Ashikhmin And Siggraph

[Mario Marengo]

I went looking for Ashikhmin's D-BRDF paper yesterday, and instead found this testimonial.

Interesting read.

Apparently Wolfwood had already read about it in Slashdot, but it was definitely news to me.

[Marc]

When I read that, about half the time was spent thinking "yip, that's how it is" and the other half thinking "blah, blah, blah...".

Man I wished he'd broken it up into more paragraphs or something, I got a brain cramp just trying to work through it.

On the other hand, going to his forum I scored a mean deal on some cellphones .

M

[Mario Marengo]

Man I wished he'd broken it up into more paragraphs or something, I got a brain cramp just trying to work through it.

Hehe. Agreed.

You can tell about two sentences into it that the page won't win any awards for writing style. But I kept reading nonetheless, because I really admire the work he's done in BRDF research, not his literary prowess.

And, like you, I was also, sadly, not shocked by the content... though I wish I could say I was.

<sigh>

[Jason]

I don't know if any of you have read Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" - which is an excellent read for those with a Barnes&Noble level education in the sciences, like myself. Bill does a great job of (re-)humanizing the scientists throughout history and once you've read that book, Ashikhmins experience just seems par for the course.

You can feel his personal anguish in that densely packed test, so much that I feel genuine sympathy although, until very recently, I've just learned he is a Earthling as well as an anistropic specular model.

[Marc]

I guess the thing that bothers me the most about it is that he's lumping the entire CG field into one great big 'siggraph' shaped container, which is most definitely not the case. I'm sure from where he was sitting, everything he wanted to do would need to be funneled through siggraph, but then why not try doing what he does somewhere else?

The stuff we all do can be pretty cutting edge and certainly there's a place for someone with his knowledge in the private sector (probably a lot better paid too), where he wouldn't ever have to deal with siggraph again.

I'm pretty sure I don't know all the facts, but it strikes me that he's throwing the baby out with the bathwater; "Well SIGGRAPH sucks, so to hell with this CG nonsense, I'm going to go try my hand at subsistance farming!"

Now I'm sure we've all felt that way at some point, but it's just more of a loss when someone who clearly has much more to offer the field actually does it and leaves in a huff.

So from me it's 50% sympathy and 50% a swift "get over it" kick in the pants.

[Wolfwood]

I guess the thing that bothers me the most about it is that he's lumping the entire CG field into one great big 'siggraph' shaped container, which is most definitely not the case. I'm sure from where he was sitting, everything he wanted to do would need to be funneled through siggraph, but then why not try doing what he does somewhere else?

I suspect his point of view is entirely from academia/research. For the most part the production side of CG is pretty much a separate world from them academia side of things. Also, I'm guessing that a LOT of people actually quit doing graphics research for the reasons he states, its just that we don't hear about it because they don't same celebrity status as Ashikhmin.

Personally I'm glad he put his rant in the public domain because it serves as a warning to students who think that the life of research is a fair and noble one. I've heard countless stories of how a studio and university researchers will jointly publish papers but they'll poison the paper by leaving out a key element or have a 'mistakes' which makes implementation very difficult. (The reason for the poisoning is it gives the researchers recognition but also leaves the studio with a competitive advantage.)

As others in his 'forum' stated he was one of the old timers that was a victim of the new generation of graphics researchers.

Chalk me up with 80% sympathy and 20% "stupid humans".

Edited May 25, 2007 by Wolfwood

[Marc]

yeah I agree with what you say, and with what he says actually. I also agree that it was good for him to put that up.

But you know, similar to what Jason said, in academia it's "welcome to the status quo"... It's ugly and it deserves to be exposed, but I disagree with his answer to the problem which is essentially to give up.