Speakers - PIXELvienna9

Annie award-winning producer, animator, writer and director Eric Towner is a pioneer in the world of animation, leading the charge in creating groundbreaking original content for all forms of media. Towner began animating on adult swim’s Emmy award-winning series Robot Chicken, for which he won an Annie Award for Best Character Animation. He now serves as an Executive Producer for the show and its widely successful Annie award-winning DC Comics Special, along with Dinosaur Office for College Humor, Übermansion starring Bryan Cranston, Friendship All-Stars for L/Studio, and MAD’s Spy vs. Spy stop-motion sketches for Warner Bros. Animation. In 2008, Towner co-founded Buddy System Studios with John Harvatine IV, before teaming up with Seth Green, Matt Senreich and Harvatine in 2012 to form Stoopid Buddy Stoodios. As a director and co-creator, Towner is working on an original feature project with Sony Pictures Animation along with shows for Disney XD and with Cartoon Network.

• Talk - Animation isn’t Just For Kids Anymore

  Eric Towner, Executive Producer of Robot Chicken and co-founder of Stoopid Buddy Stoodios will talk about creating animated content for adults, environments that encourage pushing artistic boundaries, and how to play with puppets and accidentally find success.

Colin Graham is a Director of Animation on Watch_Dogs from Ubisoft Montreal. He Graduated from Sheridan College Classical animation in Oakville Canada in 1999. He began his career at Electronic Arts UK working on the Harry Potter series before coming to Ubisoft Montreal in 2005. Since joining Ubisoft he has directed animation teams on the Splinter Cell and Naruto franchises. In 2009 a small team started out on a mandate to create a new franchise with the code name ‘Nexus’. It would eventually become Watch_Dogs, a become the biggest selling new IP of all time.

• Talk - Animating Watch_Dogs

  It’s been a year since the launch of the new console generation, and expectations and budgets have never been higher. Developing a new IP like Watch_Dogs and launching on two console generations at the same time put us in a position to try a new approach on animation. On Watch_Dogs we wanted knew we needed to increase the number of animations and also the quality from previous games and previous hardware generations.

  This session will look at how the Watch_Dogs team in Montreal created a strategy to use and unprecedented amount of motion capture, and how also we raised the level of quality of individual animations. We will look at techniques used to bring Aiden Pearce to life, and how we realized the living city of Chicago through motion capture.

  Now we are fully in the new generation of consoles, how will we keep up with expectation and how will we evolve?

Juan joined Next Limit to work on research projects, later moving to the newly formed Maxwell Render research team. Since then Juan has held several positions in the team, leading it since 2007. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a degree in Environmental Sciences. Outside the office, Juan used to describe himself as an acceptable guitar player, although his skills have deteriorated since the birth of his beautiful daughter. To try to stop himself thinking about rendering all the time, he is an avid scuba diver and underwater photographer, although sometimes, when he looks at how light behaves under the sea, he realizes how much work we have left to do!

• Talk - State of the art in physically based rendering

  Juan will share his thoughts on physically based rendering, focused in state of the art areas like spectral rendering or GPUs. He will talk about how to survive 15 years in the CG industry developing rendering software.

Andrea has studied at the University of Applied Sciences with a focus on 3D and 2D Art getting to know the basic workflows of the game industry and spending an instructive internship in Auckland (NZ). After graduation as a Bachelor of Arts, she started working at a Browser Game Startup in Munich as Concept Artist.

Along the way she freelanced for several smaller game companies until she decided to return to Austria and was hired by Sproing as lead artist. Now her main focus is on creating the assets for tablet games.

• Talk - The creative process of Sigils: Battle for Raios

  A sneak peek into the Art Department of an Austrian Game Developer. From the early game concept to the production pipeline of a MOBA/RPG for tablets.

After almost three years at “No real” (Italy) Filippo aquired experience at some other Italian studios as a freelancer before finding a new challenge at “Milestone s.r.l.” For almost two years he combined his two passions, motorcycling and art, working on titles like Superstars V8 next challenge and SBK09 Superbike World Championship.

He left as a Lead Artist and after a short stop at “Gameloft” (Madrid) he started as Head of Art at Sproing in Vienna.

• Talk - The creative process of Sigils: Battle for Raios

  A sneak peek into the Art Department of an Austrian Game Developer. From the early game concept to the production pipeline of a MOBA/RPG for tablets.

Milo is Lead Game Designer of Ærena – Clash of Champions,
a self-published cross-platform competitive multiplayer online game for PC, Mac, iOS and Android. He was QA Lead at Team Vienna Games and started four years ago at Cliffhanger Productions as Game Designer. While working at Team Vienna Games, Milo started to study project management and organization and is currently working on his master thesis about early access distribution in games and its impact on project management.

• Talk - AErena: A Cross Platform Journey.

  A post mortem on the challenges we faced with developing and publishing AErena, a cross platform multiplayer gamefor hardcore strategy players.
  Outlining the whole creation process, starting with a vision for core games on all platforms, defining target audiences, prototyping and releasing an alpha not only on early access but also on google play. Developing the game in very close cooperation with the community and continuing to do so after launch.

After working as Graphics Designer for a year I joined Wunderwerk in 2001 as 3D Generalist. Over the years I worked there mainly as Compositor, TD and VFX Supervisior for Commercials and Corporate Films.
Since 2007 Technical Director for the development of CMOCOS.
Last 2 years also using the systems on set as Motion Control Operator/Technician.

• Talk - Motion Control Robotics

  In 2007 Wunderwerk Film started the internal project CMOCOS where and tried to use industrial robots for motion control. Over the years they deleoped several systems they now use in production. Stefan will give a short introduction to industrial robots, explain the basics and challenges of motion control. And show examples from productions for Adidas, Vodafone, Lindt, Ferrero and Transformers 4.

