This weeks Siggraph Asia events that cannot be missed.
Please turn up to these special events with me!
今週のSiggraph Asiaのイベントをお見逃しなく！
私と一緒にスペシャルイベントへ参加しましょう！
--------------------
Thursday/木曜日

Intro to renderman

Do not miss Malcolm's Renderman course, his students fill the halls of DD, ILM etc Seats are limited! (I will be there as technical and language help.
マルコム氏のRendermanコースはお逃しなく！DD、ILMなど彼の生徒で混雑が予想されます。席には限りがあります。

Pixar Renderman UGM/Rendersan
RSVP here
Meet the Pixar Renderman team, or just laugh at me giving a bonkers speech.
Pixar Rendermanチームに会いましょう！そして緊張しているだろう私のスピーチ聞いてを笑ってくださいね。

Yokohammered.
After you go to the PixarUgm& party let's meet up later at Yokohammered!
そのPixarUGMパーティーへ参加の方はその後でもお会いしましょう！！
------------
Friday/金曜日
Sidefx Houdini Ugm, 
RSVP here
Sidefx parties in the USA are the best, let's see how cool this one will be!
Sidefx Houdini Ugm, アメリカでのSidefxパーティーは最高です。今回のパーティーはどうなのか覗いてみましょう！

올해 Siggraph Asia에 참가하시는 한국인 여러분들께 special message를 드립니다.
다음 해의 Siggraph Asia는 서울에서 개최 됩니다.
저는 이번 Siggraph Asia in Yokohama 진행 위워회원이기에 다음 해 이벤트에 흥미가 있는 한국인을 모집 하고 있습니다.
또,다음 해 Siggraph Asia in Seoul 에서도 여번 Siggraph Asia in Yokohama 개최 후에 한 Tokyo GAF, RenderSan, the Pixar UGM와같은 파티를 할 예정입니다.
만약,이러한 파티나 이벤트(Siggraph Asia)에 초대 받고 싶은 분은 연락 해 주시면 감사하겠습니다.
편하게 "bernard at nexus international.jp"에 연락 해 주시고 만날 수 있으면 좋겠습니다.
-bernie

We had Pixar's Dylan and Peter over my office on Friday, after some talks we went out to dinner.
They are over for Siggraph Asia and their UGM, if you are in this field you should have gotten mail from me ... say no more ;)
I have been under a little(yeah right!) stress lately so it was great to get out of the office.
Tanaka san was over too, he is a good friend I hope he can handle my stress level lately.
Photo's care of Dylan:

Karin(back left) my intern had to leave early so she couldn't meet the P-Boys. Nick(back right) had to leave for other arrangements. He has just finished working on Avatar over from Weta Digital. He is in the back right just helping with some (****) tools. Helping is an understatement, he has pretty much been left to his own devices and came up with things in astounding time.

Later at the Shabu Shabu restaurant mmmmmm tasty!

filled
インターンを募集します。
東京近郊在住のCG関連の学生またはCGに興味がある方で、冬休みの期間中に私達の業務をインターンとして覗いて頂くことができます。
弊所は狭いオフィスですが新宿に位置し、コンピューターグラフィックスのフィルムや実験的なプロジェクトの技術的援助をしています。
所内は多言語を使用する環境で、若くて知識豊富な人が働いています。
私が代表で、私のアシスタントの新美さんは日本人のアニメーターでRendermanオペレーターです。
よしさんはビジネス関係を、Davidさんはアメリカ人のHoudiniオペレーターです。NickさんはWeta Digitalから来たばかりで、かりんは週末だけですがスケッチアーティストとしてトレーニングをしています。
遠方ですがロンドンにはPR担当のWilliamさん、その他にもまりさん、ひさこさん、Svetlanaさんの翻訳担当スタッフも在籍していますし、その他数名のマット、アニメーションアーティストをフリーランスでその都度お願いしています。
この業界でのお仕事に興味がある方は私bernard at nexusinternational.jpまでメールにてご連絡ください。

