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Archives
Posts from Steve Pitzel (Intel) 
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My first job at Intel was as a Digital Content Creation Technology Evangelist (that's a mouthful), and I'd have to say I'm still doing that in a lot of ways. Before Intel, I worked for Mattel as a Senior Artist creating 3D animation for the internet, and was a 3D animation tools (Softimage, Poweranimator, Maya) instructor for the feature animation studios, RFX, and a Lead Animator for Pacific Title|Mirage. I'm one of the few Intel Software Network Community Managers with both a SAG and an AFTRA card. I was a session singer in LA (my most noteworthy work - if you can call it that- was as the voice of doom for Baywatch, several national commercials, and as the singer of the main characters' theme for the Soap, Santa Barbara). I'm also the author of a horror novel, Wizrd, under my pen name, Steve Zell,(St. Martin's Press in the US, Hodder|Headline in the UK) about a Northern Arizona boomtown that would much rather be a ghosttown... |
Where's My Light?
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on February 1, 2010 at 8:29 am
Comments (0)
Just how much do lighting and rendering techniques affect your work? Well - quite a bit. As Lucy Burton states in her tutorial, Simulating Real-world Film Lighting Techniques in 3D , "Good lighting and rendering can make even a simple 3D model look extraordinary, and poor lighting can make even the best model look bland." As games [...]
Category: Art, Music, & Animation, Visual Computing
Cakewalk - Adding Technology to the Mix
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on January 13, 2010 at 9:14 pm
Comments (0)
If you can't see it...is it really there? Yep, in fact, without great audio to give us a cue (and a clue) a lot of great graphics would go unnoticed - or at least, unannounced. The truth is that sound enhances just about everything we look at - and certainly a first-person shooter without audio would [...]
Category: Art, Music, & Animation, Visual Computing
Uber-Modeler, Son Kim
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on November 24, 2009 at 9:55 am
Comments (0)
I had the pleasure of interviewing Son Kim, an extremely talented modeler and the winner of Project Offset's first user created content contest. Using concept art created by the wizards of Offset, Son Kim made the Bugback Toad come to life. MODO is Son's modeling weapon of choice - and, if you weren't online Nov 10 [...]
Category: Art, Music, & Animation, Visual Computing
Video Games Live
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on November 16, 2009 at 9:47 am
Comments (0)
Talk about making a dream come true! Game audio composers Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall have taken game audio and turned it into a very serious - and very seriously fun - fine art. Complete with it's own Grammy Category, network of game audio composers (the Game Audio Network Guild, or GANG), and, of course, [...]
Category: Art, Music, & Animation
New Beta for Media SDK
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on November 4, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Comments (1)
The Intel® Media SDK 1.5 Beta is now available as a free download from the Media Development site! The major features of this beta release include: Support for Windows 7 (32 and 64bit) Media Foundation samples Plugins: source code MFTs (Decode: H.264, MPEG-2, and VC-1) Encode: H.264 Application (transcode/playback) Enchanced Video Pre-Processing Hardware accelerated re-sizing (scaling) and color conversion Simple frame rate conversion (1:2,1:3, [...]
Category: Media, Visual Computing
Are You Animated Enough for Viewport???
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on October 29, 2009 at 6:22 am
Comments (0)
Artists & Animators - got a beef? Want to sound off? Or - do you just have a cool pic of your work you'd like to share? We've set up a new support group on Facebook for all recovering, aspiring and pro digital artists. It's eleven steps short of a 12 step program, but it [...]
Category: Art, Music, & Animation, Visual Computing
Cooking Up a Little Meatloaf to Build a Torso
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on October 26, 2009 at 7:26 am
Comments (2)
Okay, it sounds a little odd - but the latest tutorial I've posted on the Artist/Animator resource site (www.intel.com/software/artist) will show you how this works. Check out Modeling a Torso One Meatloaf at a Time (http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/modeling-a-torso-one-meatloaf-at-a-time/). And you get a free model along with the free tutorial - talk about a bargain! The method I show [...]
