3D Awards Committee

The 3D Awards is run by the 3D Awards Committee, which comprises of luminaries and professionals in the 3D, Digital Visual Effects, Gaming and Architectural Visualization industries.

Leonard Teo | CGNetworks
Co-Founder and Administrator | International 3D Awards

Leonard Teo is one of the most prominent and respected journalists in the 3D design and digital visual effects industry having served in top editorial positions for several industry publications since 1999. Leonard is currently the the Editor for 3D Festival, with direct responsibility over all editorial content for 3DF online, is a Contributing Editor for Design Graphics Magazine and has written for 3D World, CNet, CG Channel (Editor-In-Chief), Inside Computer Graphics (Editor-In-Chief)) and Digital Media World Magazine. His company, CG Networks, owns and runs CG Talk, the world's largest online community for digital visual effects professionals.

Jimmy Hassel
Founder | 3D Festival

Jimmy Hassel is an entrepreneur with the vision to create great meeting-places and market-places for the digital effects and animation industry in Europe. Jimmy started the 3D Festival in 1998, which has since become the leading European event for digital technology, art and design.

Dan Platt
CEO | Solid Image Arts, LLC

Dan Platt is the CEO of Solid Image Arts, LLC and is secretly based in an abandoned missile silo, hidden in the hills of southern California. He may not have a tan nor cruise the beaches, but he does have his finger on the pulse of the 3D art community. As a traditionally trained sculptor (and now digital 3D designer) his past credits include many block buster Hollywood films from Gremlins to T2, scores of toy designs from Alien to Blizzard, game models, medical and scientific models & animation and his personal childhood achievement – as the creator of the Star Wars Trilogy movie poster for Lucas Film. But what makes all of this unique - he is a self employed artist who works for the top names in the industry, yet answers only to himself. At this show he will share his "stealth-like techniques" for freelance and on the job survival and guide us through his anatomical approach to digital character creation.

Markus Manninen
Head of 3D Commercials | Framestore CFC

As Head of 3D Commercials at Framestore CFC, Markus Manninen has worked on award winning commercials as Animation Supervisor or Animation Director. The client list includes Levis, Microsoft, Shell, Fiat, Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s. A MSc graduate of the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, he discovered Computer Graphics at the University of Massachusetts, USA. Markus joined Framestore CFC in 2000 from Filmtecknarna, an award-winning traditional animation studio.

Alex Morris
Head of CG | Hayes Davidson

Alex Morris is the Director of 3D at Hayes Davidson -- UK's largest and most experienced digital communications company specialising in 3D and new media for the architecture and commercial property world. Notable London projects include The Millennium Dome, The London Eye, The Millennium Bridge, The Tate Gallery of Modern Art, the headquarters for the new London Mayor and Condon City, which is the first integrated and flexible interactive 3D computer system of London.

Shelley Page
Animation European Representative | DreamWorks

Shelley Page started as a background artist for the Richard Williams studio. After working on Who Framed Roger Rabbit? as UK backgrounds supervisor, she joined Stephen Spielberg¹s Amblimation Studio. In 1995, now at DreamWorks as artistic development co-head, she helped some 70 artists prepare for its Oscar©, winning animated epic, The Prince of Egypt. Since 1997, she has been European representative for their latest feature projects and animation talent scouting. She worked on Shrek, winner of the first animated feature Oscar© , and films like An American Tail 2, Antz and the upcoming release Spirit.

Alex Alvarez
Founder and Director | Gnomon School of VFX

Alex is founder and director of The Gnomon Workshop and of Gnomon - School of Visual Effects in Hollywood. Alex has been published in industry magazines, websites, and books - plus he has taught courses at several major trade conferences. His character animation projects have appeared on many computer graphics websites, on the cover of the ‘Maya Character Animation’ book published by New Riders, and most recently his 'Zufuhr' project was commissioned by Alias|Wavefront for their Siggraph stage presentations. Prior to Gnomon, Alex worked for Alias|Wavefront, where he was a consultant and trainer for studios in the Los Angeles area. Alex is president of the Los Angeles Alias|Wavefront Users Group and sits on the Advisory Board for Highend3D.com. Alex is an alumni of the Art Center College of Design and the University of Pennsylvania.

Pascal Blanche
CG Artist | Ubisoft

Pascal Blanché is an accomplished 3D artist currently working as Artistic Director at Ubisoft in Montreal, Canada. He is also a moderator on CGTalk.com , teacher at NAD Institute and is well known in 3D circles all over the world.