filled
During winter break this is a great chance if you are a Tokyo CG student or interested in CG consider coming over as an intern and see what we do.
We have a small but cool setup here in Shinjuku Tokyo, helping out on film and experimental projects for Computer Graphics.
Multilingual environment, bunch of young cool people:
I'm the boss, Niimi is my assistant Japanese animator/Renderman guy, Yoshi on Japanese business relations, David an American Houdini operator, Nick just over from Weta Digital, Karin is our weekend sketch artist in training.
Remotely we have on PR William in London, Marie, Hisako and Svetlana our translation staff and a bunch of other people freelancing as Matte and Animation artists.
If you are interested in working in this field email me at bernard at nexusinternational.jp and I will try to hook you up.

filled
次のうちどちらかを必要とします:
RSLに熟練している、CgFXを理解している。
または
CgFXに熟練している、RSLを理解している。

勤務地は新宿の弊社事務所にて約２ヶ月間、毎週月曜～金曜まで勤務頂きます。勤務日、報酬額は応相談。

filled
You need either:
Skill with RSL and familiarity with CgFX.
or
Skill with CgFX and familiarity with RSL.

You will need to work here at Nexus in Shinjuku from Monday to Friday for approx 2 months. Work days and payment are negotiable.
please contact me ASAP: bernard at nexusinternational.jp

Spent the better part of the day fighting with Vista.
I knew to stay away from this malware, but my new assistant needed a win machine. I felt a bit sorry for him learning code, animation, new sw and all that in my mainly linux/osx office. I was told Win 7 would come as a free upgrade in a few days so I figured I might as well install the machine a few days before.
Sure as the Pope is Catholic the thing bluescreened on the second boot, with no xtra sw or hw mind you.
I have a few gripes with HP over this. Firstly threre was no option for XP downgrade Linux or blank OS I HAD to pay Msoft tax if I wanted this HW.
I also had to pay an extra hundred on top of that (upgrade to vista ultimate) because they woulnt sell me an English version. The multilingulal upgrade by the way is 1.5 gig ;0 and took 4 hours to install on my gigabit connection. You see unlike Mac or Linux Msoft makes you pay extra (smartypants tax) if you are multilingual. Its their policy to cater to the BLAND part of society. Only Ultimate+ comes with multilingual upgradeability.
Note the multilingual is half assed anyway , random tabs and configs still appear in Japanese.
I needed a machine quick smart so I ordered online with HP.
Machine arrived later than expected, they explained bc I ordered after 6pm (which Japanese companies finish at 6pm?)
All in all the OS sucked entirely as expected.

Sorry if any of you have been trying to mail or call me, Ive been stuck in the office 24/7 animating. September is always an incredibly busy month, thank god it's almost over. Luckily in the last 3 days I got to focus on some research documentation.
With the short films, helping others with their projects, R&D deadlines and organizing multiple events I have NO room for mistakes.
Unfortunately some people let me down on the stereoscopic demo I was working on. There was no option but to make up for lost time. Even with extra help I had to do some all nighters. I had to break the scary 8 day no sleep limit I try to set myself. 6 is tripppy but by the 8th paranoia sets in and it can get wierd.

(assistant Niimi checking parallax, pic is censored due to NDA.)
Looking at stereoscopic images over and over, it seemed after a while our eyes were seeing 3d sans the eyewear.

Notes on doing long stetches with no sleep, rules are:
No stimulants stronger than tea, concentration is paramount.
Smack the face during dificult hours 5-8am
Have an assistant that can translate jibberish
Don't close eyes more than 10 min stretches
The first day is always the hardest
After the 3rd day it seems easier as your body goes on a natural high, the only side effect is trippy dilated eyes
6th hallulinatory shapes seem to occasionally fill peripheral vision
8th paranoic "people in the room effects" - not nice at all.
If possible never try to go past the scary 8 day wall of no sleep

Please note some people registered but still did not RSVP yet. Please RSVP at http://www.rendersan.org to book a seat.
Updated Pixar schedule for this Thursdays meeting:

6:30pm Pixar Renderman UGM
featuring:

