VizWorld.com

Prime Focus VFX, formerly Frantic Films VFX, contributed 70 shots to the new G.I.Joe movie, and talks about their work in a new press release.

In addition to developing a custom toolset to generate 3D cloud and sky environments, Prime Focus built a Nanomite animation pipeline and a hybrid matte painting, environment and 3D animation pipeline. The company also dedicated extensive R&D to improving its in-house scene collaboration system that allowed its LA and Vancouver offices to work seamlessly together.

via Prime Focus VFX Helps Elevate ‘G.I. JOE: The Rise of Cobra’ – Prime Focus – pitchengine.com.

Graphics frantic films vfx, movie, prime focus, vfx

The Wall Street Journal has created an interactive map tracking hurricane traffic for 2009, as well as some of the big hurricanes of recent history (Katrina, Ike, etc).  They currently only show “Bill”, but plan to update it as new storms arise.

A series of tropical storms and hurricanes battered the Atlantic in recent summers, killing thousands, destroying towns and homes and causing spikes in oil and gas prices. Follow major storms’ paths, and locate oil rigs and refineries in the map below.

via The Wall Street Journal Online – Hurricanes Map 2009.

Graphics, Science flash, hurricane, interactive, weather, web, wsj

Over at VFXWorld, Bill Desowitz talks to David Jones about some of the effects created for The Time Traveler’s Wife and how they worked with Rhythm & Hues.

BD: What was the primary software that was used?

DJ: Primarily Maya, Fusion and Inferno: the holy trinity of visual effects. And Maya nCloth for additional clothing work for Henry during the various time travels.

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

Graphics movie, rhythm&hues, vfx

Over at the Wall Street Journal, they’ve compiled a staggering number of statistics on home loan defaults into a fantastic infographic.  The article accompanying it is a bit overwhelming in it’s complexity, but the graphic does a great job of distilling down the basic points.

A survey found that one in eight U.S. households with mortgages was in foreclosure or behind on its mortgage payments during the second quarter, putting added pressure on programs aimed at preventing foreclosures.

While foreclosure starts have slowed on the subprime loans that ignited the mortgage and banking crisis, loans extended to borrowers with good credit are deteriorating at a faster clip as falling home prices and mounting job losses weigh on more households.

via Souring Prime Loans Compound Mortgage Woes – WSJ.com.

Science economic, home, infographic, wsj

EA’s newest Fight Night 4 videogame made a big splash at SIGGRAPH this year, thanks to its fantastic physics modeling and graphics, and now FrameStore has come out with their ads for the game showing off even more of the fantastic details.  They discuss the details of their work in a new interview on CGNews.

“The challenge throughout the project was to stay true to the game footage while creating a more cinematic atmosphere,” said the co-director of the spot, Andy Walker. “It would have been easy to apply the gloss and finesse of pre-rendered footage, but we needed to keep the raw, real time quality, so that we could seamlessly mix post rendered graphics with the game capture.”

via Framestore & Sound Lounge Hit The Ring For Fight Night | CGnews.

Graphics commercial, ea, framestore, vfx, videogame

Gabe Askew’s “Two Weeks” fan video is gaining popularity, and he took the time to sit down with VRay.info and discuss not only how he made the video, but some personal insights into the VFX and Arch Viz industry.

I love working at Focus360 because of the great working environment, but the sad fact is clients simply don’t want to pay for great creative work, they are content with passable flyarounds. This has really drained me creatively and so early in this year I told myself, I have got to do something that is purely my own and is up to my standards.

via VRay.info | Interview With Gabe Askew.

Graphics interview, music video, vfx, vray

Mashable has compiled a list of 6 great facebook visualizations, primary force-directed graph layouts, that you can check out with your own FaceBook friends and see what mysteries lie underneath the surface.

Like every complex network, Facebook offers unlimited possibilities of visual representation of the various connections between its users. We’ve chosen six beautiful visualizations that will awaken the (visual) geek within you.

You don’t have to stop at merely watching. Some of the visualizations on the list come with tools that you can use to create beautiful Facebook visualizations of your own with very little effort. Enjoy!

via 6 Gorgeous Facebook Visualizations.

Science facebook, graph, socialmedia

More details of the previously announced alliance between NVidia and Intel have come to light, in the form of the “Power of 3 Program”.  In particular, the details of what motherboard manufacturers will need to do to get on-board:

To support SLI a motherboard maker simply has to pay NVIDIA $30,000 up front plus $3 per SLI enabled motherboard sold. In turn NVIDIA gives the manufacturer a key to put in its BIOS that tells the NVIDIA display drivers that it’s ok to enable SLI on that platform.

via NVIDIA Unveils Power of 3 Platform – Expreview.com.

Hardware intel, motherboard, nvidia, sli

The new commercial for the Madden NFL10 was created by The Mill and showcases some interesting use of Massive, the large agent modeling and simulation tool.

What were the challenges of creating the Massive agents for this spot?

The main challenge of the Massive work was trying to get the crowd to work as a diverse crowd and then work as for one team or another team. In the wide shot there are about 17,000 agents. It was tricky to get them all to do what we wanted. We had to make the agents a little random, to act like a huge crowd, but also consistent because the whole point of the spot is to make the players and fans of the opposing teams push against each other.

via VFX Football Standoff for Madden NFL 10 | Studio Daily.

Graphics commercial, massive, the mill, vfx, videogame

I’m sure you’ve already heard, but James Cameron’s new epic “Avatar” finally has a trailer online at the Apple website.

AVATAR takes us to a spectacular new world beyond our imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on a journey of redemption and discovery, as he leads a heroic battle to save a civilization. The film was first conceived by Cameron 14 years ago, when the means to realize his vision did not yet exist. Now, after four years of actual production work, AVATAR delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film, disappears into the emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story.

Watch the trailer, then come back and tell us what you think.

via Apple – Movie Trailers – Avatar.

Graphics avatar, movie, trailer, vfx