Alias and Pixar Academy Award announcements!

Very exciting news today for some people from Pixar and Alias!!
See the Academy Award press release here:
http://oscars.org/press/pressreleases/2006/06.01.10a.html

Here is a direct quote from the above website:

Academy Awards for Scientific and Technical achievements for 2005 are: Technical Achievement Awards (Academy Certificate)

To Ed Catmull, for the original concept, and Tony DeRose and Jos Stam for their scientific and practical implementation of subdivision surfaces as a modeling technique in motion picture production.

Subdivision surfaces has become a preferred modeling primitive for many types of motion picture computer graphics.

Scientific and Engineering Awards Academy Plaque

To David Baraff, Michael Kass and Andrew Witkin for their pioneering work in physically-based computer-generated techniques used to simulate realistic cloth in motion pictures.

Their 1998 paper titled "Large Steps in Cloth Simulation" was a seminal work, providing the key in demonstrating to the industry that the calculations necessary to simulate realistic, complex cloth could be achieved efficiently and robustly. Their work provided the conceptual foundation for many cloth simulation systems in use today.

One of the many reasons why I love working at Pixar is that so many founders and trailblazers of the Computer Graphics industry work here and it's an incredibly motivating environment to be in... it's honestly quite amazing to work with so many fantastic and brilliant people. Note above that Jos Stam from Alias is also receiving this award! I found a very similar atmosphere at Alias as well... the kind of people you meet and the creativity and brilliance of your fellow employees is astounding and makes it a great place to go into work every day.