Born – Portugal
School – Canada (Sheridan College) 3 year classical animation course
Work – Los Angeles – Disney – Hanna Barbera – DePatieFreleng (freelance)
Korea / Taiwan – Supervising Director for Hanna Barbera and DePatieFreleng
London – Hibbert Palph / Richard Williams (commercials)/ Disney-Spielberg (Roger Rabbit)
London and LA – Warner Bros feature
Munich – Feature director
Austria – RedBull “Spielberg” and various ads

• Talk - Life drawing in animation

  How life drawing is used in 2D animation and how this can influence the quality of 3D work.

Vassil is a 3D professional with experience in the field of 3D modeling, texturing and rendering.
Before joining Chaos Group, he worked as a 3D artist at a big outdoor advertisement studio. Vassil joined the Chaos Group 3D team in 2012 and
since then is one of the company’s main presenters and V-Ray trainers.
He possesses extensive knowledge on V-Ray for 3ds Max, V-Ray for Maya and V-Ray for Rhino. Vassil holds a Master V-Ray Licensed Trainer status.

• Talk - V-Ray 3 Workshops

  Latest in V-Ray for VFX: V-Ray 3.0 for Maya, V-Ray for MODO and V-Ray for NUKE

  V-Ray Master Trainer, Vassil Pepelyankov will focus on V-Ray 3.0 for Maya, along with V-Ray for MODO and V-Ray for NUKE – the latest technology Chaos Group offers to artists and the industry.

  V-Ray VFX Workshop: Optimizing VFX Workflows with V-Ray 3.0

  This workshop is focused on the workflows which put V-Ray 3.0’s advanced lighting, shading, and rendering capabilities to the best use in VFX, modelling, animation production and image compositing.

Ever since he downloaded Unity, added 3D physics to 1000 cubes and watched them bounce around, Andy Touch has been addicted to experimenting with gaming technology. Having previously taught game development to university students, he is now part of Unity Technologies‘ evangelism team helping to spread the word of the game engine and to show off what it can do! When he isn’t talking about Unity, he can probably be found marathoning TV shows or playing Mario Kart.

• Talk - Hands-On with Unity 5

  Unity 5 is coming! Andy will give a hands-on, in-editor demonstration covering many of the varied improvements that Unity has made to it’s engine for it’s next major release: Physical Based Shading, Reflection Probes, Exporting to WebGL, 2D Physics Features, Drawcall Visualisation and more! This talk is welcome for all skill-levels of game developers, programmers and artists!

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.

Jose Lopez has been a character designer for over 15 years working in the Film, TV and Video Game industries. He cultivated his signature style early on, working on such animated series as “Godzilla”, “Men In Black: The Series” and “Jackie Chan Adventures”. More recently, as lead character designer, his work on “Green Lantern: First Flight” (Warner Bros. DVD) earned him critical praise. Clients who continue to request Jose’s work include Imagi (TMNT, Gatchaman), Warner Bros. (The Batman), Cartoon Network (Generator rex), Nickelodeon, Google, Activision, Darby Pop and DC comics to name a few. Art Directed the upcoming Video Game “Secret Ponchos” from SwitchBlade Monkeys soon to be released on the PS4.

He has published four books “Mariachi Samurai Vol. 1”, “4:00 am”, “Mariachi Samurai Vol. II” and “Lines Adorable” showcasing a collection of sketches and designs.

Jose is currently enjoying his latest endeavor as Art Director / Characters & Props for Hasbro Studios “Transformers: Robots in Disguise and previously “Transformers: Prime” for which he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Character Design.

• Talk - Character Design from personal to industry

  A quick run down of the projects Juan has worked on. He will talk about his experiences as a designer in the entertainment industry in the US. The topics he has found to be the most important about designing characters: basic drawing, style and personal taste.

Andrei was born in 1968 in Aphseronsk, South Russia.
He moved to Moscow to study engineering then found his way into the animation industry. He had always loved art as a youngster and has been working as an artist ever since!
Andrei has worked his way through all the different stages involved in making an animation film. His work as Character Designer can be seen in ‘Prince Vladimir’ and ‘Quest for a Heart’.
In 2008, Andrei moved to the UK and began working in the film and VFX industry. Here he has worked on many interesting projects as a Senior Concept Artist, including: ‘Seventh Son’, ‘Wrath of the Titans’, ‘X-Men First Class’,’ Wolfman’ and ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ Parts 1 & 2.
He is currently working as a freelance artist!

• Talk - Character Design for Film and VFX

  Andrei will talk about character design for Film and VFX. He will explain his pipeline which he developed based on his experience and He’ll show some examples from various films he has worked on.

Animator, story artist and director Alex Orrelle provides creative services for film and television projects world wide. Alex optioned a film project to Paramount Animation, in partnership with Technicolor and the Operating Room (LA) and continues to develop TV and film projects with his partners. He was Animation Director on Warner Bros’ Yogi Bear (2010) and CGI director on The Loony Tunes Show’s Road Runner and Coyote segment, produced at his studio Crew 972 for WB Animation.
Alex started his career working as an animator on The Matrix: Reloaded for Manex VFX, then for Pixar Animation Studios on The Incredibles, Boundin’ and several short projects.
In 2004 Alex founded Crew 972, an animation production company based in Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Alex holds a BFA from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, where he directed the Sundance 2001 on-line audience choice award winning short film “Freeware”.

• Talk - Animating action and comedy

  This is a survey of animation works made for Pixar, Warner Bros and more by Alex Orrelle. Alex will be focusing on the anatomy of action and comedy, through use of shapes, timing and finding good reference.

  The talk will include the presentation of animated clips, frame by frame analysis and quick sketching.