Below are the tutorial abstracts and the prerequisites, if any.

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Interactive 3D visualizations of our planet are no longer just for those endowed with supercomputers. A flowering of free tools and open data, advances in mass-market 3D hardware and increasing bandwidth mean that a 3D geospatial web is emerging. Viveka Weiley and Chris Thorne emerge blinking into the light to show off some of the free tools they use (and some they've developed), and to share techniques for building a virtual Earth of your own. They will give an overview of the state-of-the-art in virtual planet and city development, and then proceed to demonstrate how to build your own planet from scratch. Participants will be able to follow along on laptops if they have them. All participants will receive a CD-ROM containing free software and examples discussed in the tutorial.

Participants should have some knowledge of the principles of interactive 3D graphics, and an interest in visualizing the real world. No mathematics is required.

Based on his teaching experience in the Art colleges, CGIM in Pratt Institute and Art department in Chung Ang University, Jin Wan Park found potential usages of a game engine as a tool for fine art. He will discuss in this tutorial: making a virtual art gallery and making a draft movie for a 3D animation in postproduction, both using a real-time 3D rendering game engine. This tutorial will also provide a case study of making the concert opening movie for Jang-Nara (who is one of the most favorite musicians in South Korea). For this project, draft movie for a 3D animation in postproduction with real-time 3D rendering game engine method was studied and used. On the whole, Jin Wan Park will show new creative possibilities beyond the original purposes of 3D game engines that one has ignored intentionally or unintentionally so far.

Basic understanding and/or interest in animation, real-time rendering, game engine and installation art would be helpful in this tutorial.

This tutorial will explore interactive techniques that go outside the boundaries of the standard mouse, keyboard and monitor that dominate our interaction with computers. The session will begin by looking at the basic principles of interactivity, drawing on concepts not just from GUI design, but also from games and installation/conceptual art. It will then apply these concepts to situations that don’t use standard interaction, such as sound and video input. Examples will be shown of works that push the boundaries of interaction, and demonstrations will be given of the technologies that can be employed to begin exploring these alternative interaction styles. Upon completion of the tutorial, participants will be equipped with the background and understanding required to embark on designing their own exploratory interactive pieces.

This tutorial is intended to appeal to interactive media designers, game designers and developers, artists, and those dealing with interactive systems. No prerequisite on programming experience.

Traditionally it has been difficult for artists and designers to make creative use of Pixar’s RenderMan technology. It often seems that without a background in computer science the learning curve to getting started with RenderMan, especially in relation to exploring the shading language, is too steep. Rarely are there opportunities for artists and designers to be given a basic hands-on introduction to RenderMan, its Shading Language or, for example, its use with Maya. The purpose of this tutorial provides just such an opportunity. The content of the tutorial is drawn from 6 years of experience of teaching RenderMan to undergraduate and graduate students of art. The tutorial will have hands-on exercises on PC. Each participant will receive a CD-ROM containing the specialized RenderMan text editor among others. Having attended the tutorial, participants will have a good foundation on which to base their own investigations of the shading language and the integration of RenderMan and Maya.

This tutorial is intended to appeal to CG professionals and students of 3D graphics.

At present, in production of 3d work there exists great promise with high-end effects such as global illumination, photon emission, soft shadows, subsurface scattering, etc. Although visually exquisite, these effects are still very costly in terms of render time and often require longer per frame than your budget allows. Chris Barker will present a master class in rendering techniques and networks which utilize Maya’s API and nodal architecture to ‘fake’ these effects, and in giving participants an in-depth look into Maya’s shading capabilities. The tutorial also covers color theory in computer graphics and offers a hands-on exploration into the node-based architecture of Maya. The tutorial will be presented as a range of examples which will be discussed, and then implemented in a studio/tutorial setting. On attending this tutorial, participants will be introduced to some ‘hidden’ or undocumented nodes in Maya which allow a high level of control of certain texture attributes.

Participants from all levels are welcome, although sound working knowledge of Maya or a node-based application (e.g. Shake) would be an advantage.

Creativity is an important issue for the future of new technology systems. There are opportunities for the designers of new technologies to expand the repertoire of tools that amplify the human creative process. In order that IT tools are designed in such a way as to empower the creative user, they need HCI that is based upon an understanding of the nature of creative cognition and an assessment of the value of the tools that are used in the creative process. The tutorial stimulates creativity in the participants and helps them to support the creativity of others through good HCI design. It describes models of creative processes refined into design principles that are related to HCI. The creative tasks range from making art to searching the web and using visualization to help generate new ideas in finance.

The tutorial is intended to benefit interactive software implementers, interface designers, human-computer interaction researchers, creative artists and all creativity enthusiasts. It will not presume a pre-knowledge of creativity research, but be informative to experts.