Location: Las Vegas

Time: April 5-12, 2002

During the National Association of Broadcasters 2002 convention, a smallish 3D users' group from the Pacific Northwest arrived to put on a show. This "Shootout" would pit five top 3D computer-graphic artists, and their programs-of-choice against each other.

The products consisted of:

3ds max(Discreet),

Maya(Alias|Wavefront),

Lightwave(NewTek),

Cinema4D(Maxon),

and Softimage|XSI(Avid/Softimage).

Free domestic beer was provided by Maxon. It started around 6pm, and went until 9pm.

The event drew a crowd of over a hundred people, was quoted by a CBS rep as "the best event at NAB", and is slated to be written up in next month's edition of Computer Graphics World.

I'd been working for Dan as an unpaid intern for about a month now--I was "hired" on just as the preparations for this trip started gearing up.

The Crew:

Dan "Major Pixel" Kemmis
The leader of the whole gig, master of the "XYZ And You" user group, as well as being owner of DK Enterprises(a Discreet reseller). The "Major" is a large guy who is quite well versed in "presence" techniques, as well as bearing a noteworthy resemblance to the WWF’s "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Often seen in a leather trenchcoat with his trademark wraparound sunglasses. Extremely well connected in the 3D industry, noticeably to Discreet. Plays videogames daily.

"Mean" Mike Smith
One of the secretaries/office helpers at DKE(LaRae "Lt. Laser" is the other one), Mike drove the passenger minivan to and from Vegas. He also serves as Dan’s majordomo,and coordinated arrangements with the various entities we dealt with, in addition to being an avid gameplayer. Dan still beats him all the time at Freedom Force, though.

Rob Maki
Owner of Sprit Studios(and title owner of the building). Maki worked at Microsoft for 10 years, before returning to video production. The director of the 3D Shootout, he was responsible for all equipment setup and crew direction. Edited together the video clips for the Shootout’s presentation, and oversaw all other physical aspects. Smokes clove cigarettes like a chimney.

Bryan
Head video editor at Spirit/DKE. His weapon of choice: an old Avid non-linear-editor. A very wild man when cooped up, his lack of driving on the way down led him to take us on a crazy ride for our first night on the Strip. Ended up renting another Avid in Vegas to do last minute editing, and getting very little sleep.

Scott Mus(Chaotic Productions)
Friend of Bryan, Scott is currently a filmmaker. After "making a bank" in stocks, he’s pursuing his cinematography dreams. A neat guy to talk to about various Hollywood films, he also resembles one of the Lone Gunmen from The X-Files.

Carolyn
Motion-graphics producer. Didn’t travel with the group, and most of the crew only met her during the Shootout. However, she had been working on the NAB presentation for some weeks previously, with Matt, Robert, and I.

Cary
Curmudgeon audio technician(and former Mackie employee). Cary swore under his breath even more than Scott F. did during the Shootout, and handled the audio mixer as a veteran. He also did a lot of driving with the cargo van, where we discovered that he’s got a lead-foot(average speed: 75 mph).

Iliana
A younger Computer Science student from Venezuala, Illiana helped with lights and setup. She has a noticeable accent, but was very understanding, and was a pleasure to have along.

Tara
Owner and writer for CapitalistChicks.com, Tara is also a longtime Lightwave fan. Being the slightly-sarcastic voice of the group, her earlier trips to Vegas helped to inform us of many pitfalls. Also a longtime console gamer and community-college student. Ended up yanked out of the crew during the Shootout by Dan to act as another judge.

Mary(Lost Wax Works)
A former jewelry designer, Mary took a one-week 3ds max course from Mesmer, and is seeking new employment. Being a stable voice of the group, she is also a very skilled graphic artist.

Heinz
German immigrant, with accent to match. Engineer(?) for Matsushita Avionics, has visited many countries including Singapore, Australia, and the UAE(Middle East). A rabid 3ds max fan, he documented almost every single portion of the trip via videocamera(which got him into trouble in a few points). Always eager and joking, but not entirely receptive to the group’s communal feeling.

Matt
Coworker at Spirit Studios, Matt is a longtime 3ds max user, and architecture grad. Most of his days are taken up as acting as a combination max tutor and Discreet tech-support jocky. Loves highway driving, and always answers his cellphone with a very gruff voice. Ended up assembling most of the lighting structure, and was a backup contestant for the 3ds max chair.

