VizWorld.com

Bruce Branit, creator of the fantastic “World Builder” video, has posted a video showing some of his work in a trio of commercials for “Advantage” Flea control.

These are 3 spots Branit VFX recently completed for Bayer Advantage Flea Control. Obviously you can’t shoot and kill fleas on film or throw around circular saw blades, so we helped with those parts — CGI fleas and CGI killing implements! Branit VFX also handled Compositing as well as animal trainer removal. The agency was Bernstein Rein with Bark Productions producing.

Fun stuff, and well done.  This the video, along with a commercial he made for McDonalds showing some of the modeling and 3D work, after the break.

Read more…

Graphics branit, commercial, vfx

Things are happening in Orlando!

Set to open some time in 2010, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is a “new themed environment … comparable in size to other islands within Universal’s Islands of Adventure … a fully immersive experience that will draw from all of the books and movies.”  See artists’ mockups at the picture gallery in the link below.

Also, Organic Motion has expanded to Orlando:

The Manhattan high-tech company, a developer of advanced computer-vision systems, was drawn to Central Florida by the potential for business opportunities within the region’s defense-training, entertainment and medical simulation industries

… The company has been recognized within the industry for creating the world’s first wireless motion-capture system for video-game development … Organic Motion’s system eliminates the need for the sensors and bodysuits. Experts say that slashes the costs and opens the way to a whole new generation of computer simulations — not just for video games, but for military training, education and a variety of other applications.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Orlando and Organic Motion Has Chosen Orlando As The Site Of Its First Expansion

Graphics "motion capture", harry potter

The NVidia GTX285 for Mac has been out for a while now, and Dave Girard takes one for a test drive.  He shows the GTS285 on both Mac and Windows, and compares it against another popular high-end MAc graphics card, the Radeom 4870.  He puts it through a variety of gaming tests on Windows, and on the Mac he shows it with Maya, Mudbox, Final Cut, and others.  The results? Well, here’s what he has to say about the Mudbox tests:

The GTX 285 gets spanked badly here despite the 159GB/s bandwidth of the GTX 285 vs. the Radeon’s 115 GB/s. I wasn’t necessarily surprised by this though, since the Quadros have the same problem and it hampers sculpting in Mudbox on the Mac. For comparison, the GTX 285 gets 284 FPS in Windows Vista. I know that the more polished Windows Mudbox code is likely also a factor, but the Radeon 3870—a year-old card that costs half as much—gets 97 FPS. So it’s safe to say the GTX 285 drivers are at fault. Even the 256MB 8600M in my MacBook Pro squeezes out 30 FPS.

And it’s the same for almost all of them.  The culprit?  The NVidia OpenGL drivers on OSX simply aren’t up to par with the Windows versions.

Review: NVIDIA GTX 285 on an 8-core Mac Pro – Ars Technica.

Hardware amd, gtx285, mac, nvidia, review

More and more films are undergoing digital processing after shooting, to correct colors and such.  Over at BestAvailable, they have a good discussion of the power of the Digital Intermediate, the name for this process, and what you can do with it.

The Digital Intermediate (DI) is a process that many—if not most—films undergo these days (as far as I know), whereby the entire film (even non-visual effects shots) is digitized and worked on by the Director of Photography, the Colorist, and the Director. They do this in a very dark screening room, wherein the Colorist sits at an array of controls that would rival any NASA console.

Specifically they talk about Autodesk’s Lustre, and show some powerful before and after shots.

via Best Available: Adventures in Visual Effects, No. 74:In Which a DI Demonstration is Given.

Graphics lustre, vfx

Andrew Averkin is no stranger to 3D modeling, with VizWorld having already covered his amazing Mechanical Spider graphic.  Andrew was kind enough to send us his latest image “Dreams of Street Cat”, along with some behind-the-scenes on how it was made.

Read his entire story after the break.

Read more…

Graphics 3dsmax, feature, makingof, tutorial, vfx

The last version of Hugin was in October 2008, and now Hugin 0.8.0 is out and available.  The biggest feature I’m looking forward to is the new OpenGL Accelerated preview window:

A new Fast Preview window has been added, this uses OpenGL graphics acceleration to show changes as they happen. You can drag photos around the window and they will warp to their new positions in real-time. Everything else you need to turn, pan and crop your panorama can now be done interactively in the Fast Preview.

This Fast Preview also now acts as a hub for working with a panorama project: the Identify mode lets you click on the overlap between two photos to bring up the Control Point editor for that pair of photos.

via Hugin-0.8.0 release notes.

Graphics hugin, panorama, software

Side Effects Software is acknowledging the sad economy and offering a 50% discount on the Houdini Master Bundle.  The desktop license is now available for $5,545 and the network license is available for $6,995 .  It’s limited to 2 bundles per person and the offer expires September 15th.

Between this sale and the recent new CMIvfx DVD tutorials, this is a great time to learn Houdini.

Save 50% on Master Bundle! – Side Effects Software Inc..

Graphics houdini, sale, sideeffects, software

Today I’ld like to announce another new feature here on VizWorld: Our Mailing List. Just click the big button in the sidebar and enter a little bit of information, and then enjoy the email.

Now, before you think I plan to start spamming you with constant updates, a few things to note:

• I’m using MailChimp, so you can opt-out and unsubscribe at any time.
• I won’t sell or release your information to any 3rd parties
• Emails will be “infrequent”, probably in the once or twice a month timeframe.

Emails will highlight special features here at the website, major news stories, and upcoming events.  Also, when you subscribe you’ll have the option to select interest areas that I might use to further prevent spamming your inbox.

Website mailinglist, Website

VR medical simulators have been around for a while, but this is the first one I’ve heard of using Second Life to simulate an entire hospital.  Imperial College London has created a “virtual hospital” inside Second Life containing an O.R., patients, and more.

For sims like these, students wear a heads-up display, similar to those used by pilots, which shows data like the patient’s blood pressure, heart rhythm, and medical history. Then they click on objects such as a medication dispenser or the controls of an IV pump. When an object is clicked on, it triggers another heads-up display, allowing students to select, for instance, a certain medication, the dosage, and how to administer it (by mouth, injection, etc.). Importantly, the patient avatar will react realistically—if the student gives him too much nitroglycerine, for example, the avatar’s blood pressure will sink and he’ll go into shock.

via Can Training in Second Life Teach Doctors to Save Real Lives? | Health Policy | DISCOVER Magazine.

Science biomed, education, secondlife, training, virtual worlds

Louisiana Tech University has just won a U.S. Air Force’s Office of Scientific Research grant for $2.85 Million, to be used to establish the Cyberspace Research Laboratory.

The Cyberspace Research Lab will support advanced research and development functions such as virtualization, visualization, high performance computing, wireless sensor networks and micro unmanned aerial vehicles. These facilities will allow researchers to configure different environments, simulate and test real-life events where security breaches may occur, and develop remedies against such security attacks.

Tapping into the new threat of cyber-terrorism:

“Tech has an important role to play in cyberspace R&D,” said Les Guice, vice president for research and development at Louisiana Tech. “As evidenced by recent attacks government computers, cyber threats are more and more prolific, demonstrating a critical need for further R&D. We intend to play a major role in addressing these needs.”

It’s a good win for Louisiana Tech, and combined with the existing high-speed LONI network it will be one of the top cyberspace research labs in the nation.

via Louisiana Tech to get $2.85 million cyber grant | shreveporttimes.com | The Times.

Science government, grant, louisiana, university