The Academy Software Foundation has announced the program for its annual Open Source Days event taking place August 4-11, which will include a keynote talk by the filmmaking team who worked on the animated feature Flow on August 10 in Vancouver.
Held annually, Open Source Days is the leading event dedicated to furthering open source software development for the visual effects, animation, and digital content creation industries, bringing together leaders from creative studios, software and hardware makers, and more.
Open Source Days consists of three parts:
- August 4-8: Virtual Town Halls by ASWF projects held via Zoom
- August 10: Main Program in-person in Vancouver at the Marriott Pinnacle and virtual
- August 11: Birds of a Feather Sessions at SIGGRAPH, in-person at the Marriott Pinnacle
Open Source Days Main Program: August 10
This year’s Open Source Days keynote will be delivered by Martins Upitis and Konstantins Visnevskis from the filmmaking team behind Academy Award®-winning animated feature Flow, which was created entirely with Blender, an open source 3D content creation toolset.
In their keynote talk, Upitis and Visnevskis will share a glimpse into their real-world production pipeline and reflect upon the growing democratization of filmmaking thanks to open source software. Artists around the world are now beginning their careers within open source ecosystems, often without even encountering the traditional alternatives – marking a significant evolution in the creative process, and exciting possibilities for aspiring filmmakers.
Additional presentations include:
- ASWF State of the Foundation (David Morin, Academy Software Foundation with Guest Speaker Meredith Shea, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences)
- Adopting OpenRV at Netflix Animation Studios (Mark Reid and Manuel Macha, Netflix)
- Physical Lighting in OpenUSD (Anders Langlands, NVIDIA)
- Blender: Innovation in Open Source (Francesco Siddi, Blender)
- ACES: Open-Source Innovation for Modern Production Workflows (Alex Forsythe, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences)
- Display Transformers: The Development of ACES 2.0 and its Implementation on Transformers One (Alex Fry, ILM)
- Life of Color in Production (Shane Smith, DreamWorks Animation)
- AI as a Public Interest: Toward a Resilient and Open AI Ecosystem (Brigitte Tousignant, Hugging Face)
- Additional sessions are available on the full schedule.
The Academy Software Foundation will host its popular Beers of a Feather evening reception at Tap & Barrel from 6:00-8:30 PM following the main program on August 10.
The Open Source Days main program and Beers of a Feather is free to attend, but registration is required. Please register here.
SIGGRAPH Birds of a Feather Sessions
The Foundation will host a full day of in-person Birds of a Feather sessions as part of the SIGGRAPH conference on Monday, August 11 at the Marriott Pinnacle. The Birds of a Feather lineup includes sessions dedicated to the Open Review Initiative, OpenCue, the Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD) + ASWF USD Working Group, OpenPBR, OpenColorIO, ACES, Open MoonRay, the Diversity & Inclusion Working Group, and the ASWF Machine Learning Working Group. See the full schedule here.
Attendees must be registered for SIGGRAPH in order to attend the Birds of a Feather sessions on August 11. Open Source Days registration is not required.
ASWF Virtual Town Halls
The Academy Software Foundation will host its popular Virtual Town Hall series between August 4-8, leading up to the Open Source Days Main Program. Technical Steering Committee members from various Foundation projects and Working Groups will share milestones, highlights, future roadmaps, and answer questions from the community.
Both new and experienced users, contributors, and anyone interested in learning more about Academy Software Foundation projects are invited to attend these free Virtual Town Halls.
View the full Virtual Town Hall schedule and register individually to receive the Zoom links for each.
