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Having been in Vancouver for a few days

prior to the opening of the exhibition floor I knew, at least, that a lot of the big names were out in force.Watching the Autodesk and Pixar booths get assembled nearby was quite a sight, and it was clear they’d be the biggest and most elaborate among the main stands in the middle of the floor.These also included the likes of Pixologic, Maxon, NewTek and Nvidia.

The atmosphere was understandably quiet as the cherry-pickers whirred and the pallets were unpacked beneath the conference, which began on Sunday upstairs in the Vancouver Convention Centre.Despite some interesting talks such as a presentation on the production pipeline of Rango on Sunday and an early Computer Animation Screening on Monday, the conference started off pretty quiet.

It’s understandable though – the series demos and getting close with the public can only happen on the show floor, which wouldn’t be open until Tuesday.When observing the quiet, I instinctively note that it was “still early days”. However, that statement felt a little out of place, when half way through the conference on Tuesday morning I was still saying it on approaching the convention centre, which again felt stagnated from the outside. But when I descended the escalator to the show floor downstairs, the reason for this was clear. Everyone had made an early start and were already inside…

The exhibition floor
The exhibition floor doesn’t feel huge, but it seems about the same as it was in LA last year. The comparatively big event makes this floor quite impressive. Vancouver is of course a hub for VFX and film schools, so expectations for attendance certainly wouldn’t be low. Around midday it became hard to navigate the stands with the hustle and bustle. There was a queue that stretched halfway around the floor, which, as someone pointed out later, was because Pixar was giving out free posters. I never made it to the end of the line to clarify that…

Presentations on the floor
The talks and presentations on the floor seemed to be favoured by the big stands – the direct approach may not reach as many people at a time, but the interaction is clearly favoured by everybody. Pixologic had its team out in force demonstrating the latest features in ZBrush 4 R2. Autodesk has also been busy, touting its new software advantage packs, while next door the Pixar team are all wearing RenderMan t-shirts to celebrate the latest version of RenderMan for Maya.

After a morning checking out the floor, it was time to see what was happening upstairs at the conference. There are plenty of talks looking at different aspects of Kung Fu Panda 2, while another talk ’1000 points of light’ looks at the lighting techniques on various films including Cars 2 and Megamind. Cars 2 lighting had a few interesting bits, including illuminating via signs, but the talks in general this afternoon seemed sparsely attended.

This could be for a variety of reasons. Firstly, the show floor had only just opened, secondly, some of the talks are taking place in Vancouver Convention Centre East, which involves leaving the main building, and thirdly, some of the ballrooms where the talks take place are simply massive.

Announcements 
There’s been a lot of tech and software announcements, and the trend seems to be focusing on fixing existing issues in software, or making sure features already implemented do what they are supposed to. This could be a welcome change for pro artists that consistently face certain tools falling over in production.