“Learning in a Web 2.0 World” was the theme of DevLearn 2008 Conference and Expo sponsored by the e-Learning Guild. Wikis, blogs, tweets, mobile learning and serious gaming were several of the topics covered at the conference. The Iona Group’s Chad Udell and John Feser attended this year’s event in San Jose, California from November 10 – 14.

The conference began on Monday, November 10th with the Adobe Learning Summit. This one day event provided attendees with the opportunity to see some of Adobe’s latest products and learn how they can be used to produce effective tools for learning. On Tuesday, the Guild’s preconference workshops and symposia were offered with topics ranging from Measuring eLearning Success, to Mobile Learning and Immersive Learning Simulations. The main conference went from Wednesday through Friday. Each day featured a key note speaker. Tim O’Reilly, Founder and CEO of O’Reilly media discussed innovation and the Web 2.0 phenomenon on Wednesday. On Thursday, Dan Roam, Founder of Digital Roam, Inc. discussed using simple pictures as a way to explain and solve complex problems. Dr. John Medina, author and developmental molecular biologist rounded out the conference on Friday by discussing his research into how the brain works and the implications for developing effective learning.

While the theme of the conference focused on Web 2.0 technologies, a wide variety of eLearning topics were covered in the more than 125 various break-out that were offered during the three days. The conference was well designed and catered to everyone from the experienced instructional designers to those just beginning to explore the power of eLearning for their organizations.

For The Iona Group, a highlight of the conference was DemoFest. This event provided DevLearn Conference participants with an opportunity to showcase their own eLearning work. Chad and John participated in the event by demoing and discussing the International Society of Arboriculture’s Introduction to Arboriculture set of 10 eLearning modules. Iona developed the suite of ISA learning modules over the past 3 years.

The event proved to be a great learning experience as well as a great forum for networking and meeting new people all focused on producing and delivering great learning solutions. Iona came away with a much stronger understanding of the current state of learning and as importantly, where effective, low cost learning is headed in the future.

Murder, mayhem, blood, and gore. This is a nightmare sequence from the Oresteia. It was shot using a Canon D20 in burst mode with a tone of AE work on top. The sequence is a short excerpt from about 10 shots that will be integrated with the physical staging. The final raster is 2048×768 and will be projected using (2) Panasonic 3500u projectors fitted with our new .8 fixed lenses– can you say a big screen! We finished drafts of all the cues. We time the show tonight to match up our cue times over the weekend with a full tech run next week.

We opened the show last night and had a packed house. Everyone brought their best efforts to the production and we had a a fantastic opening night. There will be some minor tweaks as we continue the run and try to tighten some parts. We did manage to have some fun during this process and put together a commercial that is displaying out my window onto the street advertising the shown (no audio). The movie file above contains some shots from the dress rehearsal, various graphic elements and other moments from the production. Again, a huge thank you to everyone who worked on the show. Enjoy the moment!

Interview with Apurva Shah

CGTantra has an interview with Apurva Shah, effects supervisor at Pixar Animation Studios. We don’t often see interesting interviews with effects guys who work in animation, so this is a real treat.

On Ratatouille we worked on several different problems at this early stage – quadruped rig for the rats, organic modeling and edge displacement to avoid straight, CG lines, translucency and subsurface for food and skin, food effects and visual manipulation of the image to avoid grey, CG colors to name a few. I can’t imagine how we could have taken on the film without some of this initial development. However, it’s also important to balance how much you invest in upfront activities without solid story and layout to back you up. Time and budget is finite so you want to pick the most important things to focus on.

Check it out!

Episode 4: Keep It Simple Stupid

The 4th episode of the Annabelle’s Bistro Podcast is available now. In this week’s episode, we speak briefly with Amanda Sanchez and then Kyle learns why keeping it simple is a smart thing to do.

I would like to add that these podcasts are going well, but we need everyones help to get the word out about our little project. If you have friends who enjoy animation, or listening to podcasts, please let them know we are out there. Also, visit our page on the iTunes store and write a quick review. Additionally, if you would like to add a badge like the one on the right side of this blog to your own website to help support the podcast, feel free to email me at podcast[at]annabelles-bistro.com and I can supply you with the code.