Peter Moxom, Pixar's Worldwide RenderMan Channels Head, from Sydney Australia
AND
Pixar's RenderMan Talk
Dylan Sisson - Technical Artist
Part 1: "Shading and Lighting for Pixar's Up" - During this talk,Dylan will present a glimpse into how Pixar developed the shading and lighting for the animated feature, Up. From initial references and　concept art to final scalable shaders, Dylan will show some of the strategies used to create one of Pixar's most sophisticated works to date.
This talk will include several case studies of production shaders, and show some of the innovative point based color bleeding methods used on this film.
Additionally there will be a special screening of the trailer for Up, in Japanese.
Part 2: "RenderMan 2009" - During the second half Dylan will talk about some of the recent development in Pixar's RenderMan Products:
including new features in the upcoming release of RenderMan Pro Server 15.0, Pixar's new job distribution system Tractor 1.0, and the milestones for future.
New Stereoscopic and Re-Render Maya plugin for RenderMan Pro Server Katsuaki Hiramitsu: Steradian Inc.
lastly Pixar Renderman's Japan distributor Indyzone will be giving a small talk on the new product lineup.

Peter Moxom, オーストラリアシドニーよりPixarのWorldwide RenderMan Channels責任者
及び
ピクサー　RenderManトーク‐テクニカルアーティストDylan Sisson氏
パート1："Shading and Lighting for Pixar's Up" -Dylan氏によるカールじいさんの空飛ぶ家【UP】のアニメーションフィーチャーのため、ピクサーがどのようにライティング、シェーディングを開発された経験をちらっとお話頂く予定です。最初のリファレンス、そしてコンセプトアートから最終スケールシェーダーよりDylan氏による、現在ピクサーで最も洗練されたワークのひとつの製作に使用された数々の戦略を紹介いただきます。
このトークにはプロダクションシェーダーのいくつかのケーススタディも含まれ、このフィルムに使用された導入ポイントベース色彩ブリーディング方法を見せて頂きます。
さらにカールじいさんの空飛ぶ家【UP】の日本語版予告編を特別上映する予定です。
パート2："RenderMan 2009" - 後半の部ではDylan氏より最近開発されたいくつかのピクサーレンダーマンプロダクトについてお話いただきます。近日リリース予定のRenderMan Pro Server15.0の新しいフィーチャーを含め、ピクサーの新しいジョブディストリビューションシステムのTractor 1.0、将来のmilestonesも含まれます。
RenderMan Pro Server対応ステレオ立体視およびRe-Render用拡張
Mayaプラグインについて
株式会社ステラジアン　　平光勝明　様
最後にPixar Renderman日本代理店Indyzoneよりニュープロダクト他についてのトーク。

At this weeks (Thur 17th) combined Pixar UGM and Rendersan there will be a special talk on how to save 50%-80% render times on your stereoscopic renders! Up till now if you were a newbie you mightn't know how to control this power within Pixar's RenderMan. So to make things easier a new Maya plugin (made in JAPAN!) will be explained by its creator Hiramitsu San.
I have been testing it this week and it is absolutely mind-blowing! -the guy is a savior.

I hold these meetings regularly but this weeks is not to be missed. It's going to be super informative if you are serious about rendering a LOT of stereoscopic data or want to relight scenes in Pixar's Renderman.Also you must NOT miss meeting Dylan's speech, he is flying all the way out from Pixar (Emeryville) just to meet you guy's so lets give him a warm welcome. Peter, from Sydney will also attend so we have two people to geek out!

login http://www.rendersan.org
RVSP here: http://www.rendersan.org/events/rendersan-5-with-pixar-ugm

Oh and we have a secret party later ..... :)

animator found. I have a bunch of projects on this month and I am looking for an assistant animator to help out for a few weeks this month.
The characters, rigs and motion are pretty much finished.
You need to have at least 3 years Maya experience, school experience counts so this is a fantastic opportunity for someone just out of school.
You will be trained by me in the following:
1)Stereoscopic techniques
2)Pixar's Renderman (Pro Studio)
You will need to work here at Nexus in Shinjuku from Wednesday to Saturday, I expect work to be done at your home/office on Monday and or Tuesday so you will need at least a Maya license at home. Work days and payment are negotiable, this project is part 1 in a 3 part project so it probably will lead to more work.
please contact me ASAP: bernard at nexusinternational.

