Emily (via Slack): Open Source Forum is Feb. 16 in LA.
Call for speakers is open, closes January 20.
The registration site will open next Wednesday (18th). The event will be open and free for all members and select community members (ie those active on the tac or a project). A reg code will be sent next week. There will be a nominal fee for non-members.
We will also have a virtual attendee option.
Carol: what happens if we don’t have submissions?
David: projects should be submitting. Feedback that preparing an update for each project is a bit of a distraction, we are OK to prepare substantial update for Open Source Days. Recasting Open Source Forum at a higher level, we can still present our projects if we have something to present to the group, if it’s the right time to present to the community. But you should submit what you would like to do. Also you should submit ideas for presentations, did polls on who should be a keynote speaker, we are reaching out to a few people. But if you have other ideas of what would be valuable to our community, including technical topics not necessarily under our Foundation. We will pick from those presentations to make up Open Source Forum. The vision for Open Source Forum is that it becomes a vibrant place where we have a variety of presenters, not just from our group, but others in the industry. For instance, over the Holidays there’s been talk about a new programming language for the Metaverse, would that be a topic of interest?
Eric: 3 types of presentations on the CFP: 10 minutes, 20 minutes, and 40 minute panel
Eric: won’t be ready for project review in 2 weeks, don’t have download statistics yet. Waiting for LF IT.
Jonathan: move to 2 weeks for now, taking over the DPEL slot.
David: Budget presentation to happen at next meeting with Andrew Pearce, chairman of budget committee.
Discussion: brainstorming session for year coming ahead
Scott: proposal for a project I’d like to present to the TAC, can do it now or another time.
Plant the seed, will do it without the slides. I have a project that is a framework for building a validation system within studios. Need to validate your character rig is correct, all the right check boxes are checked, the framework lets you write your checks based on studio requirements, give results, perhaps automatically fix issues. It’s open sourced, but haven’t made an official announcement, would like to see if ASWF would be interested in owning the project. ASWF is a neutral forum for people to contribute, and a larger entity to just my own GitHub repo. Want to make sure that if this project has “legs”, that it will outlast me, project can continue without me.
Eric: is each of the check a shell command? Scott: it’s all done within the process, but could be a shell command. Eric: the process loads the USD / EXR / Maya file? Scott: could do it this way. But typically can run it within the DCC (Maya), show feedback to artist of what checks passed and failed. Eric/Michael: how does it relate to all the DCCs? Scott: run the checks within Houdini / Maya / … so the file is already loaded at this time.
Larry: revisiting idea to create a WG on real time / virtual production. Does anyone have ideas they want to share
David: an emerging section of our industry, compared to other technologies currently in the ASWF. Lots of companies are very active in this new field. There’s a sense that it’s a good time at the beginning of this new “branch” of what can be open sourced, get companies that may not be thinking about that at this stage. See if they can contribute something. Netflix ahead of the curve, has open sourced a few tools related to VP, seeds that can be used. A need to get to the bottom of how things are actually done in VP: shows are coming out, they are making various claims. We will hear a lot from Avatar at WETA, but smaller shows, episodic, will use in-camera VFX, how was the video wall actually used. There isn’t a forum that groups all the vendors and studios, could be the first step for a WG to be a forum for case studies, sharing info about VP, aiming towards developing open source in that area. Has anyone had time to think about the concept?
Carol: what you are proposing makes sense, but we need to do a good job of being very specific as to what this WG is intended to be doing. There are lots of groups talking about VP: ETC, SMPTE, all working on production related topics. If we want to get into this space with a WG, we need to figure out exactly how we relate to software for that space. Obviously we’ll have to talk about the whole aspect. Look at what comes out of these other groups, and figure out how we can talk about it from a software point of view.
Larry: a ASWF WG could look at 3 areas:
Are there things that our existing projects should be doing to be better situated for this space. For instance, in OpenEXR, should there be a different compression method that would allow better streaming to the GPU and decompression on the GPU
Is there software already developed by member companies that should be open source but hasn’t been. Encourage companies to turn those into projects.
Are the people working in this space struggling with gaps which could be addressed by a project.
Larry: These 3 topics seem specific to what we do and know. David: makes sense, thank you Larry. Feedback from Carol and Larry can inform where to go. We may want to attract new member companies, dozens of companies specializing in writing software for VP.
Wave: if there was an end goal that would make sense in ASWF context, a WG trying to figure out a specific goal for VP. That’s what we did with DPEL, we realized we needed a license. Is there something that this WG could develop that isn’t being addressed by other organizations. Laura: could first gather requirements, and what exists already. Not everyone in the space are talking to each other. David: sounds like we need an exploratory group / meeting, what can be done in the context of our mission, a place where we can invite those SMEs on VP in our companies or outside the foundation. Wave: similar to Open Review, a group of people at companies talked over 2 years. David: could be a case study / series of case studies, look at what it’s done. Would be good to have a WETA case study on Avatar from the software perspective.
Carol: idea of a Hackathon, which would need to be supported by TAC and project TSCs, start to think about the scale and what we would want to tackle on the first attempt
David: we have a Hackathon on the program for 2023, try to enlist new engineers outside of existing contributors
Carol: when Rachel and I have talked about this, wearing both the OCIO and D&I “hats”. Thinking about what we need in OCIO, how those two things can combine. In order for people to get involved and complete an issue, they have to have a lot of knowledge about our industry. We thought it would be good that for first Hackathon, try to target more junior engineers in member companies, who aren’t currently involved in ASWF. People who might show interest if presented with opportunity. Can target people already in the industry, and help us bring in folks who aren’t already involved but could be interested. Member companies should state their interest in participating, having it over 48h period would be best (or 24h), people could participate as part of their day job. From project perspective, may not include every project as this Hackathon, pick a few projects willing to go in and increase number of “Good First Issues”, also be willing to dedicate resources to be available to help with onboarding issues.
Larry: I like this. One of the benefits is that often there’s a single person who has deep development knowledge, so that can help a company to have more than a single person. Some studios may need to increase their level of internal expertise.
Scott: would their be issues forwarding the Hackathon link to TDs in different studios? Carol: we haven’t gotten that far, but definitely seems we would welcome other studios as well.
JF: value to projects in helping to figure out barriers to contribution
Carol: hopefully we can improve the onboarding for all the projects, even if they don’t all participate
David: that’s good, thank you. We need to expand our pool of engineers, will be good if we can help Carol. Tentative schedule towards end of year, before or after SIGGRAPH. We have a bit of time to figure it out, let’s help Carol!
Eric: virtual or co-located? Carol: likely virtual due to logistics. Could be that participating companies say that people come into the office, so could be “hybrid”.