Category: Art, Music, & Animation, Visual Computing
Featured Artist: Offset Lead Designer, Yeong-hao Han
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on October 14, 2009 at 7:33 am
Comments (2)
Thank you John Tilton for providing another great interview from the talented team at Project Offset (http://www.projectoffset.com/)! Whether you've already worked in animation - either in film, broadcast or games - or you're aspiring to do it - the guys at Project Offset provide amazing insight into the process, and what it takes to get [...]
Category: Art, Music, & Animation, Visual Computing
Using Meatloaf (loaves) to Model a Polygonal Arm
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on September 28, 2009 at 5:31 am
Comments (0)
Okay folks, I started out with an arm...and then got carried away and built a torso using the same method. So check out Modeling a Torso One Meatloaf at a Time... Check in later this week for a companion tutorial to the upcoming "Animation and Muscle Morphs" guide. One of the biggest challenges of character work (outside [...]
Category: Art, Music, & Animation, Visual Computing
Animation and Muscle Morphs - Using Blend Shapes for Muscle Animation
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on September 28, 2009 at 5:03 am
Comments (0)
Be on the lookout for two new modeling and animation tutorials this week that go, well hand-in-hand (except that hands won't be a part of either tutorial...) One "Animation and Muscle Morphs - Using Blend Shapes for Muscle Animation" deals with using morphing techniques or blend shapes to handle some of the nasty creasing, bulging, [...]
Category: Art, Music, & Animation, Visual Computing
Attention Digital Artists and Animators: Animate This! Entering Your "How To's."
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on August 30, 2009 at 8:45 am
Comments (1)
To show how involved (or simple) entries can be - I've posted a couple sample "How To's" on the Animate This! Tutorial Challenge site (http://software.intel.com/en-us/contests/animatethis/contests.php). Have a look at the entries by Joe3D and Bob3Dguy on using constraints to focus eyes. These 3D "How To's" are pretty simple - one graphic to show what's being covered [...]
Category: Art, Music, & Animation, Visual Computing
Dreamworks and Intel at SIGGRAPH
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on August 2, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Comments (3)
There's something magic about SIGGRAPH in New Orleans. This is my third New Orleans SIGGRAPH, and the first since Katrina. It's great to see New Orleans back - and to see SIGGRAPH back in New Orleans! I'll be in the booth manning our Concept Art kiosk much of the time (Intel is booth #2217) stop by and [...]
Category: Art, Music, & Animation, Visual Computing
Featured Artists - Project Offset's Khang Le
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on July 21, 2009 at 10:56 am
Comments (4)
Okay, Adobe's Photoshop has always been one of those necessary "utilities" for me - a tool I used because I had to create textures for my characters and it's always been an incredible texture tool. I have to admit, I never really thought of it as an "art" package. I've officially changed my mind. I just [...]
Category: Art, Music, & Animation, Visual Computing
Animator, Artist - Are You Nuts? Probably - but There is Help!
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on June 29, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Comments (2)
I was talking to Carl Jacobson from Cakewalk a while back about the challenges artists face in this world. Okay, I know, Cakewalk creates audio software, not what you'd normally call "visual computing" software but stick with me on this for a minute. Audio and visual are pretty much intertwined - especially for animators. We agreed that [...]
Category: Art, Music, & Animation, Visual Computing
Throw Mom from the Train (figuratively...) - a must for artists...
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on June 29, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Comments (0)
Mom loves you. She absolutely adores everything you do. That's why, if you want to excel as an artist, you must throw Mom from the train - in a figurative sense anyway. Why? Because mom loves the early stages of your art - the messed up line drawings, the noodles and doodles - exactly the way [...]
Category: Art, Music, & Animation, Visual Computing
Name Your Digital Poison
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on June 29, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Comments (0)
Okay - what's your worst production nightmare? Intersections? Texture seams? Weighting vertices? Creating soft shadows? Do you hate it when physics and IK collide? What is it that either keeps you up at night - or just gives you headaches during the day? Are there any headaches you've cured recently? Give a shout out here - [...]