アシスタントアニメーターつかりました私はプロジェクトを多数抱えていまして、今月数週間ほどお手伝い頂けるアシスタントアニメーターの方を探しています。
キャラクター、リグ、モーションは概ね完成しています。
少なくとも3年以上のMaya経験者で学校での使用期間も含みます。新卒者の方には絶好の機会だと思います。
私が下記を講習いたします:
1)ステレオスコピックテクニック
2)Pixar's Renderman (Pro Studio)
水曜～土曜は新宿のNexusで勤務頂きます。月曜と火曜は在宅または会社にて仕事を進めていただきますので最低でもご自宅にMayaのライセンスが必要です。
勤務日、報酬額には応相談。なお今プロジェクトは3パートプロジェクトの中のパート1ですので場合によりましては引き続きお手伝い願うこともあります。
早急にご連絡ください: bernard at nexusinternational.jp

I highly reccommend if you have the time to make it over to Yokohama and attend CEDEC this week. You might also know I was going to give a presentation at CEDEC this year. The presentation I was going to give included animation and images from the Playstation 3 Game I was Lip Sync Supervisor for "Siren: Blood Curse".
Because the I was going to show images not seen by gamers, bloopers, and fix-ups I could not show my data without clearance from the copyright holder Sony Computer Entertainment. Eventually I did get clearance from the producer, however it was way to close to the conference deadline so I had to opt out. It was the fault of nobody but time himself so this year you will have to enjoy the conference without my ramblings :)I hope next year I can entertain you with some behind the scenes magic again!

Anyway if you do get to go along there are some real gems this year. My favorite is on the 3rd:

Houdini in a Games Pipeline
講演日：9月3日
時間：13:30～14:30
Side Effects Software社のエフェクトツール”Houdini”を使い
プロシージャルな手法を取り入れたゲーム制作「KILLZONE2」の事例をご紹介いたします。
ソフトウェアレンダラーの現状 　　
　　　　　- Pixar's RenderMan と V-Ray にみる向上するインタラクティブ性 -
講演日：9月3日
時間：14：50～15：50

This morning before an early meeting I found most of the slippers missing AGAIN. This is Japan and as you may know its customary for people to take off their shoes at the door. The culprit as usual "Lucky" my ferret, he seems to have a "thing" for collecting slippers. Here you can see him hoarding a bunch behind the Sun rack:

He has another "cubby" of slippers up the other end of my office, when he makes his way with the slippers he cannot be stopped. Best to let him do his 'ferrety'** thing I suppose:


Loving the crunchy sounds a plastic bag can make ferrets go nuts when you give them one. Lucky is 100% deaf, but he still must get enjoyment from the feeling of it. Another thing they love is tunnels, tubes and holes. So if heaven for a ferret is a plastic bag, doubly so if it's in the shape of a two meter tube. Such treasure he found in my office:



After about half an hour he gets a little tired, here he is plotting his next moves:

More photos of that morning here.
After these acts of vandalism, he always returns to his natural narcoleptic state.

** Ferrety (new word by me)

Some simple redirection I wrote ages ago! using PHP, looks bad but works. I literally added to it as sites grew.

