Siggraph

I went downtown yesterday to meet my brother for lunch and then checked out Siggraph 2008. This year was the "35th International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques", whatever that means. It was a huge convention center filled with booths dedicated to video games and (this year anyway) Iron Man. You'd think that movie employed the entire industry the way that suit of armor kept popping up. There were models dancing around in motion capture suits and video games with no controllers (just a camera that watched your hands go through the motions of using a controller. A slightly disconcerting effect if taken out of context). There were video games everywhere. I even learned that online gaming has become such a spectator sport that they hire professional tv camera men from Fox Sports (or whatever) to control cameras in the gaming world. They even sell special devices set up like a camera that links into the game environment so they have all of their familiar controls. It's an enormous industry to say the least.

I had fun though. And got to hang out with my brother for a bit, which was nice.