CGSociety - 2011 CG Retrospective

[Hirazi Blue]

The CGSociety presents its annual retrospective:
CG Society - 2011 CG Retrospective

I won't give away any spoilers, apart from the lack of Autodesk products on the software side...

[McNistor]

I'm not surprised. My guess is that Autodesk doesn't do ads on cgtalk anymore. He's quit and He does his own pure form of ads.

[mattmos]

The again Autodesk didn't really release anything ground-breaking last year...

Can't say I thought of much that should have been up there apart from that short from polynoid, and the buck guys. (unless they were the year before?) Actually surprised MARI and Nuke weren't mentioned.

[Hirazi Blue]

Mari ended in fourth place in last years CG Retrospective

[Bellsey]

An interesting list, but I am surprised something like Mudbox didn't make it, as I thought last years release was awesome. But as it all comes down to people voting, if people don't vote, that's how it goes. For me though the biggest omission is Arnold.

Personally though I would like to see the software, tech and tools get seperated into its own list, as some many different tools get used now across the board.

[Maximus]

Well in my opinion Arnold was handled totally bad in terms of spot exposure that might be a reason.
Mudbox was a nice release I agree.
Kinda surprised to see Rango #1 anyway.

[ActionArt]

I think the fact that most of us can't GET Arnold might have something to do with it. There's a lot of amazing proprietary tools in various shops that would make the list if they were publicly released but they're not.

I find the mix of games, software, movies etc. rather odd. How do you compare a game to Mudbox?

[Hirazi Blue]

Kinda surprised to see Rango #1 anyway.

While I myself thoroughly enjoyed Rango (the only thing missing was the actual "voice-appearance" of mr. Eastwood himself), I think the main reason for it getting to the top of the list was the fact that it was the first fully animated feature produced by ILM, AFAIK, which seems a welcome addition to the already well-known and proven studios that do such work... So from a point of view of "interesting CG developments in 2011" I guess that played a large part in getting it to the top spot...
;)

[bottleofram]

But as it all comes down to people voting, if people don't vote, that's how it goes. For me though the biggest omission is Arnold.

As you say, Graham, people need to vote. Im sure a number of proprietary technologies were braking all sorts of grounds last year, but if they never see the light of the day, who's gonna believe it?

I like the combined lists. Its not a comparison but a way to collect the biggest talking points. Lack of Autodesk presence reflects the general perception. Not surprised at all, tbh.

[Chris_TC]

For me though the biggest omission is Arnold.

You can't expect people to vote for something that only a select few companies have access to.

[Bellsey]

For me though the biggest omission is Arnold.

You can't expect people to vote for something that only a select few companies have access to.

You could say the same thing about Lagoa that was No.1 on the previous years list, yet it was only released in the Sept/Oct. Up to that point, only the video had been shown. Personally I would say it was the video that got people excited and probably got people voting

Arnold is has been use for some time, despite it being in Beta. And its being used by more studios than people think on some big jobs as well. The problem was CGsociety perhaps didn't really cover it a great deal, if they had then maybe if might have made it.

Which is why having one list that mixes technology with production output can be odd. I'm not so bothered about the lack of Autodesk products (we're a company people love to hate I think), but credit should be given where credit is due. You can't really include proprietary tools because I doubt people would show them anyway, but then that's where the work that people do, comes into it. These lists can be good, but I think this shows a somewhat skewed view of the CG industry in general.

[Mathaeus]

well I'd believe, there is a significant difference between a month or two of standard delay, and a few years...
In the meantime, I'm afraid that any word about the radiosity render engine, not available for anyone who can pay for it, actually makes an advertisement for another, available radiosity render engine. Maybe not with same performance, not used by this or that facility, but affordable. And who know which one will be faster in next year...

So you wanted to say a good word about VRay, aren't you

[bottleofram]

For me though the biggest omission is Arnold.

You can't expect people to vote for something that only a select few companies have access to.

You could say the same thing about Lagoa that was No.1 on the previous years list, yet it was only released in the Sept/Oct. Up to that point, only the video had been shown. Personally I would say it was the video that got people excited and probably got people voting

A little bit of exposure can do wonders for a good product...

[Hirazi Blue]

In the case of Lagoa exposure was ultimately verging on pure unadulterated hype...
(which by no means means it wasn't an excellent product, BTW)

[Bellsey]

In the case of Lagoa exposure was ultimately verging on pure unadulterated hype...
(which by no means means it wasn't an excellent product, BTW)

You could say that about alot of technology preview videos.

I also would of expected to see stuff like Bullet and Alembic make the list as well.

[Hirazi Blue]

Sure, but most Technology Previews do not necessarily end up on all sorts of non-CG websites like engadget.com, gizmodo.com, techcrunch.com and countless others... The speed this video was picked up by all these websites, most of them not even knowing it was for Softimage. Most of them not even knowing of Softimage. This was the part I was referring to, when I called it a hype...
;)