<?php
/************************************************************************/
/* Nexus Redirector: Web Portal */
/* =========================== */
/* */
/* Copyright(c)2002 Bernard Edlington bernard(at)nexusinternational.jp */
/* */
/* */
/************************************************************************/
function checknex() {
global $HTTP_REFERER;
global $HTTP_HOST;
$HTTP_HOST= getenv('HTTP_HOST');
$str = $HTTP_HOST;
$str = strtolower($str);
$site = "noneofyabusiness1.jp";
$site1 = "noneofyabusiness2.com";
$site2 = "noneofyabusiness3.com";
$site3 = "noneofyabusiness4.org";
$site4 = "noneofyabusiness5.jp";
$site5 = "noneofyabusiness6.com";
global $HTTP_HOST;
global $PHP_SELF;
if ((ereg ("(.*)".$site2, $str))||(ereg ("(.*)".$site3, $str))||(ereg ("(.*)".$site4, $str)))
{
header( 'Location: http://www.noneofyabusiness.org' );
}
elseif (ereg ("(.*)".$site1, $str))
{
header( 'Location: http://noneofyabusiness/-a.googlepages.com/home' ) ;
}
elseif (ereg ("(.*)".$site5, $str))
{
header( 'Location: http://www.noneofyabusiness1/-a.googlepages.com/home' ) ;
}
elseif (ereg ("(.*)".$site, $str))
{
header( 'Location: http://www.noneofyabusiness.jp/foobar/' ) ;
}
else
{
$pattern = array('/\.com$/', '/\.co\.jp$/','/\.jp$/');
$replacement = '';
$wiped = preg_replace($pattern, $replacement, $str);
$pattern1 = '/^.*\./';
$wiped1 = preg_replace($pattern1, $replacement, $wiped);
echo'<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5;url=http://www. noneofyabusiness.jp/foobar/">';
echo'<center><h3>',$wiped1,' message here</h3></center><br>
<center><img border="0" src="/images/logo1.png" width="90" height="80" alt="icon"></a>
<img border="0" src="/images/logo2.png" width="358" height="26" alt="icon"></a></center>';
echo'<br><center><h3>you will be redirected in 5 seconds</h3></center>';
echo'<center><h3>click <a href="http://www. noneofyabusiness.jp/foobar/">here</a> if you have any problems</h3></center><br>';
}
}
checknex();
?>

On Sunday I was over in Toyosu and decided to pop into the Tokyo Gas Science museum. I animated the exhibit a few years ago so I was curious to see if it had changed at all. Surprisingly nothing had gone, actually there were a couple of additions.

The exhibits are targeted to give children a hands on knowledge of gas and energy information, but adults seem just as interested in the subjects as well.
And like almost everything else in Japan it is packaged with cute characters to make it appealing, thankfully so or I would be out of a job. Unlike my other character work which has cute factor only like Tokyo Police's Pipo-kun these characters seem to add (a little) meaning to the exhibit. Each character represents energy states so children can visualize the concept of energy.
By using touchscreens, AR interactive games and infrared cameras. It explains how we use gas in our lives and how we should conserve this limited commodity. Hands on things like cooking classes and science experiments make the museum quite a good day out for children.



There are many interesting examples of the history of energy and future technologies like fuel cells wind and solar power.
The most surprising thing for me was how my work had been reused so many times. Unfortunately with entirely different dialogues which meant lips were out of sync. On the upside the kids couldn't care less so I suppose it's just me being fussy. Considering the animation was made over the space of a few weeks Tokyo Gas really got it's monies worth. Looking back now I know why I was told to DELETE much of the mouth detail, not only to save time but so it could be reused over and over!



Some trivia, the original versions I made of the characters I made to look like towel and furry stuffed toys.A couple of years ago, fur wasn't being rendered very much so I really wanted to use my new software. I was told there was not enough budget for the soft look, oh well. Restricted again by the bean counters! Personally I really wished that went with the plush toy look - oh well.

more pics here

Once more the entire Sadogatake(佐渡ヶ嶽部屋) Sumo(相撲) team over the backyard. This year we tried to restrict to sumo / family / close clients only. Guest numbers more than halved this year so it was much more easy to handle (wish you guys were here to help this year Will & Andy).

Feeding and partying with a whole Sumo team and over and guests is hard work, here's a shot of me loading the crates.

Here is me, the little guy partying with giants.

From front left to right rear: and Kotooshu(琴欧洲), Kotomitsuki(琴光喜), me, and the great Hidenoyama Oyakata

After everyone is fed literally a truckload of meat (Kagoshima kuroge wagyu) and crate loads of beer its time for my pics with these humongous guys. standing beside them will give you the scale of these giants.




More pics here
Thanks Chie, Takako, and Kako for taking my pics.
Really have thank Moana this year for helping oniichan Bernie with the drinks!
More pics on my private site.

some pics from previous years here and here.