Daniel
Former researcher at the UW’s (now defunct) virtual-reality lab, Daniel recently started his own company. Very interested in exploring the uses and capabilities of VR outside of simple entertainment, he’ll gladly tell you his future plans. While tapped to be a backup AV director, he mostly ended up driving around Vegas, due to his extensive street knowledge. Entertained everyone on the way back with his spooky supernatural experiences, many stemming from his wife’s family.

J.D.
Animation student at Henry Cogswell College, J.D.(or "Scrapper", as his last name goes) is currently taking its excellent combined 2D/3D animation course. One of his instructors is the famous animator Tony White, who recently moved to the area. J.D. loves doing 3D animation, but hates the actual "modelling" part. Is also a Web designer, and ran the HP workstation used for slide projection at the Shootout.

Scott Francis
A recent WSU graduate, Scott has been working as an unpaid intern at Spirit Studios(mostly under Maki), desperately tracing job leads. Having responsibility for directing AV, he spent most of the Shootout cursing under his breath and frantically coping with Dan’s on-the-fly actions. Also navigated/copiloted the 15-passenger van to and from Vegas, as well as running with Daniel on driving errands.

Eric
Originally a backup contestant, moved to the 3ds max chair when Discreet declined to send one of their own. Hard-working sort, he stayed up late nights with Matt while they both practiced showing off in 3ds max.

Rory
Lightwave contestant and former owner of his own production studio(closed personally, after an unsuccessful "mutiny"). Rory drove the entire stretch from Seattle to Vegas overnight in an attempt to catch up with the group. Ended up hanging around with the group due to lack of funds. Also maintains a converted paintball gun as a potato cannon(powered by compressed gas. Dangerous!)

Lane
Former instructor at Mesmer, Lane was the Maya contestant. Narrowly avoiding the displeasure of Alias/Wavefront for his competing(shades of the Cold War!), Lane arrived in a very Kid Rock appearance. Currently working on a Xbox platform game for a Seattle developer.

Anthony
CEO of Mesmer, Anthony appeared as the Softimage|XSI contestant. Scott F.’s former XSI instructor. He eventually won the Shootout and tasked Scott F. to carry his trophy back to Mesmer).

The First Day(Friday)

Piling into the vans at ~4:45am, Dan went over his expected plans and rules. After signing the "consent forms"(and failing to get the photocopier working), we hit the road. Many of the crew including Matt and Scott F. rode in the 15-passenger van, while Dan and his group took the minivan. Robert and Cary took responsibility of the flat-panel cargo van.

As soon as we turned on to 520, Matt’s cellphone rang. It turned out that "Ron", an eager volunteer was waiting to still be picked up. It eventually transpired that Ron had called at the last minute late Thursday night. In addition sounding mentally unconnected, as well as demanding that he be allowed to smoke in the van(forbidden by the rental company, not to mention the passengers), Matt decided to NOT take him along. However, nobody had gotten word to him, so I was forced to stammer that he wasn’t going, and hang up. He eventually ended up composing a nasty email to the XYZ mailing list, and that was the last we heard of him.

Continuing down 520 to 148^th Av., and then jumping onto I-90, it confirmed what I’d been dreading: the interstate highways to Vegas are very long, and very empty. However, I still had to stay awake to make sure we didn’t miss any turns. Traveling through Snoqualmie pass, through the Tri-Cities, to Oregon, we stopped briefly in Preston(to make drivers-license copies, and fill up on both kinds of fuel). Continuing on, we continued trucking through Oregon to Idaho(narrowly getting through Boise before rush-hour and getting chastised by Dan for not keeping within eyesight of the other vans), eventually stopping at Jackpot for dinner. Dinner was good at the "HorshU" casino, if long(the other vans passed us during this hour-long stop). Matt received a subtle tip-off from the waitress to not order the coleslaw. Eventually, after trucking through the boring bits of Nevada, we ended up at a sleepy ghost town called Ely, and sacking out in the "Deser-Est" motel.

The Second Day(Saturday)

Waking up early, confused from changing time-zones and Daylight Savings Time, we breakfasted at the Red Apple diner. While there, Dan expounded on his plan to make a detour to look at Area 51. The plan was torpedoed when a passing waitress noted that armed U.S. Air Force security chased off visitors. Dan remarked that he didn’t plan to take us an extra 200 miles just to get shot, so we paid our bill and departed for Vegas.

Arriving around 1pm, we got our first look at seamy downtown Las Vegas. Dad wasn’t kidding when he noted it was a "bad" section--from the raspy-voiced passersby, to the rundown "Downtowner" motel, to the fistfight that we observed while driving around.

