On December 2nd in New York Autodesk held the 10th annual '3December' event at the Pratt Center. This annual celebration was started by 'Alias' in Europe a decade ago. Autodesk is carrying on the tradition since the acquisition a while back. The scope of 3December - " an week long annual celebration of 3D art and the artists who create it” is world wide, with events larger and smaller than our New York event taking place during the whole week. London, Paris, Melbourne, Seoul, Tokyo, Las Vegas, and of course New York City, are some of the places 3December was observed. “3December Online” was available to those who could not attend an event. The cosponsors of this event were 'Intel', 'HP Workstations' and 'Wacom'.

The event began in the late morning with three sessions of 'MasterClass Lite’ If you are familiar with the Autodesk experience at Siggraph you are aware that they host 'MasterClasses’ during the week of the Conference. Ben D'Amprisi mentioned that for whatever reasons this year's Siggraph event appeared to be more west-coast-centric. Autodesk wanted to give people here on the east coast the opportunity to take advantage of at least a small sampling of these classes. 3ds Max users could take an intermediate and advanced level look at the Elemental Series - Fire given by Alan McKay of Catastrophic FX. Derald Hunt & Erik Paynter of Turner Studios did a class on Maya Tips & Tricks. Billy Harper, who also participated in the evening events, did a class on 'Killer Mudbox Painting Tips for Games’. The cost? $80 for all three, or $30 individually. I think this must have been a real bargain because judging from the instructors alone, I'm sure there was nothing 'Lite' about them.

The free nighttime portion of the event got underway after a brief registration process. At check-in time each participant was given a raffle ticket and a '3December 2008' T-shirt. In the lounge area outside the meeting room attendees got a chance to mingle and network with each other. A bar with soft drinks and beer was set up at this time. I'm not good at estimating crowds but judging by the difficulty of navigating through the lounge, and the standing room only meeting room I can safely say there were well over 200 Autodesk enthusiasts present.

The main events of the evening promptly got under way at six o'clock. The presentations were done I the same room in Pratt that the New York City 3ds max Use Group hold their meetings, only this night there seemed to be something wrong with the air conditioning. The SRO audience made for a rather warm evening. Ben D'Amprisi was our host, and he started things off by explaining what 3December was all about and informed us of the contest that was to go on in room 508 involving Mudbox2009 immediately after the presentations - more on that later.

The presentations started with Ed Caracappa from 'Escape Studios’ http://www.escapestudios.com who have offices in London and now New York. ESC offers online training - specializing in visual effects, games, animation, and visualizations for those who like their education served up at home. Ed's presentation centered on 'Maya' training with a demonstration of the online classroom interface. He pointed out the strengths of this kind of training versus something like DVD training - ESC allows the student to ask questions and get answers. No 3ds Max classes are offered at the moment. So perhaps you want to tell your 'Maya friends' about the site. The price is really not bad considering you get access to the site for a year, with a really cheap resign-up cost, and the ability to ask and get answers is always a good thing. It seems to me to be a worthwhile on-line learning community.

Before Billy Harper showed us Mudbox2009 - Ben fielded some questions centered on the inevitable comparisons between Mudbox and Z Brush. Then Billy who's from the DreamHive Animation Studios http://www.thedreamhive.com a broadcast, film, and interactive company wanted to play company demo reel but his borrowed 'Vista' machine would not cooperate. DreamHive, we found out, is a company that he and his friends founded and that each of them work from their homes. 'Squish Squash' is a game project, involving a big bug protecting his crumb, they are working on for the Ipod.

Getting down to his presentation of Mudbox2009 he showed us how he prepares a model in Maya (doesn't anyone use 3ds Max anymore?). Then he imported it into Mudbox to work on it there. One of the things he pointed out, that I thought was interesting, was one of a workflow nature. We shouldn't think we have to 'finish' one stage of modeling in an app like Max or Maya and then take it into Mudbox and 'finish' working on it there. Instead we shouldn't hesitate to go back and forth between Mudbox and our modeling program continuing to tweak the model as we sit fit in the program that we need to make the tweak. I'm paraphrasing what he said but you get the idea.

Next up we have Lee Fraser who some of you may remember from when he did a presentation for us at one of our past meetings. Lee was here to show us nParticles in Maya. In order to show us some of the capabilities of nParticles he quickly modeled a hot dog in Maya so he could apply 'mustard' with nParticles. During the course of this demo Lee showed us various techniques. By making adjustments in the software the hot dog was either repelling the particles or attracting them like a magnet. He ended his demo by making the particles slide off or stick to the hot dog based on a black and white bitmap applied to the geometry. Good stuff, but it was making me hungry...

Although Max was not part of these three presentations (It was an Autodesk event and 3ds Max is not it's only product) they were well done and shared some very good information that I know I will use sometime in the future. Now it was time for the 'food, drinks, and networking (again)' part of the evening. The event ended somewhere around ten o'clock. If you missed it his year watch for the announcement next year and if you can register and have a good time.

As for the Mudbox2009 contest - This was to be a demonstration of digital sculpting skills using Mudbox. Open to all who were present, each contestant got time to work on one of ten "Cintiq" 21UX's provided by Wacom's http://www.wacom.com/cintiq/index.php for the evening. Two seats of Mudbox2009 are to be given to two winners. The results of the contest have not yet been decided. I wish I could see the winning artwork because as I walked around the room looking over some shoulders I saw some pretty impressive work. I don't know if the level of work is the result of the participant’s woodsheding with Mudbox 1.0 and/or Mudbox2009 or an indication on how easy it is to use. The 'easy to get up and running fast' aspect of this software is something Autodesk likes to point out. I think it may be a little of both.

As a footnote - we all know an event of this size does not just happen on it's own. Besides Ben D'Amprisi, Ed Caracappa, Billy Harper, and Lee Fraser who were out front behind the podium as well as interacting with the attendees. People like Irene Grubb, Communications Programs Manager at Autodesk in Toronto, spends a great deal of time this time of year putting together 3December events like the one we had. Ben did a great job working with Lee Fraser and Wacom to stage the on-site modeling competition.

As always we are grateful to the 'Pratt Center for continuing and Professional Studies' and it's helpful, professional staff that provides us with a comfortable space for our events like this.