Archived News 2011
Congratulations to Dr Mark Sagar of Weta Digital on his Oscar win
11th February 2011
Dr Mark Sagar of Weta Digital is set to receive his second sci-tech Oscar for his work on the film Avatar.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s Scientific and Technical Awards honor the men, women and companies whose discoveries and innovations have contributed in significant, outstanding and lasting ways to motion pictures.
Sagar is a former medical researcher who gave up bio-engineering for animation. He now works for Weta Digital.
Last year he was one of four Weta creators who won a Scientific and Engineering award as a group:
To Paul Debevec, Tim Hawkins, John Monos and Dr. Mark Sagar for the design and engineering of the Light Stage capture devices and the image-based facial rendering system developed for character relighting in motion pictures.
The combination of these systems, with their ability to capture high fidelity reflectance data of human subjects, allows for the creation of photorealistic digital faces as they would appear in any lighting condition.
His goal was to create a virtual actor, who resembled humans as closely as possible. He got his chance in Avatar to perfect the technology that accurately captures human movement.
The Sci-Tech Awards presentation is this Saturday 12 February 2011.
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