Tried to kid myself I was researching some physics behind Ponyo.

The air builds up and is pushed further and further down the pipes until bubbles are expelled. To satisfy the Second Law of Thermodynamics, heat is expelled from the engine via these ejected pulses.

When in reality everyone knows I just was just playing with the pop pop boat in a tub.

I held the eighth TokyoGAF party at club Womb in Dogenzaka this time. A spectacular night with good friends and some new faces representing Tokyo's leading Game, Film, and Animation companies. I usually give people 2 weeks notice so I honestly thought attendance would be sparse with only 5 days notice given. 37 attended and it felt like just a perfect sized crowd.
Remember if you are a member on our TokyoGAF site please send me some feedback so I can make the next event even more fantastic.

**both images taken by T. Hiramatsu used with his permission.
More images here
We had a very special guest over from Digital Domain who was not here on official business but was kind enough to make his way to my gig. He commented on how important such social events are in LA, and is happy we are doing the same in Tokyo. Judging by peoples comments after the party Jun is truly one of the most respected exports from this country.
After the party 4 of us got right blotto in a Latin dance club, animators on the bongos and lots of fun.

If you want to attend the next party or know someone who should be our guest join the site and contact me please.

Had one of those days I want to hang decorations from my dangly bits and dance around in the rain!
One of the research projects which started off so fast this month came to a halt the Friday before last. I had to come up with my own depth sorting hider algorithm. I couldn't stop my other duties so I had to stop production on the short I am producing. I was up most nights last week trying to figure this problem out. Probably easy for you smart guys but I was strapped for time and cannot afford lost days. Thankfully today was the breakthrough I needed, looks a bit rough but nothing filtering won't fix. Looks like tonight my mind will finally get some rest, and I might get a decent sleep. Tomorrow some code cleaning then Wednesday back to what I love - animating. Learnt a lot in the process so it was all worth it.

This Saturday and Sunday I spent over the georgeous Keio Hiyoshi campus. We were hooked up to Pixar in San Francisco via Polycom HD. Because Siggraph Asia has not yet gone public. I will wait to put any photos up showing any more detail than this setup shot before the meeting started.

It was great to be a part of the inner workings of the largest conference in our industry. To see the dedication to fairness was probably the biggest highlight.

水曜日TokyoGAF渋谷のパティー
水曜日夜のイベントの出欠返信につきまして、返信済と思われていて、実際には返信が未完了になっている方など、少々混乱が生じているようです。

TokyoGAFサイトへのご登録頂くだけではパーティーの出欠のご返信にはなりません。
只今の状況をチェックして頂くにはこちらへ:
http://tokyogaf.nexusinternational.jp/events/tokyogaf-8-effects-wizard-from
右で見て頂けるとおり:

あなたの返信

すでにご返信済の場合は次のようになっています:

出席する

あなたの返信は問題なく完了しました。水曜日のパーティーを一緒に楽しみましょう!

今日（月曜日）18時迄に会場へ予約金と予約人数を知らせなくてはならないので明日18時までに出欠をお知らせください。
もし右で見て頂けるとおり:

たぶん出席する

今日（月曜日）18時前に出席または欠席への変更をお願いします。

参加思案中でご登録していただきませんとご入場頂けない場合もありますのでご了承ください。
次をクリックしていただき:

返信を変更する

次にどちらかをクリック:

出席する

または

出席しない

もし出席希望でまだご返信されていない場合このように表示されます:

返信していない

あなたはこちらへクリックして頂く必要があります:

出席する

もし欠席を希望でまだご返信されていない場合このように表示されます:

返信していない

あなたは次にこちらへクリックして頂く必要があります:

欠席する

すでにご返信済ですがキャンセルをご希望の場合こちらをクリック:

返信を変更する

次にこちらをクリック:

出席しない

もし欠席希望とご返信済みでしたが参加希望の場合こちらをクリックしてください:

返信を変更する

次にこちらをクリック:

出席する

Regarding Wednesdays TokyoGAF party in Shibuya.
There seems to be some confusion, some people might think they have　a RSVP for Wednesdays night event but haven't properly booked yet.

