Back by popular demand on Wednesday evening, June 9, Dr. Saty Raghavachary, DreamWorks Animation, presents “just how they do that” when creating animated features.

This talk describes how studios such as DreamWorks and Pixar make computer-animated movies. It explores the departments that make up a modern “production pipeline”, paying extra attention to computational techniques and software development problems. A variety of DreamWorks-related and ‘found’ clips will illustrate several facets of animation production (such as character animation and visual effects), focusing on techniques and technology.

Since last year’s talk, DreamWorks has released “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Shrek Forever After“. Come hear what it takes to put these projects out!

About the Speaker

Saty joined DreamWorks in 1996, where he is now Head of Digital Training for DreamWorks Feature Animation. His film credits include “Shrek Forever After”, “How to Train Your Dragon”, “Monsters vs Aliens”, “Madagascar”, “Madagascar 2”, “Kung Fu Panda”, “Bee Movie”,  “Flushed Away”, “Over the Hedge”, “Shark Tale”, “Shrek”, “Shrek 2”, “Shrek 3”, “Sinbad”, “Spirit”, “The Road to El Dorado”, and “The Prince of Egypt”.

Saty is a part-time instructor at the University of Southern California and also teaches at Gnomon School of Visual Effects and TD College. He is the author of Rendering for Beginners: Image synthesis using RenderMan and a co-author of The RenderMan Shading Language Guide. Prior to joining DreamWorks he was Software Manager at MetroLight Studios. He holds three MS degrees and a PhD from The Ohio State University. He has a B.Tech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and is a member of Association for Computing Machinery, the IEEE Computer Society, and American Mensa.

When: 6:30-8:00pm Wed. evening, 9 June 2010

Where: Richter Hall, California Lutheran University

Free, open to the public.  RSVP requested.

Details, parking info: see our Meetings page.