VizWorld.com

Micheal Jackson’s last performance “This Is It” is coming to theater’s and webcasts worldwide, featuring some fantastic visual effects created by I.E. Effects.  Combining stereoscopic 3D with on-set props was going to create a fantastic interactive extravaganza for audience members, and they did their best to honor this in the final movie.  In a discussion with DigitalContentProducer, they discuss some of the more difficult shots such as the recreation of Thriller.

“The ghosts were shot separately on a greenscreen stage using a large stand-in for the chandelier. We then tracked the CG chandelier to the set prop and added dynamics, so that all the crystals on the chandelier would behave properly,” said Kaminar. “Ordinarily that’s challenging enough, but when you add the fact that it’s stereoscopic, it becomes exponentially more complicated.”

Adding to the complexity of the shot, the two-camera rig was positioned on the end of a moving crane, panning, tilting and zooming. “The chandelier stand-in was rocking and moving around so the tracking was pretty complex. To deal with this, we worked out a pipeline for efficient manual tracking and matchmoving that worked very well,” said Kaminar.

In addition to this, they recreated Vincent Price’s famous dialogue with a CG head reading back the lines, combining facial motion capture and lip synching.

via I.E. Effects Delivers VFX for Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” | The Briefing Room.

Graphics ieeffects, micheal jackson, vfx

This week’s recommended resource comes from the mind of David McCandless, creator of Information is Beautiful.  His newest book, “The Visual Miscellaneum” showcases several of his best infographics and charts, many of which we’ve covered here before like The Political spectrum: Left vs Right.  The book isn’t actually available yet, it comes out November 10th, but pre-orders are live so go ahead and reserve your copy now!

Graphics, Science infographic, resource of the week

Hess Corp., a global independent energy company, had a problem.  Their visualization software and their simulation software ran on separate machines and separate operating systems (Windows and Linux) and moving the massive amounts of data between them was becoming a problem.  They turned to Nvidia for a rather unorthodox solution, using Parallels to emulate one OS on top of another.  Thanks to NVidia’s new MultiOS GPU Support, it wound up being a perfect solution.

“Instead of running applications on different machines, and moving data back and forth over the network, SLI Multi-OS radically streamlines users’ workflows and instantly enhances productivity,” said Jeff Brown, general manager, NVIDIA Professional Solutions Group. “We believe Hess’ use of fully virtualized workstations will makes their employees more efficient, while lowering the total cost of ownership.”

Get all the details after the break.

Read more…

Science hp, multigpu, nvidia

EpochTimes has a great review of Autodesk’s Maya Entertainment Creation Suite 2010 where they detail not only the new features available in Maya 2010, but also in MotionBuilder and Mudbox.

Replacing the Maya Live module, MatchMover 2010 allows users to better map 3-D imagery onto a scene, such as adding a 3-D image to a 2-D video. It can also generate a set of tracking points on an image to create a camera path as the video moves. This allows 3-D objects to blend in seamlessly to a 2-D video.

In addition to the 2010 updates, users also have access to all of Maya Unlimited 2009’s advanced simulation features, which are impressive to say the least. You could, for example, render water, pour it from a glass into a moving container, and watch as droplets splash out onto a surface below.

There are just a handful of other new features in Maya 2010. Among them are the ability to add constraints to an animation layer and the addition of five batch rendering nodes.

They continue on to discuss the improved support for the FBX format to allow smoother interoperations with 3ds Max and Softimage, the new ragdoll animation features, and the new Maya Hair tool.  The entire suite is available for $4,995.

via Epoch Times – A Review of Autodesk Maya Entertainment Creation Suite 2010.

Graphics autodesk, maya, mudbox, review, software

Basketball fans know all-too-well the long road trips caused by events like the Grammys, the Circus, or stock shows that visit the arenas regularly.  NBAStuffer.com has visualized the length of home-stays and road trips for all the major teams in an interesting visualization that maps color intensity to duration of stay (at home or on the road).

