Alias Celebrates Six New Maya Masters The 2005 Maya Masters are six individuals from varied backgrounds who share a talent for using 3D computer graphics to explore and present the world in a different way. This year’s Maya Masters were announced and honored at the Alias Global Users Association (AGUA) annual event last month during SIGGRAPH in Los Angeles.
Now in its fifth year, the Maya Masters program recognizes talented members of the computer graphics community whose spirit and imagination reshape and redefine the boundaries of technology, art and visualization.
Alias is pleased to acknowledge the accomplishments of this year’s Maya Masters:
Drew Berry works for The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Australia and creates scientific visualisations for science documentaries, museum exhibits and gallery installations around the world. His most recent project involved creating animations of the very nasty bugs Smallpox, Ebola and Anthrax for a National Geographic documentary on Bioterrorism.
Corban Gossett was once a senior product specialist for Maya at Alias and afterwards joined PDI DreamWorks as a production engineer where he was tasked to better integrate Maya into PDI’s propriety pipeline. He also worked on several projects at DreamWorks Animation and did a stint in Hong Kong, working on Father of the Pride. He is now the supervising technical director on Shrek 3 and will work on this project until the film is released in 2007.
David Gould’s varied roles in production, including research and development, shader writing, lighting, and CG effects, reflects his broad range of talents. He has also authored two acclaimed books on Maya programming. David is currently at WETA Digital where he worked on The Lord of the Rings® trilogy and is currently working on King Kong.
Rob Magiera is the first digital publishing artist to receive the Maya Master distinction. He is the president and founder of Noumena Digital, a full-service digital art studio specializing in high-end CG for print. Rob has become one of the most recognized computer artists in the world, having worked for clients such as American Express and Intel. His unique blend of 3D techniques and sophisticated compositing consistently push the boundaries of the modern still image.
Steven Stahlberg was the first CG artist in the world to have a virtual character sponsored by Elite, a major modeling agency. The character was presented to the world in a press conference in 1999 and later appeared on ABC and BBC, as well as in dozens of newspapers, including The New York Times, The Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Steven is now a partner in Optidigit. He has also worked on projects for Disney®, Electronic Arts® and an animated feature about Anne Frank.
Ryo Takahashi works at Namco as an engineer and is involved in creating the Maya plug-ins needed for game development, in addition to providing technical support. His latest accomplishment is the development of TEKKEN’S NINA WILLIAMS IN: DEATH BY DEGREES, an action adventure game for PS2.