Bryan hadn’t drove any of the way down, by order of Dan, so our first trip onto the Strip was white-knuckled. Screeching around narrow corridors, we eventually had about an hour to walk up and down the Strip. Dinner was served in what was described as a "pizza museum". Among other things, they believed in leaving a Christmas tree up all year, decorating it based on the current holiday.

We also got to take in the dubiously named "Fremont Street Experience"; an open-air collection of casinos, restaurants, and tourist traps. While their rain-guard had an integrated LED screen worked into it, their nightly show fell flat when they used it to play primitive 3D animation to such country stars as Shania Twain. Woo.

Back to the Downtowner to sleep. This turned out to have relative meanings, as Cary had to have the rentacop bust his door down(since the lock on the door fell apart), and the shower in our room soaked anything within reach.

The Third Day(Sunday)

Waking up fairly early(everyone had had their fill of the Downtowner), we prepared to depart. Since the Rio didn’t allow check-ins that early, Bryan took the volunteer crew to Red Rock. Red Rock, a state park just outside of the Vegas limits, is a canyon/cliff section with large deposits of iron(hence the "Red Rock" part). We spent a few hours clambering over the rocks, admiring the views, the silence, and getting sunburned. Returning to Vegas, we checked in at the Rio. Leaving our stuff in the huge suites, Dan filled us in on what was to happen in the next few days.

His plan was to start out on Monday, in our Matrix-esque costumes, to hand out flyers and glasses for our event. The glasses were cheap paper/plastic light-refraction(they make lights seem kalideoscopic), but were not marked in anyway. To this end, we spent most of Sunday night having a "sticker party"--pasting the two informational stickers on each pair of glasses. Needless to say, this was tedious work. Finally he declared "enough", and we retired to bed.

The Fourth Day(Monday)

Workday. After the buffet at Gold Coast Casino, we divided into groups; the majority went to the main NAB floor to hand out merchandise and showcase our "presence". I went with Daniel to pick up Umit Goge(one of Dan’s partners) from the airport. Unfortunately, his flight was delayed, so we ended up waiting at the airport for over an hour. Finally he arrived, and we made our way back to the convention center. Unfortunately, Dan had forgotten to inform us of which center we needed to return to(major parts of NAB were spread over the "official" Las Vegas Convention Center, and the Sands Hotel Convention Center). We ended up touring around between the two until we finally raised them on a cell phone.

Arriving at the Sands, we discovered that the "presence" plan had failed--apparently Alias/Wavefront had called security on the group, and told them to knock it off. They’d retreated to our sponsor booths(Discreet, VizTech, etc.) to hand out flyers and glasses. In fact, Discreet had been downright hostile towards the group--it was later revealed that one of their chairwomen had been attending, and the booth staff was having fits. We delivered Umit, then picked up several of the group to go to eTerra to maintenance the donated HP workstations. This minute or two was the only time I would spend on the showfloor until Wednesday.

Departing for eTerra, we were diverted to pick up more attendees at the airport(Lane, mostly--Anthony’s flight was delayed). Unfortunately, more delays ended up with most of the group cooling their heels for awhile. We reorganized, then left Daniel at the airport to inform us of arrivals.

Finally arriving at eTerra at around 2-3pm, we marveled at HP’s setup. HP has a special cargo container used to ship their machines. It’s about the size of a coffin(or as Matt described, a smallish golf cart). It contains all five machines, flat-panel monitors, and attendant cords, all in a stylish gray case. Hauling them out, we began to swap video cards. The x4000 series ship with nVidia Quadro 2 Pros, which are decent professional cards. However, ATI had made a sponsor request to use their FireGL 4 cards instead. For those that haven’t seen them, they’re BIG. They take up two slot-panels in the rear of the machine(although they plug into a single AGP port), and contain a pair of flat-panel DVI connectors instead of VGA ports.

In addition to our refitting, a company representative from Softimage(actually, one of the XSI developers) was there to install XSI on the machine that Anthony would use. During the middle of this, we constantly coordinated via cell-phone of arrival status--Lane and Anthony ended up arriving close to each other’s time. Once the machines were finished, we headed over to the Riveria to pick up Daniel, Lane, and Anthony. Collecting them all, we arrived back at the Rio to make final checks--Lane and Anthony immediately headed for the wet bar, and I had to hold them off until Rob arrived with his "booze bag".

