VizWorld.com

The VFX Supervisor of Public Enemies, Robert Stadd, sits down with VFXWorld to talk about some of the 400 VFX shots they did for the film.

(…) Then we shot Johnny doing it mostly for lighting. Then afterward there was a scanning session for his head and also for the end. So we had some CG heads that we could use and we used them a lot in the bank robbery.

BD: Who worked on that shot?

RS: CafeFX. They also did some interim work on Dillinger’s death, but, really all that blood stuff was Hammerhead. We built about 60% of it in CG with 3ds Max and then using Nuke we just manipulated it. And then Hammerhead shot a bunch of live-action elements of blood just pouring out of him (using a Styrofoam head).

via ….. >> VFXWorld / Feature Articles << …...

Graphics 3dsmax, cafefx, hammerhead, movie, nuke, vfx

Visual Economics has taken data from the US Department of Labor and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and created an infographic showing the average breakdown of how the average US Consumer spends his paycheck. Such information as:

• 20% goes to Shelter
• 0.7% to Tobacco, and 0.9% to Alcohol
• 5.7% to Healthcare

Hit their website for the full infographic.

How The Average U.S. Consumer Spends Their Paycheck – Visual Economics.

Graphics financial, infographic

Naty Hoffman, one of the brains behind Real-Time Rendering, has posted a list of interesting talks at this year’s SIGGRAPH2009.  From an expert is real-time rendering engines and technologies, it’s a pretty comprehensive list.

Talks (formerly known as sketches) are one of my favorite parts of SIGGRAPH. They always have a lot of interesting techniques from film production (CG animation and visual effects), many of which can be adapted for real-time rendering. There are typically some research talks as well; most are “teasers” for papers from recent or upcoming conferences, and some are of interest for real-time rendering. This year, SIGGRAPH also has a few talks by game developers – hopefully next year will have even more. Unfortunately, talks have the least documentation of all SIGGRAPH programs (except perhaps panels) – just a one page abstract is published, so if you didn’t attend the talk you are usually out of luck.

via Real-Time Rendering.

Graphics book, list, siggraph

N-Sided has just announced the newest version of it’s Argile 3D Retouching system, Argile2. This version contains several new features such as an integrated texture library, support for CAD-CAM formats like 3DM and STL, and improved real-time visualization.  They’ve also added some interesting “Z-Brush lite” type features.

Argile 2 offers its own UV projection system that, in a few clicks, will add UV coordinates to your imported objects so that they can be painted.

On top of that, N-Sided innovates again by inventing an advanced system for UV retouches. It lets you modify the texture positioning directly by clicking and dragging on the 3D model. Work on the final result as if you were deforming the texture!

Limited-functionality trial versions are available for download, and the full version is available from the store for approximately 89EUR (~$124 US).  Different packages are available, and discounts are available for Argile1 users.

N-Sided via CGSociety – N-Sided Argile 2.

Graphics argile, n-sided, software

Mozy, popular online backup service, has created an interesting infographic visualizing various statistics related to hard drive storage.  Combining numbers about the falling price of data storage, how much you can fit in various data size amounts, and the increasing amount of computer usage, it’s a huge graphic that contains several little tidbits of information.

How Much Is A Petabyte? | The Mozy Blog.

Graphics, Hardware infographic, storage

As part of the always-fascinating Google Chrome Experiments, “Mr. doob” has a demo online which shows a group of spheres animating in space with full depth-of-field effects.

300 balls form a plane, a cube, a little universe, a sphere and then disappear.

Unfortunately this piece is shy and doesn’t want to interact with you yet. But nothing stops you from watching it from any angle.

The effect is done entirely with Sprites, so no real reflections or 3d geometry. I recommend you don’t try this page unless you have Chrome or Safari4.  FireFox3.5 couldn’t really handle it when I tried it.  Check after the break for a Youtube Video of it in action.

Mr.doob | Depth of Field, 100% Javascript.

Read more…

Science chrome, demo, javascript, safari

In a new podcast series from Scientific American, they talk with the crew at Blue Sky Studios about their work on Ice Age.

In this series of episodes, We talk to many of the scientists at Blue Sky Studios, which created the Ice Age series of animated features, including the recently released Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. In episode 1, we hear from company founders Carl Ludwig and Eugene Troubetzkoy and senior research associate Hugo Ayala.

via Movie Magic (Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs) Part 1: Scientific American Podcast.

Graphics blue sky studios, interview, movie, vfx

The upcoming G-Force movie is a Hybrid film, mixing live action backgrounds with CG characters, and is in Disney 3D.  However, shooting live action in 3D is technically difficult, and initially thought to be impossible.

The studio and Jerry from the very beginning wanted to do it in 3-D. We did tests and it was only after having done them that (it was) just technically not possible. We just couldn’t do it.

We’ve seen a lot of animated full length rendered CG characters now. We’ve seen very few live-action 3-D movies and the reason is it’s almost impossible to shoot them very easily and make a good 3-D movie that way. There needs to be a quantum leap in the technology.

via News: G-Force Presentation And Q&A With The Creative Team | Latino Review.

Graphics 3d, disney, interview, movie, vfx

Render Plus Systems has released a new add-on Rendering Engine for SketchUp. nXtRender, which is based on the new AccuRender nXt rendering engine from McNeel and Associates, is powerful, easy to use and fully integrated into SketchUp. By defining reflection, lighting, transparency and materials in their models, SketchUp users can quickly and easily create photorealistic renderings.

“nXtRender is an ideal, low-cost rendering solution for SketchUp”, said Al Hart, President of Render Plus. “Using the new nXt Engine from McNeel and Associates, nXtRender takes the hassle out of making great renderings quickly and at an affordable price.”

Read the full press release after the break.
Read more…

Graphics nxtrender, render, renderplus, sketchup, software

I just got an credible tip, confirmed by an SGI Sales rep, about a sour love triangle between the Old SGI, the New SGI, and the Pittsburg Supercomputing Center (PSC).

About a year ago, the National Science Foundation worked with PSC to prepare for a 1 PetaFlop system to be deployed there and integrated into the TeraGrid, a large global supercomputing network used for academic and public research.  The result was an SGI UltraViolet system, approximately 197 cabinets, 100,000 cores, and all of it for the low price of $30 million dollars.

Well, that was with the old SGI.  News now is that the new SGI has found other customers willing to pay higher “more reasonable” prices for these same cabinets, and has decided not to honor the original offer.  Legally, they don’t have to honor them but it puts PSC and the NSF in a tight spot as they now have $30 million that’s supposed to magically turn into a 1PF supercomputer, and won’t.

On the other hand, if you’re looking to buy an SGI UltraViolet, the wait just got a lot shorter.

Hardware business, nsf, psc, rackable, sgi