Home » Archives for August 2009
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego’s Calit2 Visualization team have constructed the “NexCAVE”, a 9-screen rig built from LCD monitors for immersive visualization.
Researchers from the group have constructed a three-column, nine-panel 3D display using flat screens from JVC, stereoscopic glasses, and “game PCs with high end NVIDIA game engines.” Dubbed NexCAVE, it’s a much more inexpensive version of the its projector-powered StarCAVE used for data analysis, although its range is more limited — on the plus side, however, since this is LCD, it can be used in bright rooms.
The resolution is only 6000×1500, making it only 9 megapixel, but the cost savings alone make it attractive.
via Nine HDTVs form 3D visualization rig, but only in the name of science.
Hardware, Science 3d, cave, jvc, lcd, stereoscopic, tiled
A great find on YouTube, a collection of some of the best Visual Effects of the last 100 years of cinema, including such classics as Forbidden Planet, The Abyss, Tron, and others.
A “5th-grader-friendly” collection of clips and making-of footage from notable visual effects films of the past century.
Intended for educational use as part of a classroom lecture.
See the video after the break.
Read more…
Graphics movie, vfx, video
Cevat Yerli, co-founder of Crytek, spoke at the GDC Europe conference yesterday and dropped the ominous bomb that “there may not be a next-gen console), and points the finger of blame squarely at Nintendo.
Despite the criticisms the company has received over the years, Yerli said that Crytek will still focus on making its engines highly scalable–meaning that games of today will look even better two or three years from now while allowing older PCs to run the game admirably as well. He said this is partly due to the uncertainty of when next-gen consoles will be available. Although Crytek estimates 2012 or 2013, he also said that there’s a big debate on whether there will be a next generation at all thanks to the “relatively horsepower-light” Nintendo Wii.
Even after having said that, he went on to praise the power of GPU computing and recommended OpenCL.
via Crytek: There May Not Be Next Gen – Tom’s Hardware.
Science conference, crytek, gdc, keynote
The COLLADA file format is gaining steam as now 3dvia, owners of a huge model library used in their shape modeling application and rendering engine, now supports COLLADA dae formats.
3DVIA.com is an online community where over 110,000 registered 3D artists, application developers and enthusiasts from around the world interact with one another, learn from 3D experts and exchange their own 3D creations online through the 3DVIA interactive viewer. 3DVIA already supports the uploading and sharing of 3D models in many popular file formats, including: .3dxml, .3ds, .obj, .kmz, .iges and .step. To support the COLLADA announcement, the site has converted all existing 15,000 public models over to the .dae format and will automatically convert and store any new models published to the public warehouse in both formats.
Get full details on the 3dvia.tv site.
via Aug 4 – 3DVIA Supports COLLADA .dae Format.
Graphics 3dvia, collada, software
Kevin Hanna, Sean O’Reilly, and Barnaby Ward have been hard at work adapting the award-winning graphic novel “The Clockwork Girl” to an animated feature, and the first trailer is online now.
See it after the break.. Their website, www.theclockworkgirl.com is having some bandwidth issues at the moment.
via CG Video & Animation » Blog Archive » “The Clockwork Girl” Trailer.
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Graphics animation, vfx
USA Today has built an interactive tool compiling presidential approval ratings for the last12 presidents, so that you can compare and contrast their various ratings.
There are two views. The first (above) is ratings in chronological order. Each color represents a different president and a timeline towards the bottom highlights significant events during the presidency. One thing you’ll probably notice right off the bat are the giant spikes in approval ratings during war and invasions. Yikes.
via Track Presidential Approval Ratings and Compare to Past | FlowingData.
Science interactive, president, usatoday
Layar, the augmented reality browser for mobile devices, has just released a new version with some huge API improvements bringing it’s functionality to a whole new level.
With version 2.0, Layar has given access to its API to 500 more developers, which are currently developing more content layers. Having Twitter or Wikipedia info layers on your phone is nice, but Layar is going to need support from many more developers if the application is to become really useful. Current partners also include Brightkite, Yelp, and Trulia.
Still currently only available for Android devices, but an iPhone 3GS version is in the works.
via Browse the Reality on Your Android Phone With Layar.
Science android, augmented reality, layar, mobile
Sucker Punch Productions’ ‘inFamous” for the Playstation 3 is out and getting rave reviews for not only the complex storytelling, but the amazing graphics. CGSociety takes an in-depth look at some of the technology behind the game.
inFamous uses an outstanding real-time rendering system which results in the solid frame-rate that moves at a very consistent pace and will very rarely chop. Given the right circumstance, the game will actually run at a perfect 60 frames per second for a short time provided that the camera is not viewing a part of the game with heavy polygon geometry. The camera is freely controlled with the right stick and normally never presents a problem but every now and again will decide to have a mind of it’s own.
CGSociety – inFamous.
Graphics, Hardware ps3, suckerpunch, video game
District9 is out, and reports of the VFX work have been coming out for a while now. A new press release from Zoic shows some of what they contributed to the film.
As one of the VFX companies on the project, Zoic Studios was tapped to design and create 30 shots including the highly complex Alien Fluid, which was based on the behavior of Ferro fluid when affected by an electrical current. The team also created explosions, weapons activations, Alien weapon trails, an armored vehicle and blood and dirt debris.
Read the full press release after the break, with photos from the film.
Read more…
Science district9, movie, vfx, zoic
Here’s the VizWorld Pixels for August 18th, 2009:
VizWorld.com 
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