Rob then pulled me aside and told me that our original plan of using Carolyn’s G3 to display the graphics was a bust, and we would have to go to plan B. Plan B was using our existing x4000 to spool the graphics, but figuring out how to incorporate the separate elements became a big problem. Carolyn had created the opening movie as a QuickTime movie. PowerPoint does not deal well with QT above version 2. Our solution was to create a series of static web pages to simulate slides in a PowerPoint presentation. However, Carolyn had only just finished creating the graphics, and we had no Internet connection to her website.

So another group set out, to visit a Kinko’s, and use their Internet connection. A secondary task was to find something else to eat. Plan one went off without a hitch(despite some frantic workarounds). However, we ended up staying for awhile since Tara had accidentally deleted part of her website, while updating it. We spent another hour while she received backup copies via email. After that, we unwound by rolling her around in a shopping cart(with videocamera in hand; getting some excellent footage).

Eventually, we departed from the Kinko’s, only to run into another problem. It seems that Vegas’ claim of "the city that never sleeps" was false--all decent(read: anything better than McDonald’s) food places closed around 11pm. We drove around for another hour in vain hopes of finding food. Finally, we declared it a failure, and returned to the suites. Tara and J.D. sat down and composed the pages in a hurry. Everything was planned and placed, and all went to bed.

The Fifth Day(Tuesday)

Showtime! Awaking and dressing, the gang rolled over to Gold Coast for the buffet, then off to the main NAB area. Not all went smoothly this early; I ended up driving with Cary in the cargo van, with little communication. The guards hanging around the building said that we needed to get a vehicle permit and we’d need to let the Teamsters unload our van--a big no-no with several thousand dollars’ worth of gear. Fortunately we finally got ahold of Rob, and were able to pull into a service driveway to remove the equipment(we still had to move fast, before the unions saw us doing it).

Hurriedly moving the equipment upstairs, we began to unpack and setup. The convention center staff busied themselves with repositioning the chairs, while we setup the lighting frames and projectors. Around this time, the computers arrived, and I busied myself with placing them in optimal areas. The audience was positioned to face the long wall in the room, and we would be responsible for seven projected screens. The two screens on either end were directly controlled from the AV station, while the five in the middle would switch off between the computer screens and our footage. While other members busied themselves with laying down and securing cables(since beer would be flowing, we didn’t want any numbed feet catching around an audio cable), I had to dodge around the other crew members that Robert had hired. A set of "hired gun" cameramen would be following noteworthy subjects around during the event, for eventual use in the promo video. Unfortunately we couldn’t tap into their camera feeds, as they were using their internal recorders. Adding to the confusion was a keyboardist, added at the last minute, who would provide live music riffs.

There were a host of problems that cropped up. From accidentally unplugging the LCD projectors(whose bulbs quite literally explode if not cooled off first), to locating Anthony a cup of coffee. Our biggest problem was quite literally "for want of a nail". Since our projectors had no pass-through connections, each VGA feed from the computer needed to pass to the projector and the station’s screen. To that end, we had a number of small cables that would "split" the feed in two directions. Out of the five that we had, one did not work. We actually discovered this early on. However, Daniel had been driving around electronic stores all day, and could not find a single one. As showtime approached, we started to tear our our hair out. Dan finally send J.D. and I down to the showroom to see if we could beg a solution. As it turns out, we came back with two halves of the solution. I visited Kramer Electronics, who nicely lent me a VGA distribution amplifier and a spare VGA cord. Unfortunately, the power-pack they provided for it hadn’t had the output jack connected yet. However, J.D. had visited Extron, and brought back a DA that used a standard power cable. Connecting them together we had a signal, and the show began in earnest!

…Of course it didn’t go that easily. Due to the need to use a junky wireless microphone on Dan, we had to keep watching his audio levels constantly. He had a nasty habit of walking near the speakers(resulting in feedback), or making personal conversation with the mike on(he never had to go to the bathroom though, so we couldn’t play any jokes on him). Cary stood over my shoulder and worked the EQ on the audio mixer like a pro, while swearing under his breath more than I did. Adding to the confusion was the very fly-by-night routine Dan used--he covered the entire set of rules before we could throw the slides up for readers.

The audience didn’t make it any easier. Lulled by the cheap beer(by Vegas standards; $80 a case for domestic), the XSI employees heckled the other contestants. A group of high-school students was hanging around, and the beer-servers had to start checking Ids.

Eventually, the contestants began their work. While they were working, we had a few industry people come up and either talk, or demo their new stuff. The XSI guys made some rambling speeches, a Minolta rep showed off their new 3D scanner, and a Discreet rep showed off their new muscle-simulation system(examples of which were used in Jurassic Park 3).

