In a few days, the SpeedTree team, along with spouses, friends & family, will jet off to Southern California to pick up our Technical Achievement Academy Award®.
The presentation will take place at a black tie dinner Saturday night at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, a few steps from the famed Rodeo Drive and what feels like a world away from SpeedTree’s birthplace 15 years ago in Columbia, South Carolina.
SpeedTree started out in 2000 as a quick hack to get some wind-blown trees into a virtual golf course. The golf course never saw the light of day, but our trees got used in a few more visualization projects and suddenly emerged as a force in their own right. A decade and a half later, we couldn’t be prouder of our teenager, featured in more video games than we can count, 13 major movies in 2014 alone, and now recognized among the industry’s most respected cinematic technologies.
The Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards will be hosted by Margot Robbie and Miles Teller. Ms. Robbie, incidentally, is one of a long and growing list of actors and actresses who have shared the stage with SpeedTree. Our trees were featured in several scenes in The Wolf of Wall Street, a film for which Ms. Robbie received considerable recognition, including an Empire Award for Best Newcomer.
Congratulations to SpeedTree’s lead developers, Michael Sechrest, Chris King and Greg Croft, who each will share in SpeedTree’s glory Saturday night with individual Technical Achievement Awards. And tremendous credit goes as well to the rest of the SpeedTree team, past and present, and SpeedTree’s entire user base, who have offered insight and guidance, and used it to create beautiful things.