Just joining the TokyoGAF site does not mean you have a RSVP for the party.

How can you check? go here:
http://tokyogaf.nexusinternational.jp/events/tokyogaf-8-effects-wizard-from
On the right you will see:

Your RSVP

if you don't a have RSVP it will say:

You are attending

No problem you have a RSVP and will be having a cool night out with us!

By tonight(Monday) after 6pm I have to go around to the club and pay a registration fee for EXACT numbers, so there can be NO maybes by 6pm tonight(Monday).
if on the right you see:

You might attend

Please change it to "attend" or "not attend" before 6pm Today (Monday).

A maybe will be considered NOT registered, and you might not be able to enter!
Just click on:

Change RSVP

Then click either:

Will attend

or

Will not attend

If you want to attend but haven't RESPONDED yet it will say:

You have not responded

You then need to click on:

Will attend

If you DON'T want to attend but haven't RESPONDED yet it will say:

You have not responded

You then need to click on:

Will attend

If you have a RSVP but want to cancel click on:

Change RSVP

Then click

Will not attend

If you have answered the RSVP as NOT attending but want to attend click on:

Change RSVP

Then click

Will attend

After 3 meetings and 2 events on Friday by night I just wanted to sleep. My friends brother who is a popular photographer here Benjamin Parks was having his photography displayed at the Naked Tokyo http://www.nakedtokyo.com exhibit in Super Deluxe.
Well if you know me those 2 words Naked and Tokyo are just magnetic so I just had to attend. Tokyo is the ultimate in stress and naked is the release, what a wonderful combo. Of course many artists contributed to this wonderfull event. One of the best collab spaces I have seen in ages. Funny thing is I found out I DONT like art in a club space. I want to mull over pieces, which is hard when people are partying. I'm a party guy but not when it comes to art.
Enough fun and naked Japanese bodies for a night, I just realized Tony mailed me the resources I need for tomorrows judging. Going back to the office for a printfest. Man just realized I didn't even get naked!

The Industrial VR conference is one of those events I try to attend each year if time permits. Last year I didn't get to see much so this year I was determined to go.

It's been a busy week so I can only make it to Friday afternoon, for a max of 1 hour.
Met Chiyama, Tanaka, Hiramitsu, Hiramatsu, and the guys from SGI not bad in the space of 30 min.

Best booths this year:
Silicon Graphics Japan and Solnet.
Had a quick coffee in the VIP room with VIP Tanaka san. Unfortunately no lap dances in this VIP room so I left.

Going over daily blog graph for new visitors (no not you regular folks!), its pretty obvious new INTERESTING blogs attracts traffic much more than twitter / microblog. So? blog more & twitter less.

At all times the shelves must be stocked with enough concentrated stimulant** for the animators to function at a rate beyond normal human endurance. Failure to comply will result in SKUB*

* Swift kick up the Buttocks
**featured stimulant of choice... Illy espresso

A fairly common occurance in Tokyo is to the the totally out salarymen. Usually neckties 'round the head mean a social gathering while sights like this jus mean plain pooped. You can see there is no evidence of peer or self defamation (inside out clothes etc.). This guy later decided to put his feet up!

Odakyu line 10:30pm which is fairly early to be wrecked.

Dropped by sushi on the way home, love my Sunday night sushi.

It's been a while since I have had a Sunday off to go to Kendo so this mornings training was a little hard on the body. Came back to the house to find Lucky my ferret in his usual unconscious state. I swear this guy must have a stash hidden somewhere he's only conscious 4 hours a day. Oh and as usual with his tongue out.

The good thing is when he is this out of it he becomes quite "portable". You can just pick him up like so:



And put him down next to you on the sofa



Quite handy if you are busy on the laptop. After playing with 'stoner' Lucky went for a cruise to the library.


Picked up some books and went to Afternoon Tea.

Yesterday I was over at Silicon Graphics Japan. I was in a meeting about some of my future projects which include physics acceleration and what I have coined "assisted traditional rendering" using parallel computing and GPU computing like Cuda, OpenCL and my favorite cyberprophet Kurzweil came to mind.