Finally, after three crazy hours of hair-pulling, the contest came to a close. Anthony Rossano won the grand prize(a kitbashed piece of kitsch assembled by Matt the week prior), but wasn’t able to take it home personally due to airline security. Hurriedly dissassembling the gear, we packed it back into the van in record time, and immediately got it back.

Remember that we couldn’t find anything open past 11? The same thing happened. We drove in a futile attempt to the Hard Rock Café, but it turned out to be closed, and the Hard Rock Casino threw us out due to Tara and J.D.’s underage status.

Eventually we ended up at the Monte Carlo’s dance club for drinks and finger food. As four-foot high tubes of beer, marguritas, and pizza slices were consumed, several of the group decided to cut the rug on the dance floor(including J.D., Mary, Tara, Daniel, and Cary)! Naturally it was all filmed by Robert and Heinz. Around 2am we called it quits, and went back to the Rio for some much-deserved rest.

The Sixth Day(Wednesday, not Arnold’s movie)

Waking up in approximately an OK state, we discussed over breakfast if we wanted to leave early. The answer was "no", and we proceeded with our errands. A crew was needed to un-refit the HP workstations we’d used, and I needed to return the video parts we’d borrowed to their respective companies. We checked out of the Rio and headed for the Stratosphere Hotel for our last night in Vegas.

As it ended up, Daniel didn’t think all of us were needed to work on the machines, so I ended up being dropped off at NAB for the day, along with Tara, Iliana, and Rory. After returning the parts, and dispensing hearty thank-yous, we were free to roam. Taking in the sights at NAB was an up-and-down experience; being more interested software, Tara and Iliana weren’t as interested in cameras or production equipment as I was. By the same token, Rory was cruising for parts for his defunct production gear, collaring every tech in sight.

It all ended up to about a pound of free stuff. Including a copy of Digit magazine, XSI, Form*Z, and Adobe demo CDs, and various other things. Along the way we slobbered over new motion-capture systems, and Wacom’s latest LCD flat-screens/graphics tablet.

Eventually we ran it to the end of the day’s show at 5pm, and got a ride back from Daniel, picking up the computer team along the way. We dropped our stuff off at the

Hotel, and decided to cruise the strip. By this point the group included Rory, Tara, J.D., Matt, and Daniel(and me). While Rory amused people with his jaywalking antics, we had a dinner buffet at the Sahara Inn. After this the group split up--Matt and Daniel decided to go back to the hotel, while I got separated from the others and decided to check out the Gameworks.

Unfortunately, the Sahara and Stratosphere are on one end of the strip. The Gameworks was on the other. Nothing to do but walk--and it took an hour to get there. However, I got to take in the sights of the Strip, as well as ward off the various bored-looking workers handing out porn advertisements. The Gameworks itself was rather boring--it had none of the rare games, nor the size, that the Seattle one does. I did finally get a good Pyramid beer, but outside of a game I hadn’t seen in years(Motor Raid, an obscure motorcycle racer from Sega), it was rather boring. I hung around for a few hours anyways. As I cruised back down the strip, I tried to catch some more sights, but discovered most had closed for the evening. Finally making it back to the Stratosphere with aching feet, I pulled in and went to bed at 1am.

The Seventh Day(Thursday)

Waking up as usual, we packed up our stuff and met Dan for one last meeting. He said he was heavily proud of us for helping put on a great show. We then got the heck out of Dodge, after filling up on supplies.

(Cue the long stretches of desert highway)

Not even a few minutes of a wrong turn could deter us. However, we had a surprise waiting when we stopped just before our intended rest place of Jerome. It seems Robert and Cary had gone on ahead, and discovered that the motel that Dan had booked sight-unseen was a proper dump($9 a night, kids wandering around with no shirts, seamy, the Manure capital of the States, etc.). We decided to stuff it, and press on to Boise to a Motel 6.

The Last Day(Friday)

Waking up ultra-early(5am, mostly due to a confusion in Matt’s discussed plan), we ate hurriedly at a Denny’s, then proceeded on the lonely way home. Not rain, not wind-gusts, nor the bad food of the Tri-Cities could deter us from going slo-o-wly over the pass and back to Redmond. Both other vans arrived within about twenty minutes of us. After a quick unloading of the cargo van, everyone shook hands, made plans for the wrap party next Saturday, and went their separate ways.

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