Category: Art, Music, & Animation, Visual Computing
Introducing Artist/Animator Resources on ISN
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on May 27, 2009 at 6:53 am
Comments (1)
Digital Content Creation is tough work. It takes stamina, it takes discipline - and it takes the guts to throw stamina and discipline completely out the window, blow things up, walk away, and come back with a fresh perspective. It also takes compute power - lots of it - and...it takes time. I was an animator and [...]
Category: Art, Music, & Animation, Visual Computing
The Intel Visual Computing Institute Opens in Saarbrucken!
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on May 12, 2009 at 5:41 am
Comments (0)
This is a landmark day for the virtual world. Intel has essentially made a 12 million dollar investment to make sure that world "looks, acts, and feels" real with the opening of the Intel VCI this morning. According to the reports, we'll be plugging in some of Europe's (and beyond) greatest minds into the Tera-scale research program - making [...]
Category: Visual Computing
GDC 2008 What's Intel Doing this year?
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on February 17, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Comments (1)
The Game Developers Conference is just about upon us. Very pleased to have Havok onboard this year. Check the Intel and Havok session link for class dates and times. I'll also have class materials posted on that site as soon as it's available. For more info on our speakers, click on this speaker link, and [...]
Category: Art, Music, & Animation, Events, Visual Computing
What? A Graphics Software Developer Community at Intel?
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on September 13, 2007 at 10:18 am
Comments (28)
Intel Software Network Graphics Developer Community I come from the land of beefy workstations. When I first began animating and training cel animators to use digital tools, workstations cost about the same as animators and trainers. It's a different, thankfully cheaper, world these days. I can now proudly say I am worth more than the machine [...]
Category: Intel® Software Network 2.0, Visual Computing
I've Got Multiple Cores - and NOW I'm Going to Use Them!
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on June 14, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Comments (5)
Just a note to all that I'm heading out of here for an 8 week sabbatical Monday, June 18, and the Multi-Core Developers Community will be in the very capable hands of Aaron Tersteeg while I'm gone. I intend to spend as much time as possible using threaded apps like Cakewalk's Sonar and Softimage|XSI to [...]
Category: Intel® Software Network 2.0, Parallel Programming
Intel Showcases 80-cores by Arian Kulp
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on June 13, 2007 at 11:44 am
Comments (3)
The talk about high core CPU's is heating up. Intel announced a 80-core processor with less power consumption than a current Core 2 Duo (article link). That's cool stuff for research, though it's not ready for mass marketing yet. For one thing, at 275 mm squared vs 143 for the Core 2 Duo, the chip is [...]
Category: Parallel Programming
Blogging from Second Life - ISN Launch
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on May 29, 2007 at 8:40 am
Comments (3)
Great job by Elliot Garbus introducing ISN on Second Life. Good turnout - and it's great to get his support on this. Elliot just took a question about ISN moving completely over to Second Life...hmmm... Not yet, of course...but who knows what the future might bring? Also like the fact that he mentioned Intel is the [...]
Category: Intel® Software Network 2.0, Parallel Programming
Intel, Game Development. Is Intel Playing the Wrong Game?
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on May 15, 2007 at 6:07 am
Comments (1)
One Game Developers Conference not long ago, an animator manning a Softimage|XSI demo at the Intel booth told me something interesting. He said he usually didn't stop by the Intel booth at GDC because, as he put it, he was "kind of young." Wow. It wasn't difficult to see his point. Walk by the nVidia or ATI [...]
Category: Gaming, Intel® Software Network 2.0, Parallel Programming
The Multi-Core Dilemma - By Patrick Leonard
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on March 14, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Comments (11)
Guest Blogger Bio: Patrick Leonard Hardware Evolution Throughout the history of modern computing, enterprise application developers have been able to rely on new hardware to deliver significant performance improvements while actually reducing costs at the same time. Unfortunately, increasing difficulty with heat and power consumption along with the limits imposed by quantum physics has made this progression [...]
