Nuke and Houdini developers honoured in Sci-Tech Oscars

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced this year’s sci-tech award recipients. Among the winners are Jeff Lait, Mark Tucker, Cristin Barghiel and John Lynch for their contributions to the design and architecture of the Houdini visual effects and animation system, and Mark Elendt and Side Effects Software for its creation and development. Nuke is also honoured in awards to Bill Spitzak and Jonathan Egstad for the design, development and stewardship, and Abigail Brady, Jon Wadelton and Jerry Huxtable for their significant contributions to its architecture and extensibility. Four animation rigging systems have also garnered awards: Jason Smith and Jeff White for the original design of the BlockParty procedural rigging system created at ILM, and Rachel Rose and Mike Jutan for its architecture and engineering; Joe Mancewicz, Matt Derksen and Hans Rijpkema for the design, architecture and implementation of the Rhythm & Hues Construction Kit rigging system; Alex Powell for the design and engineering of the Premo character animation system at DreamWorks Animation, Jason Reisig for the interaction design, and Martin Watt and Alex Wells for the high-performance execution engine; finally Rob Jensen for the foundational design and continued development of the Presto Animation System at Pixar Studios, to Thomas Hahn for the animation toolset, and to George ElKoura, Adam Woodbury and Dirk Van Gelder for the high-performance execution engine. Read more about the awards on the Oscars website.