SIGGRAPH 2010: Computer Animation Festival winners announced
[permalink] 29.06.2010
SIGGRAPH announced the Computer Animation Festival's Best in Show, Jury Award, and Best Student Project recipients for SIGGRAPH 2010 to be held in Los Angeles this July. Nominees were chosen from 750 submissions from around the globe, presented by both professional studios and students alike. In all, approximately 100 films will be shown during the Computer Animation Festival, with entries from 49 different countries and five continents. Fifty-two of the accepted entries are international, and 18 countries are represented in the final selection. Awards: Best in Show Award - Loom, directed by Jan Bitzer, Ilija Brunck, and Csaba Letay; Jury Award - Poppy, directed by James Cunningham; Best Student Project Prize - The Wonder Hospital, directed by Beomsik Shimbe Shim, California Institute of the Arts; Highlights: 2012 - The Last Fluid Simulation, visual effects by Scanline VFX, Los Angeles/Munich; Assassin's Creed 2, cinematic by Digic Pictures for Ubisoft Entertainment; Animated History of Poland, directed by Tomek Baginski, Platige Image; and more. [source]
www.siggraph.org

Avatar features stereographic and 'Holotable' displays created by Prime Focus
[permalink] 23.12.2009
Prime Focus has contributed a number of shots to James Cameron's stereoscopic 3D feature film "Avatar." The movie, which premiered Dec. 18, features numerous stereographic and "Holotable" displays, animated graphics, immersive environments and other visual effects created by Prime Focus. Prime Focus designed displays for the Op Center's Holotable or a three-dimensional hologram of the "Home Tree," where the Navi, Pandora's indigenous population, live. Using the original live-action plate of a table with a greenscreen across the top, Prime Focus modeled the hardware that went inside the table, the projector beams, and added graphics projected above the table of the terrain, including the Home Tree. These graphics were designed in 2D in Adobe Illustrator, animated in Adobe After Effects, placed on cards in 3D and rendered in Autodesk 3ds Max. Prime Focus Software's Krakatoa particle system was used for the 3D terrain, which gave the images a scan-lined LIDAR-like quality, as if a satellite roving the planet's atmosphere captured the footage. [Image TM and (C) Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved. Not for sale or duplication.] [source]
www.primefocusworld.com

The Passenger: DVD available, YouTube version posted
[permalink] 26.11.2009

The Passenger, a short 3D film by Chris Jones, "is the result of about six years spent in a bedroom with a computer. Entirely self funded and self produced, the project was originally conceived as a showreel piece, but later upgraded to short film status. All sound, music and vision were created by one person with commercially available hardware and software." After an endless wait, the short is finally available for purchase on DVD, as well as for your online viewing pleasure. For an interesting "Making of..." summary, visit this page. [source]

chrisj.com.au

Ballistic Publishing ships EXOTIQUE 5
[permalink] 20.11.2009

Ballistic Publishing shipped EXOTIQUE 5, fifth book in its digital character art series. Like preceding editions, EXOTIQUE 5 is a snapshot of the best character art produced in the previous year, and each page is full of inspirational work from a wide variety of genres. An updated layout style refreshes the series which incorporates a number of spreads containing higher concentrations of characters on white backgrounds. The work of 208 talented artists fill EXOTIQUE 5 with 342 pieces of inspiring character art in genres ranging from science fiction, fantasy, and anime, to photorealism and stylized realism. The new edition also presents the work of 72 artists (more than a third of the artists featured) who are published for the first time in a Ballistic Publishing book. EXOTIQUE 5 is available in two editions: Softcover ($52 US) and Special Edition ($115 US). [source]

www.ballisticpublishing.com

Prime Focus presents View-D
[permalink] 30.09.2009

Prime Focus, one of the world's largest visual entertainment services groups, announced the launch of View-D, a proprietary 2D-to-3D conversion process that allows filmmakers to efficiently create stereoscopic 3D movies from source material shot on virtually any medium. View-D will be introduced at international launch events in Mumbai, London and Los Angeles to unveil the Prime Focus global rebrand, in which Post Logic and Frantic Films VFX will be brought together under the Prime Focus name. View-D was developed under the guidance of Chris Bond, President and Senior Visual Effects Supervisor of Prime Focus VFX. "With View-D, it's about giving filmmakers the gift of time, because our approach allows the possibility of interactive creative sessions with our stereographers, similar to a DI session. Filmmakers can also now shoot a movie with a single camera, on film, without having to be locked into digital cameras and potentially complicated stereoscopic camera rigs," stated Bond. [source]

www.primefocusworld.com

ILM delivers thousands of effects shots with Autodesk software
[permalink] 13.07.2009
Academy Award-winning visual effects studio Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) relied on Autodesk's digital entertainment software to create thousands of visual effects shots for this summer's hottest movies, including "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," "Terminator Salvation" and "Star Trek." ILM created stunning visual effects using Autodesk visual effects software, including Autodesk Maya and the Autodesk Inferno software that is part of ILM's proprietary SABRE high-speed compositing system. [source]
www.autodesk.com

Maya breathes life into "Little Krishna"
[permalink] 24.06.2009
Autodesk announced that one of India's leading animation studios - BIG Animation, a Reliance ADAG Company - used Autodesk Maya software to animate the magical worlds of the new "Little Krishna" animated series. The company relied on the Autodesk Smoke and Autodesk Flame systems for finishing and final output of the 13-episode program. "Little Krishna" is a joint production between The India Heritage Foundation and BIG Animation, and marks the first time that Nick International (Nickelodeon) has acquired a series produced in India. "Maya software's flexible architecture enabled us to overcome the challenges posed by large amounts of facial animation, secondary cloth and jewelry animation, and complex particle and environmental simulations such as water, fire and tornadoes," explained Ashish SK, CEO of BIG Animation. "We used Maya nCloth for clothing and the new Maya Muscle system for character rigging. The Geometry Point Cache system also helped reduce time and errors, and allowed lighting artists to work with files that already had surface data incorporated into animations. Python scripting opened up a new level of interactivity, letting us script and develop our own crowd simulation tools." BIG Animation completed the series in three and a half years. In this time, the team grew from 45 to 280 people. The series debuted on the Nick Channel in May 2009 and is currently one of the two top-rated children's programs in India. [source]
www.autodesk.com

AREA gets a face-lift
[permalink] 05.06.2009
Autodesk, Inc., has launched a new version of the AREA - the company's on-line digital entertainment and visualization community. This version provides a more customizable user experience and makes it faster and easier to find and share content. The AREA is also now compatible with all standard browsers running on the Windows, Mac OS and Linux operating systems. [source]
area.autodesk.com

Terminator Salvation: Exclusive 4-minute clip on iTunes
[permalink] 11.05.2009
McG's Terminator Salvation - new installment in the Terminator film franchise - will premiere on May 21st, 2009... And with the 'Judgment Day' nearing, Warner Bros. released completely new, exclusive 4-minute clip. See it on iTunes. (Direct links: Small, Medium, Large, HD 480p, HD 720p, HD 1080p.) [source]
www.terminatorsalvation.com

LightWave 3D helps in the 'Battle for Terra'
[permalink] 04.05.2009
NewTek Inc. announced that its award-winning LightWave 3D rendering, modeling and animation software was used to create the new animated, science fiction, adventure film "Battle for Terra," (imdb) which opened at U.S. movie theaters on May 01, 2009 in both 2D and 3D versions (more). The movie was conceived and directed by Aristomenis "Meni" Tsirbas (imdb) and features the voices of Justin Long, Brian Cox, Evan Rachel Wood and Luke Wilson among others. [source]
www.newtek.com