect creative talent.

  Alexander Amon (sproing) and Stefan Malzner (Bloodirony Games) will present the Indiegame.at initiative, the network and what’s about to happen in the near future. And since it’s all about supporting the local scene – Alexander Grenus (stillalive studios), Mateusz Gorecki (Rarebyte) and Stefan Srb (leafthief) are invited to talk about their upcoming games.

  The Majesty of Pixel Art and the Beauty of Minimalism (for Gamedevs)

  Stefan Srb – Leafthief
  This talk will focus on the opportunities and challenges of using pixel art for indie game development and how it can help creators find their voice. Using the observations about realism and abstractions Scott McCloud highlighted in his book “Understanding Comics” the talk will show how low -resolution art can be beneficial for starting out. A short and lightweight talk full of examples, best practices and war stories.

  Who is stillalive?

  Alexander Grenus – stillalive studios
  Alexander Grenus from stillalive studios will give a short presentation of their studio, their first game Son of Nor and their upcoming game Drone Swarm.

  Rarebyte or How To Survive Struggles

  Mateusz Gorecki – Rarebyte
  Mateusz Gorecki, co-founder of Rarebyte, will talk not only about projects the company made in the past, but also about obstacles, struggles and common mistakes they experienced during the years and how to avoid them.

Alex was Editor in Chief for about a decade at the special interest magazine consol.AT (Austria)/consolPLUS (Germany). He joined Sproing in 2013 and is now responsible for internal and external communications at Austrias biggest game developer.

• Talk - Indiegame.at: Indiegames made in Austria

  null

  The austrian indiegamedev community is on fire! New studios pop up on every corner, meetups and usergroups have been established and there is almost no day without a gamedev related event. If this isn’t proof enough, take a look at the amazing indie titles from the last couple of years and there will be no doubt left about how much creative talent Austria has to offer. But still, there are developers out there, looking for the right people to connect to. Indiegame.at is here to guide young talents into the scene and answer their first questions – How do you pitch your game to media outlets, platform holders or opinion leaders? How do you connect with other gamedevs? How do you get important insights and learn to successfully launch your game?

  Indiegame.at is a one stop shop for gamedev insights.
  Indiegame.at is a non profit network of, by and for the austrian gamedev community to strenghten it’s ecosystem, increase its visibility and connect creative talent.

  Alexander Amon (sproing) and Stefan Malzner (Bloodirony Games) will present the Indiegame.at initiative, the network and what’s about to happen in the near future. And since it’s all about supporting the local scene – Alexander Grenus (stillalive studios), Mateusz Gorecki (Rarebyte) and Stefan Srb (leafthief) are invited to talk about their upcoming games.

  The Majesty of Pixel Art and the Beauty of Minimalism (for Gamedevs)

  Stefan Srb – Leafthief
  This talk will focus on the opportunities and challenges of using pixel art for indie game development and how it can help creators find their voice. Using the observations about realism and abstractions Scott McCloud highlighted in his book “Understanding Comics” the talk will show how low -resolution art can be beneficial for starting out. A short and lightweight talk full of examples, best practices and war stories.

  Who is stillalive?

  Alexander Grenus – stillalive studios
  Alexander Grenus from stillalive studios will give a short presentation of their studio, their first game Son of Nor and their upcoming game Drone Swarm.

  Rarebyte or How To Survive Struggles

  Mateusz Gorecki – Rarebyte
  Mateusz Gorecki, co-founder of Rarebyte, will talk not only about projects the company made in the past, but also about obstacles, struggles and common mistakes they experienced during the years and how to avoid them.

Stefan Malzner is a vienna based graphic designer, burger lover and creative director at Bloodirony Games.
Stefan started his career at the young age of 14 by founding his first startup Global Artists, a community for digital designers and photographers. After his graphic design apprenticeship he worked as a digital designer for companies like Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Shell, Volkswagen and on the weekends he toured as a DJ and VJ all over Europe. For the last couple of years he has been on a mission to find the best burger recipe and founded Horst, Grete and now Bloodirony Games.

• Talk - Indiegame.at: Indiegames made in Austria

  null

  The austrian indiegamedev community is on fire! New studios pop up on every corner, meetups and usergroups have been established and there is almost no day without a gamedev related event. If this isn’t proof enough, take a look at the amazing indie titles from the last couple of years and there will be no doubt left about how much creative talent Austria has to offer. But still, there are developers out there, looking for the right people to connect to. Indiegame.at is here to guide young talents into the scene and answer their first questions – How do you pitch your game to media outlets, platform holders or opinion leaders? How do you connect with other gamedevs? How do you get important insights and learn to successfully launch your game?

