The Academy Software Foundation recently wrapped up its annual Open Source Days event, bringing together the VFX and animation community to hear the latest news and developments from the Foundation and other open source initiatives. This year’s event was our biggest yet with nearly 500 in-person attendees in Denver CO, and another nearly 200 joining virtually!
This year’s keynote, “The Value of Serial Volunteerism,” was delivered by Darin Grant, CTO of Animal Logic. Delving into his years of experience as a volunteer across the Academy Software Foundation, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Visual Effects Society, and SIGGRAPH, Grant made a compelling case for the many benefits of shared industry-wide collaboration. He also shared valuable lessons that he has learned along the way, and tips for pushing yourself to get involved in the broader industry in new ways that take you outside of your familiar comfort zone.
Additional speakers in the Open Source Days main program included executives from Adobe, Amazon Web Services, Blender, Framestore, Maxon, Weta FX, and more. Recordings of all Open Source Days sessions are available here on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9dZxafYCWmzd7GK0XX4GKVFaR8hXJmOd
News Highlights:
Lots of exciting project news was announced at Open Source Days. Check out dedicated blog posts for details on the following updates:
- OpenFX Releases v1.5: This significant update introduces a suite of new features to streamline workflows and boost creativity for visual effects artists and developers – including enhanced color management APIs, GPU support, and much more.
- Open Review Initiative Releases ReviewPluginAPI: Developed by Sony Pictures Imageworks, ReviewPluginAPI is a new open source library that contains a common plugin API and widget collection for building cross-platform plugins for review/playback systems.
- DPEL (the Digital Production Example Library) Adds New Assets: three new production-grade assets are now publicly available in DPEL, including Animal Logic’s ALab v2.2, Adobe’s OpenPBR Shader Playground, and the AWS Airship Asset.
- OpenVDB Integrates NVIDIA’s New fVDB Framework: Announced at SIGGRAPH, fVDB provides 3D deep learning infrastructure for massive datasets and high resolutions, allowing generative physical AI to scale to the size of reality.
Virtual Town Hall Series:
For the second year in a row, the Foundation also hosted its popular Virtual Town Hall series In the weeks leading up to Open Source Days. These virtual sessions covered project-specific updates, future roadmaps, and community Q&A, featuring MaterialX, OpenPBR, OpenImageIO, OpenRV, OpenColorIO, OpenTimelineIO, Open Shading Language, xSTUDIO, OpenEXR, OpenCue, the Diversity & Inclusion Working Group, and more. Visit our YouTube channel to see all of this year’s Virtual Town Halls: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9dZxafYCWmwdm9rAdja0GibqNrHBHmH_
Birds of a Feather Sessions:
Open Source Days was once again followed by a full day of Birds of a Feather sessions, bringing standing-room-only crowds to hear in-depth discussions around Foundation projects and the broader open source landscape. Sessions were hosted by OpenColorIO, OpenAssetIO, OpenImageIO, Open Review Initiative, OpenVDB and more.
Register Now for Dev Days 2024:
After the success of last year’s first-ever Dev Days event, we’re excited to return for round two, taking place September 26-27! Dev Days encourages developers (from anywhere in the world, of any experience level) to contribute to the Foundation’s open source projects. Join us to learn about a project of your choice, get mentorship from project leaders, and write code! Learn more and register for free here: https://www.aswf.io/dev-days-2024/
