I just discovered there is a Computer Human Interaction working group of the ACM in Philadelphia! Info found at http://phillychi.acm.org. Looks like there is a potentially very cool talk at the end of March by Kip Voytek, an designer from interactive giant r/ga.

From the post:

For our March meeting, PhillyCHI is pleased to have Kip Voytek from R/GA presenting. Kip will discuss how interaction design must reach beyond usability and the satisfaction of user needs in order to truly help clients achieve their goals. By examining interactive product examples, he will demonstrate how interactive experience is being infused with emotion, creating connections between users and the products they are using. In today’s market, the successful completion of user tasks and usability are table stakes—the competitive advantage lies in being able to make experiences enjoyable, fun, delightful.

SIGGRAPH Encore is an amazing database of papers, presentations and courses from several years of SIGGRAPH.

The International Game Developers Association released its 2006 annual report today. There were almost 3,000 new members in ‘06, and the non-profit group ended up in the black for the year. Vying for authority on industry award shows with the Game Developers Choice Awards, the group took further meta-gamedev action by releasing a guideline for game credits standards proposition. A full account of the groups news for ‘06 is available in their news archives

Forwarded from Amy C.:

Sony Pictures Imageworks, an Academy Award winning digital production studio, is seeking a software developer to design, develop and maintain compositing software for feature films. Experience developing post-production, image processing or graphics software is essential.

Required skills:
* C/C++
* Linux (RedHat/Centos)
* Image processing
* Familiarity with digital compositing technology
(Shake, NUKE, Combustion)

Desirable skills:
* Python programming
* GUI programming (Qt/PyQt, WxWidgets)
* OpenGL and 3D math.

Imageworks offers the innovative freedom of a startup with the stability of a large, profitable and growing movie studio. You will share a hard working, fun atmosphere of creativity with other talented software developers, graphics researchers, artists, animators and story tellers.

Please send your resume to swjobs[at]imageworks[.]com

Much thanks to the over two dozen alumni who have already self-registered. For those who have registered, take a look at the directory!

A number of people will be attending the 2007 GDC in San Francisco starting Monday, March 5th.

This would be a great event for a PennCGA meetup. Add a comment to this post if you will be attending and we can work out a time to get together.

Hi, and welcome to PennCGA, the homepage for the Penn Computer Graphics Alumni Association. See the about page for more information, and be sure to register yourself today. Once you register, you will have access to the directory of alumni who’ve also registered. Make sure to send the link to this site to any of your old classmates who haven’t yet registered so that we might get the most complete representation of alumni possible.

We’re going to update this weblog regularly with relevant news for the PennCGA alumni community. Check back here for information on upcoming conferences and events that PennCGA members will be attending, social and networking events, and media industry news and opportunities.

We’d also like to hear from you - if you’d like to share news about a new project, job or personal event we would love to publish it on the blog. If your company is hiring and you’d like to fish for resumes, we will certainly post that here as well. See the news submission form to send in anything you’d like to annouce.

A lot of alumni remember when there were very few of us out in the industry, and wondered what the landscape might look like if there were a few experienced folks out there ahead of us willing to lend advice on how to find opportunities. Well, we’re out there now, and there’s no reason to lose touch after waiting so long for these fields, programs and careers to develop and thrive.

As the community of Penn Graphics alumni grows and moves into myriad industries - from entertainment software and film to multimedia, publishing and design - communication between alumni will become a valuable channel which will not only aid professional mobility but also make sure we get together and have a good time.

That said, ultimately we hope this will be a channel for communication with students as well. We hope to match qualified, motivated Penn students with receptive contacts in the gaming, film and CG, internet, software, publishing, design and media industries who can offer advice on skill sets, informal reel and portfolio critiques and even opportunities for internships and jobs. We may even be able to organize small scholarships, eventually.

And I personally hope that this site is place for dialogue between alumni and friends of the program as well. To that end, comments are open for anyone who wants to chime in! Let us know you’re listening…