VizWorld.com

The advertising for the release of Alien vs Predator: Requim  included a great tongue-in-check picture of the Predator and an Alien playing chess.  3DCluster, a group of freelance modelers in New Zealand, created the poster and talk about the process on CGSociety.

“Once in ZBrush, I found it easy and fast to use,” Ben is happy to report. “It is an essential for any work flow for organic modeling with intense detail. Within just a few Sub-D levels in ZBrush I found that my mesh was starting to look more realistic and more like Predator. Sub Tools were a vital part in my work flow in ZBrush as this added separate layers I need for Predator’s armor, head and body etc.”

via CGSociety – ALIEN v PREDATOR: CHESS.

Graphics model, zbrush

3D coat has finally, after several alpha builds, reached Release Candidate status and is available for download.  3D-Coat is a volumetric sculpting tool that uses NVidia’s CUDA technology for acceleration.  Available for both Mac and Windows, it’s a great tool similar to Z-Brush.

3D-Coat 3.0 ALPHA – 3D Coat Forums.

Graphics 3dcoat, cuda, modeling, software

A new interactive infographic that works as a game aims to teach people about the similarities and differences between the seasonal Flu and the pandemic Flu (Avian, Swine, take your pick).  It’s an isometric game that borrows alot of it’s visuals from infographic theories.

Here is a game that allows you to learn more about how the influenza virus is transmitted and how it changes every year – which explains why you can get more than one dose of the flu over your lifetime and why vaccines need changing every year. We also hope it will be a bit of fun.

The second level of the game is an opportunity to understand why pandemic flu is a bit different to normal yearly (seasonal) flu. Remember: even pandemic flu generally kills fewer people than you would think. Try to kill too many people in the game and see how difficult it is!

via UK CVN Killer Flu, via Infosthetics.

Graphics, Science biomed, infographic, video game

T-Splines 2.0 for Rhino is now available for purchase & download.  In this version they’ve added several new tools for free-form surfaces, and for the first time a full-suite of polygonal modeling tools.

For the first time ever, a full suite of box modeling tools are available fully integrated within Rhino and fully compatible with NURBS surfacing. Designers can now directly create and edit surfaces faster and quicker than ever before, with full confidence that the end result will be a smooth, gap-free manufacturable model.”

A free trial is available for download, or it can be purchased for $549 ($99 to upgrade).

via T-Splines 2.0 press release.

Graphics modeling, rhino, software, t-splines

The Electronic Visualization Lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago has long since been a mainstay at the front-edge of comptuer graphics and visualization research.  Maxine Brown, associate directory of the lab, sat down with the editors of Medill Reports to talk about their facility.

Our middle name is visualization. The lab’s been around for 36 years, and we’ve always specialized in real-time, interactive computer graphics. Back in 1992, we got interested in not only developing the algorithms to make pretty pictures, but in moving these pictures, in real time, from point A to point B. So, we started getting involved in networking, which is why we today do networked visualization and collaboration today.

via From pictures to pixels: interactive visualization explained.

Science evl, interview, maxine brown

Microsoft is resurrecting an old idea, the “SideShow”.  For those of you who don’t remember it, it’s a small display set up near your main display for showing other context data.  Now touted with touchscreen capabilities and such, they’re retargeting it at gamers for use as an additional data display for in-game maps, health, inventory, etc.

With devices like the Intuos offering something similar (albeit with alot of extra nicer features), and things like Mimo Monitors connected via USB, is the time finally right for this?  Or just another unnecessary gadget?

Microsoft SideShow could offer gamers secondary touchscreen – SlashGear.

Hardware display, microsoft, mimo, touchscreen

Meg Pearson has a fun chart on Flickr showing the life of a trending topic on Twitter.  It’s a somewhat satirical, somewhat truthful, look at how a topic slowly grows in waves before being drowned out by the mass of people talking not about the topic, but about the topic’s popularity (the “meta summit”).

Science infographic, twitter

Per capita fish consumption has nearly doubled in the last 50 years, and that’s leading to a thinning of fish populations around the globe.  GOOD magazine is back with another stunning infographic showing how certain species of fish may not be around much longer.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations measures how many of each species of each fish were caught each year. Using these numbers, we can see how some fish catches have peaked, meaning that there are simply not enough fish left to catch.

via Transparency: Where Are All the Fish? | GOOD.

Science fish, good, infographic

The Florence Design Academy has a good tutorial showing how to combine a scanned image of crumpled paper with a simple photoshop mosaic texture to create a realistic Leather texture suitable for use in 3ds Max.

CGArena – Create Leather Material in 3ds max.

Graphics 3dsmax, autodesk, material, tutorial

Procedural has released CityEngine2009 for modeling and construction of large cityscapes, and they’ve added a whole new of new features:

• Improved Interactive Editing
• Geospatial Data
• Occlusion Queries
• Python Interface
• and a Floating License version

See a video of the new version after the break.

CityEngine 2009.

Read more…

Graphics cityengine, procedural