VizWorld.com

While not entirely VFX related, topsPost has compiled a list of their Top 50 movie special effects shots, containing alot of VFX work.

Top 50 movie special effects shots | Tops Post.  (New link, works)

Graphics

3DM3 has a tutorial from Marcus Dublin where he constructs a “Paragalis”, a “walking parasite approximately the size of a large dog”.  It’s fictional, yes, but it’s a great tutorial of modeling, sculpting, texturing, and mapping.

The Specs: Lowpoly model / 7,000 triangles, Textures / 2024×2024 / diffuse, spec, normal

Tools: 3ds max 8 / 9, Photoshop, Mudbox, Zbrush 3.1, Crazybump, Polyboost

via Welcome to 3DM3.com – World’s Computer Graphics Community.

Graphics

At UCBerkeley, they’ve build a prototype collaborative visualization system and posted a video of it in use on Youtube.

Video of a collaborative visualization experiment between KeckCAVES and the IDAV VR lab. A remote user from the VR lab is projected into the CAVE using 3D video technology developed at UC Berkeley’s CITRIS tele-immersion lab, and jointly explores a 3D gridded dataset with a local user in the CAVE.

via YouTube – Collaborative Visualization with Tele-Immersion.

Science

The Salt Lake Tribune has a short interview with the guys at Sandman Studios, who just finished work on the opening scenes of “Race to Witch Mountain”.

Sandman was founded in 2002 and has been making animation and visual effects for major Hollywood productions — such as animation for the much-loved but short-lived ABC series “Pushing Daisies” — since 2007 said company president Lee Baker. Sandman landed the “Witch Mountain” gig after impressing Disney and director Andy Fickman with its work on “The Game Plan.” For that movie Sandman Advertisement created a realistic copy of the Madden 07 video game featuring Dwayne Johnson s character.

via It’s in the details: Utah’s Sandman Studios contributes to ‘Witch Mountain’ – Salt Lake Tribune.

Graphics

Issue 42 of ImageFX focuses heavily on the Watchmen, with cover art and an article by Dave Gibbons.

Cave dwellers come hither! It’s Watchmen time, and to celebrate ImagineFX’s new issue is sporting a world exclusive Dave Gibbons cover with an accompanying workshop by the Watchmen artist.

Whilst Dave takes us through the creation of his Rorschach cover, we look at the history and influence of the genre-defining comic in an eight-page feature, with insight from Watchmen colourist John Higgins and film concept artist Scott Lukowski.

It also comes with a DVD containing 9  hours of tutorial footage, and 2 comic creation suites.  It’s available online from their store for approx $13.

via ImagineFX Site.

Graphics

VentureBeat has an article about a fun PepsiCo Visualization of SXSW related tweets,

And you can change the visualizations too. The default is a stream like Twistori, but you can also use “Popular” view, which is sort of like a tag cloud, “Swarm” view, which shows tweets on a map, “Party Watch,” which will focus on parties on any given night and “Overheard” view, which will seperate out all the tweets that start with “OH:”

Fun for checking out, although it seems that it’s rapidly being usurped by people looking for publicity & spamming the twitter-stream with bad data.

via Can’t make SXSW? Visualize it in tweets » VentureBeat.

Science

VCreateLogic has just released VTKDesigner 2.7, an interactive tool for building & manipulating VTK pipelines.  New features include:

• Introduced new classes vtkBezierSurfaceSource and vtkBezierSurfaceWidget
• Thumbnail preview of canvas is now shown
• vtkLookupTable now supports color-table presets (code from Prof. Vijay Natarajan, IISc Bangalore)
• New Tools
• ComponentGen : Tool to generate code template for a new component
• VNFComponentGen : Tool to generate code template for new vis-node-factory components. Code generated by this tool can be used to support new nodes for drag and drop into the pipeline
• VisNodeGen : Tool to generate code template for a new wrapper Introduced a new class called vtkWedgeSource
• Fixed scriptable methods that help in coordinate transformations for vtkProp3D and subclasses
• Added support for project templates
• GCF’s Menu Strip drawer feature is used by a few components.

via VCreate Logic: Qt, OpenGL and VTK Technology Consultants.

Science

Caustic has rolled out another part of it’s Hardware Accelerated Raytracing technology called “CausticRT”.

CausticRT™ is the world’s only massively accelerated raytracing system. This system— comprised of the revolutionary CausticOne™ graphics accelerator card, and the CausticGL™ programming API—enables you to create a uniquely high-performance, scalable rendering environment where image quality is never compromised.

It still requires one of their special “CausticOne” cards, but it looks promising.

via Caustic Graphics :: Realtime Raytracing :: CausticRT.

Science caustic

Realizing that the current economy is hurting large capital expenditures (read: buying huge expensive stuff), Ziosoft has rolled out a new monthly “subscription” plan where you can essentially rent thin-clients to use immediately.

“Our physicians realize the benefit our 3D advanced visualization tools bring to patient diagnosis and care but in this challenging economy capital expenditure has been restricted” said Mark Koeniguer Ziosoft s chief operating officer. “In response to customer requests we have created a number of flexible purchasing options including a monthly subscription fee program. This program will allow physicians the access they need to 3D advanced visualization tools without compromising capital budgets.”

via Ziosoft Unveils Advanced Visualization Software Subscription.

Hardware

DailyTech has the scoop that NVidia has changed it’s mind on the 9800 Rebrand plan.

NVIDIA will not be going ahead with its controversial GTS 240 rebrand of the GeForce 9800 GT graphics card, according to a confidential email that DailyTech has seen. The GPU firm has been under pressure from frustrated GPU board partners.

Instead, NVIDIA is telling its customers to focus on three cards using the 9800 GT name. Besides the standard version, there is a reduced power version of the 9800 GT and the 9800 GT OC version.

via DailyTech – NVIDIA Backs Away From GTS 240 Rebrand of 9800 GT.

Hardware nvidia