VizWorld.com

One of the biggest additions to the vampire physique from the Twilight series is the “sparkle”, which is the reason why Vampires in the Twilight world avoid the sunlight (not for the instant barbeque complexion, but rather the immediate recognition from the sparkle).  Creating the sparkle proved difficult due to lighting and complexion issues, and Prime Focus’s newly expanded Vancouver Studio talks about how they did it.

“Creating the diamond skin effect turned out to be a very rewarding experience.” said Pascarelli. “The effect appears many times throughout the film in several very different scenarios. It was challenging because the diamond effect appears in sunlight, whenever Edward’s already very pale skin is lit by sun, and on top of all of that brightness, there needs to be a convincing diamond-like sparkle. Film doesn’t really have enough brightness range to do this,

via Prime Focus VFX Adds Sparkle to The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

Graphics movie, new moon, prime focus, vfx

For PBS’s new “Becoming Human” documentaries, Viktor Deak got the job of sculpting the 3D bodies of the hominid’s.  He talks to Wired Magazine about his process and how it differs from his previous experiences with physical clay.

For Becoming Human, he worked with ZBrush, a 3-D modeling program that lets him work with the sculpture in even greater detail. “The nuances of the skin, the way light scatters underneath it, they figured all that out,” he said of the program’s naturalism. “There’s no limitation on what you can do, as long as your machine can handle it.” He poses his sculptures in desired position, then renders it with different materials and lighting. The renderings are then sent to Photoshop, layered and tweaked for maximum realism.

via 3-D Renderings Bring Ancient Hominids to Life | Wired Science | Wired.com.

Graphics television, vfx, zbrush

Another great free software announcement, this time the popular free vector-graphics tool Inkscape has just hit v0.47.

After over a year of intensive development and refactoring, Inkscape 0.47 is out. This version of the SVG-based vector graphics editor brings improved performance and tons of new features, some of which are as follows: timed autosave, Spiro splines, auto-smooth nodes, Eraser tool, new modes in Tweak tool, snapping options toolbar & greater snapping abilities, new live path effects (including Envelope), over 200 preset SVG filters, new Cairo-based PS and EPS export, spell checker, many new extensions, optimized SVG code options, and much more.

via Inkscape. Draw Freely..

Graphics inkscape, software

Blender fans rejoice as the first Alpha of the new Blender 2.5.0 is now available for download!

The Blender Foundation and online developer community is proud to present Blender 2.5 Alpha 0. This release is the first official testing release of the Blender 2.5 series, and represents the culmination of many years of redesign and development work.

New features include a new GUI, improved keyboard shortcuts, 64-bit compatibility, spline IK animations, smoke simulations, particles, and volume effects!  A huge new feature list for a great free product.

via blender.org – Blender 2.5.0.

Graphics blender, software

How many times have you looked at your motherboard in despair at the meager 2 or 3 PCI express slots? Maybe you’re one of the lucky people with the new Tyan board and have 6 or 8? As more and more power-hungry and io-hungry devices come to market, the PCIe bus is used more and more. Devices Like PCIe SSD disks, high speed networking interconnects, and (of course) GPUs are all fighting fir those precious slots. And, of course, Murphy’s Law dictates that just as your cluster is fully assembled and online, something will need to be upgraded or replaced.

NextIO has an intriguing solution for this common problem, but it’s not one many people have thought of. With their existing N1400-PCM, you can expand your PCIe bus out to an impressive 14 slots, and 24 with their newest product (N2800-ICA). But it doesn’t end there.

The NextIO product feature can be summed up in a few short words: extensibility, virtualization, and hot swap. These aren’t words people typically associate with PCIe devices, but the NextIO solution makes them all possible.

Read more…

Hardware feature, nextio, sc09

If you’ve been waiting on Voxelogic’s voxel-based modeling program Acropora, then your wait is about to come to an end as they’ve just announced that the pre-release beta is now available for purchase.  For $195, you get Acropora with the following impressive features:

• A variety of base shapes and compound shapes as primary surfaces
• User-defined surfaces
• Voxelisation of user imported models
• Over 50+ volume modifiers
• Automatic generation of up to 15 octaves of three-dimensional noise (volumetric, Perlin and fractal)
• Extensive voxel and noise editing tools
• Extensive post-processing of meshes (tesselation, smoothing, simplification,…)
• Batch processing
• Multiple LOD support
• Export to multiple mesh formats, DDS volume textures, and raw voxel data
• and more…

Head on over and check it out.  If you get a chance to play with it, we’ld love to hear your thoughts.

via Welcome to the Voxelogic.

Graphics acropora, software, voxelogic

Gonzo, Beaker, Animal, and all your favorite Muppets make a smashing comeback return with the latest feature on YouTube, 1080p video support, in a rousing rendition of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.  The video quality is amazing, and the video itself is quite entertaining.

See it after the break, but make sure to take it fullscreen in 1080p for the full effect.

YouTube – The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody.

Read more…

Graphics 1080p, music video, video, youtube

If you’re still looking for your own entry into Infosthetic’s Ugly Infographic competition, then Newsweek has come to your rescue with their latest collection of infographics showing how the US and China view each other.  There’s a bit of useful information in there, but good luck finding it.

I’ve already submitted #4 as my entry to the contest (shown above). I really don’t have any idea what it’s trying to tell me.  Six circles, each one represents a percentage of something in a country.  The caption provided is “A majority of Americans say Japan is an innovative country, not so China and India”.  No legend.  So a few possibilities:

• Is that the percentage of people who say Japan is innovative in each country?
• Is that the percentage of Americans who agree that is an innovative country?
• ??

Submit your own funny captions in the comments.

Innovation: American Ingenuity Is Still Respected | Newsweek Technology | Newsweek.com.

Graphics bad, infographic, newsweek

For the low price of $180, Dosch has just released a new model pack containing 20 detailed models related to airport operations.  The list includes:

• 3 Luggage loading vehicles
• 2 people moving systems, including a Maglev-train
• 2 ground luggage transport systems
• a pair of Access Stair Trucks
• various other specialty vehicles such as fire trucks, refueling trucks, tow trucks, etc

The models are completed textured and supplied in several formats for your convenience:  3DS, 3dsmax (version 4 and above), Lightwave (version 6.5 and above), OBJ, Maya (version 4 and above), VRML, SoftimageXSI, Cinema 4D (version 8.5 and above), Collada DAE and FBX.

See an example image and the full announcement after the break.

Read more…

Graphics airport, dosch, models

A new installation at the famous racetrack Nurburgring in Nurburg, Germany consists of a LED media facade over a multitouch information wall covering 425 square meters, equivalent to 6,000 displays.  It’s only 34-million pixels (surprisingly low for such a physically large display), generated by 15 projectors and supports multitouch from up to 80 simultaneous users.

Read more about the project at their site, and see a demo of the installation after the break.

Ring°Wall: World Largest Multi-Touch and Multi-User Wall – information aesthetics.

Read more…

Hardware displaywall, multitouch, projector