Category: Parallel Programming
Multi-processing programming too hard? Why not abstract it? - by Michael Cassens
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on February 22, 2007 at 5:40 am
Comments (0)
I read an article today published in the Technology Review at MIT that focused on the multi-core processors and the hurdles that developers face when writing software to take advantage of multi-core processing. Researchers at MIT are developing a framework that abstracts some of the details of parallel programming. They want to help mainstream developers move [...]
Category: Intel® Software Network 2.0, Parallel Programming
Multicore, Virtualization, and the MacBook Pro - by Michael Jeronimo
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on February 22, 2007 at 5:37 am
Comments (3)
When I was a kid in the San Francisco Bay Area, my friends and I loved to play baseball and follow our local pro teams. In our group you were either a San Francisco Giants fan or an Oakland A's fan; there was no middle ground. We would often talk about how cool it would [...]
Category: Intel® Software Network 2.0, Parallel Programming
Every App is a Parallel App - by Michael Jeronimo
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on February 22, 2007 at 5:31 am
Comments (0)
Many years ago, at the beginning of the Internet boom in the mid 90s, Andy Grove said that every company is an Internet company. I believe he meant that a company couldn't just ignore the changes brought by the Internet, but would have to understand the implications for the business and adapt. Or, failing to [...]
Category: Intel® Software Network 2.0, Parallel Programming
We Need Better Tools...by Michael Cassens
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on February 22, 2007 at 5:28 am
Comments (0)
I read an article today published in the Technology Review at MIT that focused on the multi-core processors and the hurdles that developers face when writing software to take advantage of multi-core processing. A survey in the article also correlated the lack of developer productivity because of this software deficiency. Better software development environments result in [...]
Category: Intel® Software Network 2.0, Parallel Programming
Multi-core and multi-threading wtih Softimage|XSI
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on December 8, 2006 at 10:38 pm
Comments (1)
Okay - I'm a recovering animator - so I'm going to start things off with the character animation application, Softimage|XSI. If you're a game developer you know all about this package - if you're a hardcore gamer interested in building your own mods and characters and DON'T know about Softimage|XSI - definitely have a look! [...]
Category: Intel® Software Network 2.0, Parallel Programming
What me worry?
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on September 22, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Comments (25)
Look. There are a couple cores on my chip. The way things seem to be going, there may be a whole bunch of them someday. Who knows, one day the stupid thing might be so lousy with them it looks like a fly's eyeball. Do I care? Should I? What sort of software application even needs to [...]
Category: Intel® Software Network 2.0, Parallel Programming
64-bit...who cares?
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on September 20, 2006 at 9:01 pm
Comments (2)
Okay, I care. When I came onboard at Intel seven years ago there was this cool 64-bit processor called Itanium. Man, I thought, that could be a killer workstation! Unfortunately...the Itanium was abducted by the server aliens before I even had a chance to hang my Softimage and Alias posters up in my cube (okay, [...]
Category: Intel® Software Network 2.0, Parallel Programming
64-bit and Intel
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on September 20, 2006 at 7:06 pm
Comments (159)
A few days ago an OEM asked whether or not Intel had 64-bit... It was kind of funny, kind of sad - and, of course, the OEM should know we do...but, then again, I have to admit we've done a pretty lousy job to date of letting folks know about our 64-bit offerings - while [...]
Category: Intel® Software Network 2.0, Parallel Programming
What the heck am I doing at Intel?
By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (34 posts) on September 11, 2006 at 3:21 pm
Comments (1)
I'm a recovering animator. No, I take that back - you never really recover from animating - you just have less time to do it. For six years I had the pleasure of training animators, modelers, layout artists and other digital animation and FX artists from Disney Feature Animation, Sony Digital Imageworks, Rhythm&Hues and many [...]