On Sunday The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey received its first Oscar awards via The Academy's Scientific and Technical Awards hosted by Star Trek's Chris Pine and Zoe Saldana. While it does't get much attention, it is recognized that often film requires advancements in science to achieve greatness in some of the flashier categories like outstanding visual effects. In this case Simon Clutterbuck, Richard Dorling, and James Jacobs were recognized for creating "Tissue: A Physically-Based Character Simulation Framework." As Jacobs put it, "The framework is used to construct and simulate the anatomical components of our digital creatures and characters" such as Gollum. Since science doesn't always fall into neat categories, the science awards are recognition of innovation that advances the film industry. Other winners include Richard Mall for his Matthews Max Menace Arm for making it easier to light sets in often difficult conditions and locations and team behind the Light system that combined light, color and rendering into one (which used to require separate passes for each). More details can be found here and here. Congrats to the team and good luck on getting more on February 24th. (via TORn)

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