Academy Releases List of Possible Sci-Tech Honorees

The Scientific and Technical Awards Committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Friday (August 16) that 14 scientific and technical achievements have been selected for further awards consideration. The list is made public to allow individuals and companies with similar devices or claims of prior art the opportunity to submit achievements for review. Boxx, DreamWorks Animation, Weta, ILM, Pixar, Autodesk and Pixologic are some of the possible contenders in this field.

The deadline to submit additional entries is Tuesday, August 27, at 11:59 p.m. PT.

The committee has selected the following technologies for further consideration:

Neutral density filters that remove infrared contamination.

• Prompted by the submission of the Infrared Neutral Density (IR ND) Filter Technology (Tiffen Co.)

Untethered HD video assist devices.

• Prompted by the submission of Meridian (Boxx TV Ltd.)

Software tools for accelerated simulation and rendering of smoke, fire and explosions.

• Prompted by the submission of Plume (ILM) and Flux (DreamWorks Animation)

Physically based shading and lighting techniques for digital rendering.

• Prompted by the submission Efficient Physically Inspired Shading (Pixar Animation Studios)

Software tools for integrated sculpting and painting of digital models.

• Prompted by the submission of Mudbox (Autodesk) and ZBrush (Pixologic)

Pre-computation techniques for visibility and lighting in rendering applications.

• Prompted by the submission of Weta’s Spherical Harmonics Lighting (Weta Digital)

Compositing systems using per-pixel “deep” depth information.

• Prompted by the submission of Deep Compositing (Weta Digital)

Software frameworks for integrated and extensible VFX and animation applications.

• Prompted by the submission of Zeno (ILM)

Integrated software tools for performance capture, visualization and manipulation.

• Prompted by the submission of MotionBuilder (Autodesk)

Non-explosive car flipping devices.

• Prompted by the submission of the Pneumatic Car Flipper (Fxperts, Inc.)

Helicopter-based camera motion-control platforms.

• Prompted by the submission of Flying-Cam 3.0 SARAH (Flying-Cam)

Digital workflow specifications for managing color.

• Prompted by the submission of ASC CDL (D-Cinema Consulting)

After thorough investigations are conducted in each of the technology categories, the committee will meet in early December to vote on recommendations to the Academy’s Board of Governors, which will make the final awards decisions.

The 2013 Scientific and Technical Awards will be presented on Saturday, February 15, 2014.

Claims of prior art or similar technology must be submitted on the Academy’s website at www.oscars.org/awards/scitech/apply.html.