Thanks for your help! Enjoy the show!

Trailer for Pixar’s UP

Apple’s website has the exclusive HD trailer for Pixar’s next animated feature UP! The film is described as being a “coming of old age” story, a seventy-something hero, alongside his clueless wilderness ranger sidekick, travels the globe, fighting beasts and villains, and eating dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon.

The trailer has that same retrospective look at their past success before it actually launches into introducing the new film. We’ve seen this same thing in the WALL-E trailer and it is perhaps a bit much at this point. Do we really need to keep reminding people that Pixar is wonderful at this point? I think most people get it by now. But perhaps Pixar is still struggling to separate themselves from the sea of sameness that leads people to confuse them with the creators of The Reef?

That being said, Up is looking really wonderful. And I am getting a very strong Miyazaki vibe from this one for sure. And who doesn’t love a grumpy old guy? I certainly do.

Physics Simulation and Trees

Dave Rogers has jumped on board and is creating a large tree that will be featured prominently in Annabelle’s Bistro. This tree, which is a combination of 3D and 2D elements will require advanced physics simulation to create the natural look of leaves moving in the breeze. This test is the first step towards that end.

Annabelle’s Bistro: Tree Physics Simulation Test from Matt Forcum on Vimeo.

Looking great so far Dave!

Episode 5: Scriptwriting Session

Episode five of The Annabelle’s Bistro Podcast is now available. This week, sit in with us on a scriptwriting session!

My original intent was to jump from the treatment directly to storyboarding. However, considering that the crew is fairly large, It is probably a good idea to develop a full script just to insure that everyone is on the same page creatively.

I did some research this weekend on how I should go about formatting the script and frankly, it seems that as far as animation goes, there isn’t one “right way” of doing things. Everybody seems to have different thoughts on the matter. With that in mind, I decided to go ahead and write the script in the way that I felt best suited my needs.

And so, this little three and a half minute film has a script that is nine pages long. Every shot described, every action captured. It turned out to be a very valuable exercise. The scriptwriting process revealed a lot of flaws in the story and gave us a great opportunity to address these flaws before they became an issue later in the game. The entire script was analyzed in great detail to determine the best way to set the tone, present the characters, and make with the funny.

This weeks podcast gives you a little insight on how we took an interesting idea, and turned it into an entertaining story…we hope.

You can listen to the podcast here, or subscribe via iTunes, or grab the RSS.

Episode 6: The Power of the Short Form.

This weeks episode is, appropriately enough, a short one! Kyle and Katie take a much needed break as I discuss the advantages that animated shorts have over their feature-length cousins.

For the record, Even though I have some critical things to say about WALL-E, I do think it is an amazing film and is one of my favorite Pixar films to date. No hate mail please!

You can listen to the podcast here, or subscribe via iTunes, or grab the RSS.

NOTE: I have heard that some peoples iTunes feed have not updated with episode 5 yet either. (titled Episode 3: Scriptwriting Session) If you are one of the affected, you may want to try re-subscribing to the podcast. I apologize for the inconvenience.

A Short Addendum to my Web Design Tools List – pixDif

Dan Florio, aka PolyGeek, dropped by my post on the Ten Website Design Tools I Can’t Live Without and dropped a good bomb on me in my comments. He recommended I try pixDif. pixDif is a tool he created to aid in rapid prototyping of website designs. It’s super cool! I highly recommend you download and try it out.

The description from his site:

I’ve created an AIR application to help developers and designers measure pixel distances on their screens. You tell if you need pixDIF if you answer yes to any of these questions:

1. Do you ever find that you need to measure the pixel distance/size of something when you’re not in Photoshop? Or, put another way: do you wish you could take the guides in Photoshop with you to the computer desktop?
2. Do you ever want to know what a graphical asset will look like in the context of a website or application. For instance, do you wish you could take an image and move it around over your website to see what it would like like in various places before you start writing the code to place it there?
3. Do you ever have a website or application design that you need to break up into pieces and build into a working site/app? And then as you write the code you need to see how close to the design you are?

If any of those answers are “yes” then jump over to the pixDIF page and check out the features and overview video tutorial.

Dan is a highly talented designer/developer and you really should check out his site.