Nathan Walpole
Animator | Bungie Studios

Nathan Walpole is an Animator at Bungie Studios currently lending his talents to the much anticipated HALO 2 for XBOX. This Canadian’s career started at a small videogame development studio in Salt Lake City contributing animation to several titles including Monsters Inc for PS2. Nathan is an alumnus of Sheridan College, having surmounted the Classical Animation and Computer Animation curriculum. When not engaged in discussion on www.cgtalk.com <http://www.cgtalk.com/> , Nathan can be found working on his short film, or online playing the videogames that inspire him.

Jason Schleifer
Senior Animator | Weta Digital

Jason Schleifer is currently a Senior Animator at Weta Digital in New Zealand working on The Lord of the Rings. In addition to animating, Jason as taught two Maya Master Classes on setting up Animation Rigs (SIGGRAPH 2001, SIGGRAPH 2002), co-taught a SIGGRAPH Course on Character Rigging (SIGGRAPH 2002), and spends way too much time chatting away on www.cgtalk.com. Before his gig at Weta, Jason worked as a product specialist at Alias|Wavefront in Santa Barbara helping the R&D team think of things from an animator's point of view.

Dr. Mark Snoswell
Director | Snoswell Design

Dr. Mark Snoswell is best known in the 3D industry as the creator of Absolute Character Tools - the world's first commercially available set of real time muscle and skin deformation tools. Mark hails from Adelaide, Australia but spends over half of his time in LA attached to various film productions requiring his character animation tools and rigging expertise.

Victor Navone
Animator | Pixar Animation Studios

Victor Navone is a traditional artist and, more recently, computer animator. In 1998 Navone began studying 3D character animation on his spare time. He created the alien character now known as "Blit Wizbok" and his third test animation with this character, "Alien Song", went on to achieve massive exposure and popularity via the internet. In the fall of 1999 Navone left Presto Studios and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to pursue freelance work and break into feature film production. In early 2000 he accepted an offer from Pixar Animation Studios, where he now works as a fulltime animator.

Guillaume Hellouin
CEO & Co-Founder | Sparx

In 1994, Hellouin and Jean-Christophe Bernard finally realized their dream to create a full service 3D animation and digital effects facility, Sparx*.Over the next eight years, they together built Sparx* into one of Europe’s largest and most accomplished houses, with series like ROLIE POLIE OLIE, movies like CRYING FREEMAN, MA VIE EN ROSE, THOMAS IN LOVE, MY IDOL and more than 800 international TV commercials for companies like LEXUS, CADILLAC, CACHAREL, LANCÔME, CANAL+.

Tommy Strand
CTO | Funcom

During his 7 years of experience with commercial graphics and games Tommy Strand has been involved in everything from major oil platform simulations to games for Disney. Today he currently works for Funcom in Oslo, Norway as CTO. His current project is a massive multiplayer 3D game for Internet, Anarchy Online.

Knut Ramstad
Director of 3D and VR Production | Telenor Expo

Knut Ramstad is an architect with 13 years of experience in the use of 3D design for decision-making and communication. He has been working with several large projects like the Olympic arenas at Lillehammer, British Airways HQ in London, Oslo International Airport and Telenor's new HQ in Oslo. Mr. Ramstad is today Director of 3D and VR production at Telenor, Norway's leading Telecom Company. Telenor Expo's SGI Reality Center is an arena for advanced 3D viualisation and simulation, mainly for the building industry.

Herman Bailey
Industrial Designer | Christian Bjørn Design

Herman Bailey is a British Architect who, for the past 3 years, has lived and worked as an Industrial Designer in Denmark for Christian Bjørn Design A/S. His areas of specialisation are design and visualisation of consumer products as well as products for the Aeronautic industry. As Head of Animation, he was part of the design team who were responsible for the Naturbornholm Centre, Denmark that won the Danish Design Vision Prize 2000.

The Digital Hero Trophy - The 3D Artist's Dream Accolade
The Digital Hero is the 3D Awards trophy hand made by artist Dan Platt in Los Angeles. The Digital Hero is the most coveted accolade in the 3D industry and community worldwide. To have one awarded is a symbol of pride, honor and achievement - a lifetime goal for many 3D artists worldwide. Click here to find out how Dan makes the Digital Hero trophies.