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Room with a view |
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The travelling to New York went well,
with Caligari staff turning up on Thursday to ensure
plenty of time to set up and be ready on Friday
December 10th, the day of the trueTown event.
Interestingly - for those who like trivia at least -
Silvercup Studios (home of The Sopranos, Sex in
the City, and also scene of the final battle in the
first Highlander movie) could be seen from the back of
the hotel where Caligari were staying. No
sword-wielding immortals were to be seen, though. |
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Caligari at the Helmsley - left to right, Roman Ormandy,
Michael Arrington and Tom Grimes |
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The Helmsley Hotel turned
out to be as superb a venue as all had hoped, with an
excellent setting, helpful staff, and great food (not to
mention free drinks courtesy of Caligari too!).
There was some time for a quick trip to Times Square
by Caligari staff before preparations got underway for the
event itself. |
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Roman Ormandy setting up for the demo later that evening |
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There was some concern about the
equipment, which had been flown a long way, and PCs are not
known for being robust, and baggage handling at airports not
known for its gentleness to cargo - however, all was well, and
everything worked first time once it was plugged in! The
presenters turned up next, and things went smoothly with their
equipment too, leaving everything ready in good time for the
beginning of the evening. |
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The audience once the doors were opened and the room began to
fill |
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The doors opened officially at 5pm,
although some eager attendees were there early! That was fine
though - all Caligari staff were keen to meet all the people
they had often only known via email, message board or
telephone. The first few hours were reserved for social
mingling, and for listening to user feedback, requests and
even answering a few questions. The next generation of
trueSpace sometimes appeared teasingly on the projection
screen, for some informal presentation of one feature or
another - here Sector 13 is seen running on the screen. |
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Vinny went first with his presentation |
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First into the firing line was
Vinny Carvalho, with his presentation on low poly
modeling. Already well known for the "Vinny technique" of
creating low poly objects, it was great to see it in action.
Vinny's enthusiastic personality and sense of humor made it a
great presentation (and his sense of humor got more colorful
as the night wore on, as Caligari staff can testify!).
Read more and see screenshots
from Vinny's presentation |
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Libor Stolc was second at the projector |
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The second presentation was from Libor
Stolc, who surely had the honor of being the attendee with
the longest journey to get there, having flown in from the
Czech Republic to show and discuss his work on plug-ins
created to design and layout kitchens, with everything from
the ability to change door handles across the whole scene, to
calculations of the pieces of wood that need cutting for that
design. Read
more and see screenshots and movies from Libor's presentation |
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As well as formal presentations, users also showed off some of
their work |
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As well as the formal presentations, many
users had also brought along samples of their work. Chris
Labriola had the solid-printed model for the
Strobostomp (printed from tS via the STL format). The
final metal casing showed it was identical to the trueSpace
design. trueSpace was also used to position the internal
circuitry and components to ensure it would all fit properly
during manufacture. Chris also had several finished
Strobostomps for demo and sale, and one was snapped up by a
Caligari staff member (so that at least his guitar can be in
tune, though with no guarantee it will improve his playing!). |
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Photo from the Reactor Interactive presentation about their
game, Sector 13 |
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The final user presentation of the evening was
by Reactor Interactive, who had the latest version of
their game, Sector 13, on show. Drew Clark spoke
about how they had thought of the game concept (though no
clues on how they came up with the name Sector 13, the
process now being lost in history and shrouded in myth), while
Ryan Buhr played the game, providing eye candy in
plenty during the presentation - and giving Drew a chance to
point out how badly Ryan was doing in the game! Brian
Linton was there for technical support too!
Read more
and see screenshots from Reactor Interactive's presentation |
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Roman Ormandy during his presentation |
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The end of the official part of the evening
came with Roman Ormandy's long-awaited presentation of
what the future holds for trueSpace. A few there had already
seen it from being on the beta testing team, but for most it
was the first time they had seen it. There was spontaneous
applause from the users at numerous points, and much amazement
and surprise at some of the functionality and features.
Read more
and see more in the presentation write-up! |
The prize draw was postponed on the night, due to
presentations running late, but we are pleased to announce the
results now! The prizes were 10 books from Premier Press
for 10 lucky winners... and a copy of the next major
release of trueSpace to the overall winner!Here, in no
particular order, are the results....
Winner, copy
of the next major release of trueSpace:
Dean Friedman
Winners, book tokens from Premier Press:
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Victoria Russ |
Stefanie Clark |
Banel Raeburn |
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Ryan Buhr |
Derek Furman |
Michael Kennedy |
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Sam Friedman |
Liza Pappas |
Dan Kaplan |
| Ted Southard |
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*emails for these have been sent out - if
you are on this list and you have not received your email,
please contact
thomas@caligari.com
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Roman Ormandy after hours, as Vinny looks on |
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What could possibly follow the first public
unveiling of the next generation of trueSpace? Well, lots of
users stayed behind to talk and discuss, first trueSpace, but
then just general chat. They say New York is the city that
never sleeps, and it was true that Caligari staff and a couple
of stalwart users barely slept, since the unofficial part of
the event ended around 4.30am, with rumors of the Russian
Samovar and more... but some things are best left unsaid! |
The event was great fun - we all seriously enjoyed meeting our
users and attending the event, and we hope everyone who was there
had as much fun as we did! We'd like to extend our thanks to the
Helmsley Hotel for their hospitality, to our presenters Vinny
Carvalho, Libor Stolc and Drew Clark, Ryan Buhr
and Brian Linton from Reactor Interactive for sharing
their work with everyone, and to all who attended - it was you who
made the event great!
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