Progress Report #10 - Jun-Oct 2018 - Conferences, Open, and New Rewards

October 14, 2018

Hi everyone, here is finally the progress report for this summer!! As a reminder, progress reports are now public, so feel free to share it as widely as you can :-D You can watch it either on Youtube or on Facebook:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-lYqI4a5bs

https://www.facebook.com/vgcsoftware/videos/737179866647445/

If you share the video to Facebook, then it is preferable to share the Facebook version, otherwise it's usually preferable to share the Youtube version.

Thank you once again for your support, and let's spread the word about VGC!

Boris

Video Transcript:

Alright, it's been a long time since the last progress report, and so many exciting things happened this summer! Ok, to be honest, not too much progress in terms of features, but it was conference season and I went to the Annecy Film Festival in June, to the Symposium on Computer Animation in July, To SIGGRAPH in August, and finally to Expressive. Oh, and after that, I also moved from Lyon to Toulouse, where my partner found a new job, so I had to pack everything, unpack everything, and then setup my new office.

So I went to Annecy in June, and it was amazing! If there is only one festival or conference I go next year, it's gonna be Annecy! Why? Because it is much less expensive than a conference like SIGGRAPH for example, and it has a much stronger 2D animation presence, where SIGGRAPH or FMX are more about 3D animation than 2D animation. Plus, the location is absolutely stunning, right next to the Annecy lake, surrounded by beautiful mountains. So I had this small space where I could promote VGC a little bit, and I tried to talk to as many people as possible in the other stands. For example, I talked to a journalist from a French computer graphics community called 3DVF, and he wrote a small article about VGC. I also went to a very useful workshop on how to secure funding for small computer graphics companies like VGC Software, and I was able to make a few useful contacts there. And obviously, since it is an animation festival, well, I went to see a few animated films there, and I discovered that they had this fun tradition of actually throwing *paper planes before the movie begins.

Next, in July, I went to SCA, the Symposium on Computer Animation, which was happening in Paris this year. SCA is a purely academic conference where researchers in the field of computer animation share their latest work with the community. So a majority of this work was about physics-based animation such as water simulation, smoke simulation with complicated equations, but there were also a few relevant work to VGC, such as here this work on 2D inbetweening. This conference is pretty small, which is actually a good thing: it makes it way easier to get to know the people during coffee breaks or the poster session. And included in the conference fee, there was also a nice sight seeing tour organized around Paris, followed by a dinner at the musée d'Orsay, where a lot of the famous impressionist paintings are exposed, among other things.

In August, I took a flight to beautiful Vancouver for SIGGRAPH. Okay, I absolutely love Vancouver. I was living there for 4 years for my PhD, and it felt so good to be back. So, SIGGRAPH is a huge conference. It has everything from academic research like in SCA, film screenings like in the Annecy film festival, and also production talks where big studios like Disney or Dreamworks present their latest technology. Unfortunately, it's never allowed to take pictures or videos during these talks, so I can't really show you what these look like. There is a huge exhibition floor where graphics companies present there latest products, and also interesting projects such as this crazy experiment where a subject is sent electrical stimulation to enhance or inhibit their sense of taste (and yes, I tried it too). There are quite a few robots, virtual reality stuff, and even this fun project mixing both robots AND virtual reality, where one person controls in VR an actual robot sitting on top of another person. And of course, there are a lot a cool events such as the Renderman Science Fair where you can get these cute little walking teapots. But for me, the main advantage of SIGGRAPH is actually just to stay in touch with my previous colleagues, from my master, my PhD, or from Pixar, with whom I could enjoy a beer or a game of pool.

Once SIGGRAPH was over, then I took a ferry to Vancouver Island to attend a conference called Expressive, happening Victoria. Expressive is very similar to SCA: it is a small, purely academic conference, but more focused on sketch-based interfaces and 2D graphics and animation, so very relevant to VGC. For example, there were a few innovative painting systems presented, and also a potentially useful rigging technique for 2D animation. In fact, I was in the program committee of this conference, which means that I helped a little to select which paper, which research was accepted to the conference. I was also the chair of one of the sessions, which consists in introducing the speakers, and make sure that they don't use more time than they are allocated. Similar to SCA, there was a dinner organized, this time with potential industry partners. And then, I took a ferry back to Vancouver, and then a plane back to Lyon.

And this, was the last conference for this year. Honestly, that was way too many conferences, and I was exhausted after all this. Next year, I will definitely go to fewer conferences, maybe just Annecy, or maybe Annecy and SIGGRAPH, but that's it. This way, not only I will save money, but I will be able to focus more on programming new features!

Speaking of features, since the last progress report, I have finally finished to implement the "Open" feature. So now, not only you can save your drawings, but you can also, wait for it... re-open them later! Isn't that revolutionary? More seriously, there was a lot of engineering to be done in order to achieve that, and I'm really glad that now it's over.

Also, for the first time, I've finally managed to compile VGC Illustration on Windows, which means that now, it runs both on Linux and on Windows, but I still have to try on MacOS. Hopefully this shouldn't take too long, and I'dll try to release the first alpha version shortly after that.

And speaking of alpha version, I've just changed a little bit what rewards you get on Patreon and Tipeee. Before, I said that you had to be at least a Gold Sponsor to have access to alpha or beta versions of VGC. But based on a suggestion from one of you, I've decided to give access to alpha and beta versions to all sponsors. Of course, there is no alpha or beta version yet, but it should arrive soon! Also, I will now make all video progress reports, starting from this one, available publicly to everyone, from day one! So no more two-month exclusive access anymore. This makes it possible for everyone to share it on social media as soon as they are released, which I hope in turn will increase awareness about VGC. But I think I will make fewer of them, maybe once every 3 to 4 months instead of being monthly, so that I can spend more time actually programming and implementing new features!

Anyway, that's it for today! Thanks for watching, and see you soon!

If you liked this project, then make sure to follow VGC Software on Youtube, Facebook, or Twitter, so that you don't miss the next progress report. Also, if you could share this video, that would be immensely helpful! Because the more people know about VGC, the most likely it is to succeed. And finally, if you want to try out the upcoming alpha version, or pre-order license keys for the final version, then please check out my Patreon or Tipeee page. Since I'm working full-time on this project, this is my only source of revenue, so as you can imagine, this is pretty important for me. Anyway, thanks for watching, and see you soon!