For those not familiar Kurzweil he is our generations Edison, an avid thinker inventor and all round likable nut. I mean that in a nicest possible way. If you are not a bit of a nut your just doomed to think like the rest of the herd so Kurzweil is probably my favorite nut after Dr. Nakamatsu of course, who is considerably more nuttier.

Anyway back to the conversation, while talking about GPU and personal supercomputers I realized we were really talking about Kurzweil's "Law of Accelerating Returns". Just like the transistors of old, our current CPU technology is hitting that brick wall of too few electrons per cell. Very soon your new OS will have GPU computing at their cores, both Win7 and Snow Leopard have planned for it. I don't think Kurzweil's sixth paradigm is here just yet, but this manipulation of the physical limits of CPU computing by adding more and more cores with GPU super computing shows we are getting close to massively parallel computing. This will definitely make paving the way to the sixth paradigm massively parallel computing in three dimensions a smoother and easier transition. By smooth I mean a curve which keeps on increasing at an exponential rate (thanks Julien for the comment).

A side note: just before the meeting a funny thing happened while having an egg Benugo and a triple shot cappuccino at Benugo in Garden place Ebisu.

I had almost finished the muffin, 3 thieves came along and ate the last of my breakfast.

For some strange reason animals don't find find me imposing. I have had this happen so many times, its sort of funny but why? It's like tiny animals are going "yeah yeah its just Bernie guys lets nick his brekky!"

I'm about to start meeting with California again, till last week have been using either Polycom SD, Skype or Citrix, tonight using MS Live meeting for the first time, next week I will be hooked up to Pixar via Polycom High Def. It's great to be able to try out all these systems, I'm gonna blog next week and give you my opinion so far. Telepresence has really come a long way in the last few years. I'm really grateful for the time saving and the lack of freaking jet lag (YAY!) which as I get older, and the topics harder becomes a real constraint. If anyone out there can recommend something better comment away!

Just realized it's the 17th which is normal for all you out there. I just gained a whole day because I thought it was the 18th. I thought I was running out of time for writing reviews for SIGGRAPH Asia due 23:59 UTC. That with late night 2am conferences with California(I have another in an hour), writing a draft for CEDEC, some mind bending research, running a company, and producing a short film. I was looking forward to the 18th deadline just to lighten my load. Anyway I think it's been confusing because everyone has been mailing me timelines in UTC GMT PDT GMT+2(Belarus) etc....

Thanks to good design I am on schedule. I actually designed my office (rename Tardis) on THX 1138 so I would work harder and without distractions like color, design, time, you know things like everyday life. It worked I was not distracted by time at all. It shows what sensory deprivation will do to you when in an all white office.

The good thing is yes it is Wednesday and I can calm down .... for at least an hour while I'm hooked up to California (PDT to you ;).
PS can anyone recommend a watch for a guy like me who works in about 4 timezones a day?

An intense weekend, I had another great party over Shirogumi's studio.

We were celebrating Mami's Birthday, and ended up at Gokigenya, a great live place nearby.
Later Tanaka San drove his red Lamborghini home:



I then made my way home by taxi with Shirogumi's staff. After a little nap I was a little worn out (trans: hungover) for Sunday morning's 9am meeting. After a couple of shots of espresso around eleven I started to gain a little clarity.
Some may be aware that I am a fan of Korean food and my office is near an area of Tokyo famous for Korean food. Well I was told about a great Korean Sundobu chain at Machida called (東京純豆腐 )Tokyo Sundubu. Sundubu(순두부) is a SPICY Korean tofu hotpot and it's really addictive. Whenever I am in California I look out for the BCD Tofu house or the many others dotted around Silicon valley.

Pretty awesome! I had the butter version which I couldn't get near Okubo or Korea. Later I took Lucky to the vet for his shots, here's a shot of him mucking around on the passenger floor of my car.

I was given some pills for him to take. So simple to dupe this ferret by cunningly inserting a pill into one in his favorite snacks a natural raisin. Popped that baby like a raver!