It clarifies the teams’ schedule sufferings due to the special events at its arenas. Making room for the Grammys for LA teams, Circus for Chicago Bulls (Circus Trip), “Stock Show & Rodeo” for the Spurs (Rodeo Trip) are amongst well known events which force the teams to take extended road trips.

What we also understand that long road trips tend to decline in the second half of the season.

via NBAstuffer.com – NBA Road Trips and Home Stands Visualization.

Science nba, sports, visualization

HotHardware got its hands on the new Fusion-io ioXtreme PCI Express SSD solutions, and ran them through a nice benchmark suite.  The results are still being processed, but they had this to say already:

It’s true, your eyes do not deceive you. You’re looking at a product that offers 300MB/sec average write throughput and 750 – 800MB/sec of average read throughput. We’re going to strap on a drool bib and get back to testing these bad boys a bit more. RAID 0 anyone? Stay tuned!

via Fusion-io ioXtreme PCI Express SSD Sneak Peek! – HotHardware.

Hardware fusionio, ssd, storage

James Cameron’s “Avatar” could be a cinematic masterpiece or a flop, but noone can deny the impact it’s had on the hardware of the film industry.  Over at THR.com they look at the new “Fusion 3D Camera system”, how it was developed and how it could change the 3D Stereo Film industry.

For instance, the film’s live action was lensed using the Fusion 3D camera system, which Cameron invented with Vince Pace, a director of photography on the film. First used to make Cameron’s 2003 Imax 3D film “Ghosts of the Abyss,” the Fusion rigs — which can be used with a variety of digital cinematography cameras — are now available for rental via Pace’s Burbank-based 3D provider, which continues to develop the system for other productions.

Fusion has been used on such live-action digital 3D titles as this summer’s “The Final Destination” and concert films by Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers. Those films benefited from the work done to prepare the camera system for the challenging “Avatar” production.

via 3D spotlight.

Graphics, Hardware 3d, avatar, fusion, stereo

For all you finance people out there, NVidia has announced that their 3rd quarter earnings will be announced next week during a conference call.

NVIDIA will host a conference call to discuss its financial results for the third quarter of its fiscal year 2010, ended Oct. 25, 2009, on Thursday, Nov. 5, at 2 p.m. Pacific time.

The company’s prepared remarks will be followed by a question and answer session, which will be limited to questions from financial analysts and institutional investors.

To listen to the conference call, dial (212) 231 2900; no password is required. The conference call will also be webcast live (in listen-only mode) at the following websites: www.nvidia.com and www.streetevents.com.

via PR-USA.net – NVIDIA to Announce Third Quarter Financial Results in Conference Call.

Hardware financial, nvidia

A new interactive from MSNBC shows the employment, single family housing starts, housing prices, and production statistics from all 50 states and catalogs them as expanding, recovering, at risk, or in recession.  You can browse the data for the last 15 years and drill down to individual metro areas.

The Adversity Index, from msnbc.com and Moody’s Economy.com, measures the economic health of 381 metro areas and all 50 states. Each area is in recession, at risk, recovering or expanding. On this map you can explore changes in the four components of the index: employment, housing starts, housing prices and industrial production, each shown as a percentage change from a year earlier. (The change in housing prices will be updated at the end of the quarter.) Roll over a state to see its numbers. Click on a state to see details for its metro areas. Slide left or right to see data for different months. Click play to see all the months. Use the forward and back buttons to step a month at a time.

Interactive: Adversity Index – Adversity Index – MSNBC.com. via Chart Porn

Science economic, infographic, interactive, msnbc

Those of you into information visualization should definately check out Creativity Online, where they have cataloged an impressive collection of symposium presentations in video form.  Information Aesthetics took a look and picked a few from some famous names (Aaron Koblin, Ben Fry, etc) and embedded them on their site for all to view.

Creativity Online via CaT Creativity and Technology 2009: Information Visualization Talks – information aesthetics.

Science conference, infovis, video