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For the first time in the show’s historic 40-year run, Sesame Street will feature a computer-generated and animated character in “Abby Cadabby”.
“Until now, Sesame Street used exclusively hand-driven Muppets. We went the CG route with ‘Abby’s Flying Fairy School’ so that we could bring to life all the wonderful physical action our writers envisaged — such as underwater scenes,” explained Carol-Lynn Parente, executive producer at Sesame Workshop. “As well, the CG format allowed us to produce many online game options for SesameStreet.org, extending the broadcast experience.”
SpeakeasyFX got the gig to create “Abby”,a nd her with Autodesk Softimage and the “Interactive Creative Environment” to generate the magic effects.
“We feel fortunate to have collaborated with SpeakeasyFX on ‘Abby’s Flying Fairy School’,” added Sesame Workshop’s Parente. “They developed the digital characters with fantastic furry detail. Doing the series in CG, using Softimage software, provided the freedom to showcase different types of storytelling, while preserving what viewers of all ages love about ‘Sesame Street’.”
Catch a glimpse of Abby after the break.
Read more…
Graphics autodesk, softimage, speakeasyfx, television, vfx
Roland Emmerich’s latest disaster porn film, 2012, comes to theaters soon, and features some amazing visual effects that destroy the planet over the 158 minute feature. The scale of the effects is massive, and in a new article on PCAuthority we get some details into just how much data they had to manage.
“A building has to be cut apart into millions of little pieces, so then a physics-based simulation can be done on that building and shows how a building would crumble when the ground would move under it,” says effects supervisor Volker Engel.
There was over a petabyte (1 million gigabytes) of information going to disk. So big were some of the destruction sequences, that a render farm consisting of 250 computers was set up to handle two of the major effects scenes – particularly the destruction of Vegas sequence.
via Movie tech: Why nobody destroys the world better than Hollywood – the effects behind 2012 – News – PC Authority.
Graphics 2012, movie, vfx
Imagi Studios invested $65 Million to create the CG Hit “Astro Boy”, and used Autodesk’s Maya along with a lot of proprietary software to bring it to the big screen.
Francis Kao, founder and creative director of Imagi Studios, said, “We chose Autodesk Maya as our animation platform for ‘Astro Boy’ because of its openness, creative tools, and large pool of trained artists. We relied on the software’s powerful feature set, and our programmers also developed custom plug-ins for Maya, enabling us to efficiently create high-quality animation.”
Specifically:
“For ‘Astro Boy’ foliage simulation we used the Maya software’s paint effects together with our in-house plug-in,” said Johnny Mak, head of technical operations at Imagi Studios. “Having relied on Maya for many years, we’ve seen great advancements in the software’s capabilities. It continually helps us deliver world-class animation.”
via Imagi’s Astro Boy Leaps With Autodesk Maya | CGnews.
Graphics astroboy, autodesk, imagi, maya, movie, vfx
All you deep-pocketed city modelers can rejoice as PixelActive has just released the newest version of CityScape.
CityScape 1.8 includes: Enhanced road editing capabilities, improved GIS importing, a flexible meta data system, new import and export formats, a redesigned user interface with icons and hotkeys, and performance improvements. The road editing tools add a tangent editor, tunnels, and complex intersections. GIS importing supports NAVTEQ, Tele Atlas, OpenStreetMap, custom shapefiles, aerial imagery, geolocated geometry, elevation data and GIS data preprocessing. The meta data system uses custom and default templates to add data to objects, exports meta data to COLLADA, Filmbox, or CSV, and calculates meta data on the fly given basic building data.
Available for the wallet-deflating price of $19,000, but they do have a demo available at their website.
via PixelActive Inc. – Press Releases.
Graphics cityscape, pixelactive, software
UK’s Channel 4 will soon be bringing classic anaglyphic stereo to their audiences with a collection of programs including new shows (Derren Brown), live events (Hannah Montana), and classics (Friday the 13rd part III). You can get free glasses via a partnership with Sainsbury‘s.
3D Week – Channel 4. via Slashdot
Graphics 3d, anaglyphic, stereoscopic, television
In the Dallax, TX area this weekend and want to try out AMD’s Eyefinity multi-monitor systems? Maybe you should check out the HardOCP has set up:
What we are doing is setting up a 5 on 5 team gaming/deathmatch scenario. 5 stations with Eyefinity, 5 stations without Eyefinity. You get the picture, right? Which team kicks more ass and does Eyefinity truly impact your gaming experience? There will be other demo stations set up as well to show off Eyefinity. We are planning on having the 6 display 24″ Eyefinity demo setup supported by yet-to-be-announced hardware.
HardOCP and AMD will be shooting video at the event and taking before and after interviews with you guys to get us real world feedback on Eyefinity. We will need about 2 hours of your time and if you choose to stay longer and hang out, we have a venue big enough to handle our needs.
It’s invitation only, so hit the forums for details and see if you can be one of the lucky few.
via AMD Eyefinity Challenge with HardOCP in Dallas TX – [H]ard|Forum.
Hardware amd, ati, eyefinity
Ronen Bekerman is publishing a great tutorial covering his creation of this spectacular image. He begins with parsing the CAD drawings and creating a model in SketchUP, and then exporting the model into Autodesk’s 3dsMax. In part 2, coming soon, he will covering rendering and post-production.
Making of ‘MS House’ at dusk, Part 1 – Ronen Bekerman – 3D Architectural Visualization Blog.
Graphics 3dsmax, architectural, makingof, sketchup
NVidia’s been busy lately, announcing several new additions to their growing “CUDA Centers of Excellence” program which honors schools and universities on the forefront of GPGPU computing. Most recently they’ve announced:
In addition, they’ve announced that they are accepting applications into their NVidia Fellowship Program.
Now’s a great time to be in a university graphics program.
Science cuda, education, nvidia
The augmented reality issue of Esquire, which we mentioned earlier, is now available on newsstands and Mashable has the scoop.
As Editor-in-Chief David Granger demos below, the AR features all supplement content in the print magazine. So, for example, in one of the magazine’s fashion features, tilting your magazine in different directions controls the weather, and the model adjusts clothing appropriately. There’s also a time-based joke – check out the AR component after midnight and the content is different than what you find during the day.
Of course, it’s debatable if this will actually help sales or not. All you really need to do is find a decent resolution picture of the marker and print your own (The image of the cover on various websites is probably good enough), completely removing the need to actually buy the issue. Also, their augmented reality system isn’t entirely web-based, it’s a downloaded application for PC or Mac (sorry linux folks).
via Esquire’s Augmented Reality Issue Starring Robert Downey Jr. Is Live [VIDEO].
Graphics augmented reality, esquire, magazine
Lucas Martell’s Pigeon Impossible, a great hit at the SIGGRAPH2009 Animation Festival, is now available in all 6 minutes of HD glory over at YouTube.
The film took nearly 5 years to complete and is the first attempt at animation by writer/director Lucas Martell: “When the project started, it was mostly an excuse to learn 3D animation, but by the end of the project I had spent so much time reworking and polishing the story that I just wanted people to laugh.”
The end-result is a hilarious 6-minute romp through the streets of Washington D.C. as our hero fights to save himself, and the world from the chaos reigned down by a hungry pigeon. Breathtaking visuals and a sweeping soundtrack showcase the work of nearly one-hundred talented artists and musicians, and the film stands as a testament to what can be accomplished by a team of dedicated volunteers working for the love of their craft.
See the video after the break.
Read more…
Graphics animation, short
VizWorld.com 
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