VizWorld.com

Montreal based “Artificial Mind and Movement” (A2M) recently released “WET”, their third-person mature shooter combining acrobatics and swordplay that uses an interesting dual-targeting mechanic.  Autodesk products were instrumental in the development of the game and a press release from Autodesk details how they used Maya, MotionBuilder, and Kynapse to pull it all together.

“Our main philosophy with regards to development tools has always been that if it’s good and it already exists with the right price tag, why reinvent it?” explains Martin Walker, CTO, A2M. “That’s why we chose to work with Kynapse as our AI engine for WET. In the game, the player confronts a large number of enemies. We needed a path-finding and location-awareness system to control decision making for these characters in a coherent manner.”

Walker continues, “Kynapse has a fantastic hide-and-shoot algorithm that was used to conceal and disperse the enemies in a natural way throughout environments.”

via Autodesk – Games – Artificial Mind & Movement (A2M).

Graphics a2m, autodesk, kynapse, maya, motionbuilder, videogame

Terragen2 users can now go download the newest update, Terragen2.1, which comes with a huge list of fixes and improvements. Some of the big items include:

• Ray trace objects for faster, higher quality rendering of objects and populations
• Reduced render time and multithreading enhancements
• Population and object rendering fixes
• Black triangle fix
• New shaders
• New populator features
• UI improvements and fixes
• Safe saving fixes/changes
• Windows drag-and-drop and file association fixes

Even if you’re not a Terragen user, definitely go over there and check out some of the same renders.  They are simply beautiful.

via Terragen 2.1 now available (build 2.1.18.1).

Graphics renderer, software, terragen

Nathan at FlowingData has proclaimed his “Five Best Data Visualization Projects” of 2009, and added in two honorable mentions.  He picked some good ones like Ben Fry’s Origin of Species visualization, but I disagree with his omission of such greats as the Xkcd Movie Narrative chart, the Billion Dollar Gram, and the Influence of Micheal Jackson.

It was a huge year for data. There’s no denying it. Data is about to explode.

Applications sprung up left and right that help you understand your data – your Web traffic, your finances, and your life. There are now online marketplaces that sell data as files or via API. Data.gov launched to provide the public with usable, machine-readable data on a national scale. State and local governments followed, and data availability expands every day.

At the same time, there are now tons of tools that you can use to visualize your data. It’s not just Excel anymore, and a lot of it is browser-based. Some of the tools even have aesthetics to boot.

What do you think? What would you put in your top 5?

via 5 Best Data Visualization Projects of the Year – 2009 | FlowingData.

Science list, visualization

Over at Insideria, Theresa Neil has gathered a list of 28 toolkits for visualization and charting that covers web languages, flash, silverlight, and more.

We’re currently working with a dozen different clients, all web application (re)designs. All of these clients have data rich applications and need equally rich data visualizations to help their end customers analyze data quickly and effectively.

What makes my job really interesting is that these clients are in different industries and are using different technologies. So we have pulled together a set of 28 tools for creating graphs, Gantt charts, diagrammers, calendars/schedulers, gauges, mapping, pivot tables, OLAP cubes, and sparklines, in Flash, Flex, Ajax or Silverlight.

via 28 Rich Data Visualization Tools – InsideRIA.

Science library, visualization, Website

DAZ3D, developer of 3D software and content, and Gizmoz, creators of 3D face detection and manipulation technology, and merged to form a new company that aims to deliver the highest-quality personalized 3D digital characters, accessories, and environments ever.

The combination of Gizmoz’s consumer-friendly, photo-realistic head reconstruction and online personalization service with DAZ 3D’s sophisticated full-figure content, desktop software tools and thriving community will provide creative professionals, gamers and consumers alike with a substantially more expansive virtual goods design center and marketplace. The merger will enhance distributive capabilities as well: the custom avatars can then be managed and seamlessly transported to any virtual environment or production pipeline. All characters and technologies can be used in PC and console games, social networks, video clips and mobile applications, as well as in professional modeling, animation and illustration projects.

DAZ 3D and Gizmoz Press Page.

Graphics daz3d, gizmoz, models

The Chicago Board Options Exchange has integrated Aqumin‘s AlphaVision Enterprise Intelligence Technology into their workflow for data management and analysis.  The software creates 3D landscapes that can be used to better discover irregularities:

“Large proprietary datasets maintained by the CBOE can now easily be ingested into our intuitive, visual 3D landscapes for CBOE’s rapid interpretation of option trading activities across the entire market at once,” said Michael Zeitlin, co-founder and CEO of Aqumin. “CBOE can now ingest hundreds or thousands of data points at one time that have to do with activity in the options market. What CBOE staff are looking for are exceptions, or market irregularities that are not necessarily wrong or illegal but unusual enough to warrant further attention as well as a tool to manage their business better.”

via CBOE Takes 3D View of its Own Market Activity.

Science aqumin, financial, stockmarket

If you couldn’t afford the ticket to Yokohama for SIGGRAPH Asia then CGSociety has your hookup with their ongoing diary of the event.  First segment is up, and discusses the Disney/Pixar “Up” paper presentation, NVidia’s CUDA Master Class, and the extensive talk from Square Enix.

Japanese) of the 17 major stages of production of the story. From concept, blocking, character creation. Using MotionBuilder and Crystal Tools, Square was kept busy bringing MoCap information into Softimage, the effects, hair and clothes were refined further before the finished scenes are exported out into several different codes for the consoles, each with their own additions.

CGSociety – SIGGRAPH ASIA 2009 Diary.

Graphics, Science conference, siggraph

SEGA’s newest Sonic game, ‘Night of the Werehog’ has had the honor of having its cinematic selected for the SIGGRAPH Asia Animation Festival screenings.  CGSociety talks to Takeshi Ito, the producer, about how they created it:

Creation of the models from hand-drawn sketch characters, brought across from the original video game Sonic image, was the major job here in modeling. There are a few differences though. These character models need to be able to stretch and deform. Go from a small ball to a towering giant. As there are no spoken lines in the cinematic, the story would need to be propelled as these characters act out their thoughts.

Our modeling team first builds the low polygon models. At this phase, the director will check it in the low polygon models, if director gave them the green light, then the models pass to the rigging and animation department to set up.

via CGSociety – Night of the Werehog.

Graphics animation, siggraph, vfx, video game

Yesterday was the announcement from Google of their new “Fusion Tables” offering, a web based data tool that promised easy visualization, collaboration, and sharing.  Well, I’ve tried it and found it .. well “lacking” is one way of saying it I suppose.  I loaded up what I thought would be an easy dataset, Robert Kosara’s modified version of the UK Met Office Climate data.  I’ve wanted to play with that for a while now, and this seemed the perfect chance.  Unfortunately, I was very underwhelmed with Google’s latest offering.

Read my review after the break.

Read more…

Science feature, google, interactive, visualization

Cool Infographics has the tip on free Infographic Holiday cards from Funnel, Inc while supplies last!, available by simply registering for their mailing list.

If you can’t get the cards, then maybe you’ll enjoy their infographic desktop wallpaper.  I particularly like the Hot Cocoa one.

Cool Infographics: FREE Infographic Holiday Cards!.

Graphics free, infographic