  Indiegame.at is a one stop shop for gamedev insights.
  Indiegame.at is a non profit network of, by and for the austrian gamedev community to strenghten it’s ecosystem, increase its visibility and connect creative talent.

  Alexander Amon (sproing) and Stefan Malzner (Bloodirony Games) will present the Indiegame.at initiative, the network and what’s about to happen in the near future. And since it’s all about supporting the local scene – Alexander Grenus (stillalive studios), Mateusz Gorecki (Rarebyte) and Stefan Srb (leafthief) are invited to talk about their upcoming games.

  The Majesty of Pixel Art and the Beauty of Minimalism (for Gamedevs)

  Stefan Srb – Leafthief
  This talk will focus on the opportunities and challenges of using pixel art for indie game development and how it can help creators find their voice. Using the observations about realism and abstractions Scott McCloud highlighted in his book “Understanding Comics” the talk will show how low -resolution art can be beneficial for starting out. A short and lightweight talk full of examples, best practices and war stories.

  Who is stillalive?

  Alexander Grenus – stillalive studios
  Alexander Grenus from stillalive studios will give a short presentation of their studio, their first game Son of Nor and their upcoming game Drone Swarm.

  Rarebyte or How To Survive Struggles

  Mateusz Gorecki – Rarebyte
  Mateusz Gorecki, co-founder of Rarebyte, will talk not only about projects the company made in the past, but also about obstacles, struggles and common mistakes they experienced during the years and how to avoid them.

Ralf Habel is a Sr. Software Engineer at the Walt Disney Animation Studios where he works in the Hyperion renderer group where he worked on Big Hero 6 and Frozen Fever. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at Disney Research in Zurich and Vienna University of Technology where he also received his PhD in 2009.
He studied theoretical physics and computer graphics at the University of Stuttgart and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

In 2015 he won the VES Award for Outstanding Created Environment in an Animated Feature Motion Picture. In 2007, he co-founded the annual PIXELvienna Conference on Computer Graphics and Animation in Vienna.

• Talk - Path tracing in production with Hyperion

  For Disney’s Big Hero 6, we were challenged to produce a world significantly more complex along with richer, more realistic lighting than our previous films. To achieve this, we developed a new path-traced renderer, Hyperion, based on a new streaming framework. The key innovation is that we use large, sorted ray batches along with deferred shading to improve performance in ray intersection and shading, enabling multi-bounce path-tracing with full material responses and textures calculated on every bounce. This presentation will provide the motivation for writing the new renderer, will describe it’s key technical aspects in detail, and will recount its experience in its use on Big Hero 6.

I’m currently a Senior Cinematic Artist II at Blizzard Entertainment, and I’ve been working in the visual effects industry professionally since 2005. I do lighting, compositing, and digital matte painting for Blizzard’s cinematics on games such as Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and Overwatch. I’ve previously worked on films such as Night at the Museum, Superman Returns, and Underworld Evolution at Rhythm & Hues, Luma Pictures, and Disney Toon Studios.

In 2013, I published a book on matte painting as a co-author called d’Artiste: Matte Painting 3 through Ballistic Media Publishing and have been featured in 3D World and Advanced Photoshop magazines. In August 2014, my husband Steve and I opened up our own art gallery in downtown Santa Ana called Photonic Playground where we feature some of the best digital artists around. It opens monthly on the first Saturday of every month during the downtown city’s art walk. Visit http://photonicplayground.com for more info.

I’m also a teacher for CGSociety.org’s online Photo-Real Matte Painting workshop, where I have taught students around the world since 2008. Many of whom are now working in the professional industry, and I couldn’t be prouder of them.

• Talk - The Evolution of Matte Painting: Supporting the Story, Past and Present

  How the techniques of matte painting from the past, has helped digital matte painting in the present age to help ground the world of an envisioned story. David Luong will talk about how he got to where he is today, and what he does at Blizzard Entertainment. He will present old matte painting techniques, how it started, how it went through a renaissance through Star Wars. He will explain how digital matte painting came to be an how it is used today to help support and tell a story for the characters and the visions of a director. David will give insights on techniques used for digital matte painting today and will show examples from recent cinematics and films.