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CreativeFan has followed up their great “20 best Photoshop Tutorials” with a great roundup of their 25 best CG tutorials for 2009.

Yesterday we rounded up the 20 best Photoshop tutorials from 2009, so today we’ve searched the internet for the 25 best computer-graphics tutorials from 2009. Including tutorials in zBrush, Maya, 3DSMax, and Photoshop, these tutorials are in-depth and feature professional results, and as always, they’re all free. Techniques that are covered include matte painting, character sculpting, rendering and modeling.

via The 25 Best CG Tutorials from 2009 | CreativeFan.

Graphics list, tutorial

The ACM has already begin to publish some information about the upcoming SIGGRAPH 2010 in Los Angeles, with pricing for registration (which opens in March) and details on the Job Fair already online.  If you’re coming out-of-country, then they’ve got instructions on applying for a VISA, and some information on what seems to be new this year: Game Papers.

Game Papers present original work from creative and technical communities that design and develop commercial and non-commercial video games, and from academic research communities that study video games, game play, human-computer interaction, learning, and related technologies. Game Papers explore key issues in video games, inform and substantively advance our current state of knowledge and understanding, and foster new areas for investigation that will drive the next generation of player experience.

Game Papers on a wide range of video game design and development topics (theory, practice, methodologies, and criticism) are presented by authors whose papers are selected in a thorough and rigorous review process to ensure that they represent significant contributions to game design and development. Game Papers are published in the prestigious Sandbox 2010: ACM SIGGRAPH Video Game Proceedings.

Have they had Game Papers in the past?  I know game companies regularly come and present, but I’ve never noticed a dedicated Game Papers track and chair.

Registration | SIGGRAPH 2010.

Graphics conference, siggraph, siggraph2010

Taiwanese company Manli has just introduced a new ATI card called the HD5970, which consists of two fully functional HD5870′s and 2G of GDDR5 memory on a single card.

Video consists of two GPUs HD5870 and is equipped with 3200 pokovymi processors and 2048 MB of memory GDDR5. It shows good results when working with 3D-graphics, fully supports Microsoft DirectX 11 with Shader 5.0 and OpenGL 3.2, and, of course, fully compatible with Microsoft Windows operating system 7. DirectX 11 uses stream processors and directly accesses the CPU and graphics core – multi-threaded applications faster and more efficiently. In addition, Manli HD5970 supports dynamic rendering ATI HDR, creates 3D effects

The translation is a bit clunky, but you get the idea.  It’s cards like this that blur the definition of “Multi-GPU”, and hence we say Multi-GPU is an inevitability.

via Technology News: Manli presented a dual-chip graphics card HD5970.

Hardware ati, manli, multigpu

Randy Krum of CoolInfographics turns up this interesting graphic of great historical epidemics spreading across the globe, including smallpox (blue), leprosy (red) and malaria (yellow).  While the origins of the infographic are a bit dubious, it’s an effective visualization that reminds me of the famous Napoleon March graph.

This world map shows the origins and spreading paths of Malaria, Leprosy and Small Pox. No legend, but the implication is that as the main arteries diminish in width down to small capillaries represents the number of infection cases. Key dates and locations are also identified with event description.

There is no designer byline on the graphic, but map is credited to Haisam Hussein. I don’t see the map in the gallery on Haisam’s website, but he is given credit for the map on Lapham’s Quarterly.

via Cool Infographics – Blog – The Origins and Paths of Epidemics.

Science biomed, infographic

The UN has just completed their most recent Human Development Indicators report and ranked all 182 countries, and created the graphic shown here of the Best place (Norway) and Worst place (Niger) to live.

The results of the report, showed that the most desirable place in the world to live, is Norway, while the least desirable is Niger.

Criteria examined in the report, included life expectancy, literacy rates, school enrolment and country economies.

The UN Development Programme said the index highlighted the grave disparities between rich and poor countries.

Now, without me tell you that, could you tell what that was?  At first I had it backwards, since the only thing I can read is that Niger is 182, and Norway is 1, but I don’t know what those numbers mean.  The rest is in a disaster of poor contrast, multidirectional text, and various font sizes that make it impossible to read. I still don’t know what the point is of the little people stuck inside the big people, other than to fill what would have been much welcome blank space.

via Human Development Indicators | GDS Publishing.

Graphics, Science bad, eu, infographic, un

In the wake of the Christmas airplane terror attacks, Gizmodo’s Jesus Diaz and Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com fame collaborated on a great infographic poster that compiles much of the data about airplane terror attacks.

After the crotchbomb there has been a lot of noise about airplane security again—you can see how stupid the leaked new flight rules are here. But what’s the actual risk of an airplane attack?

Some numbers to wet your appetite:

• Analyzing data from Oct 1999 to Sep 2009
• Over 99 Million Flights, traveling over 69 Billion miles.
• That’s one attack per 11.5 Billion miles
• or one attack per 3,105 years of air time

via The True Odds of Airborne Terror Chart – Odds of Airborne Attacks – Gizmodo.

Graphics, Science airport, infographic, safety

The obvious second part of any year-end wrap-up, right after reflecting on the year gone by, is to look to the future and see what lies ahead.  In this post I attempt to decipher the runes, gaze into the crystal ball, and talk to industry contacts to see what we can expect in the upcoming year.  I’ll try to skip the obvious (Autodesk will release a new 3dsMax and Maya, Adobe will release Photoshop CS5, etc) and cover some of the bigger and less obvious events that we can expect in the upcoming year.

Read on after the break and post in the comments why you think we’re wrong or right.

Read more…

Graphics, Hardware, Science 2010, feature

30ninja’s has been publishing an exclusive interview with John Bruno, the Oscar-winning VFX master who has worked on all of James Cameron’s movies since 1989, and the latest segment discusses the process used to create and animate Colonel Quaritch’s giant Amp Suit.

And what was so cool about that was, you can take the animation, you take those Maya [software] files, you’d have the animation move, and you’d have the motion-control move or the camera move, you could feed that into a motion-control system, put an actor in the [giant] amp suit torso that was rigged by [Virtual Production Supervisor] Glenn Derry on a motion base that would actually move based on the approved animation. So the actor was in for a ride! And the camera system would follow the camera move that was done. Now, the genius thing that I loved about this thing is, it’s a Simulcam system: There was a system that would show you the animated scene, the template—Jim could see that through his camera lens—the camera was synched up in the same volume, Jim could actually line up, knowing which lens was used, in stereo. He would walk [on the stage] with the actor … and he could see Stephen Lang as Quaritch in the amp suit with the animation amp suit locked together and the background that was around them.

30 NINJAS: So in a sense, he’s actually watching the film through the lens of the camera, and walking around to find the angles he likes.

via 30ninjas » Video » Avatar Exclusive: Our Oscar-Winning VFX Insider Shares Secrets of the Colonel’s 18-Foot Amp Suit and the Explosive Final Battle (Part 3).

Graphics avatar, vfx, weta

The New York Times asks the question: “Which 3D glasses are best?”. The answer to the question is important because Hollywood and theater owners are trying to lure people away from their high definition televisions and back into the theaters. If you control the infant 3-D market for glasses in movie theaters, there is the chance that you can be extremely profitable. There could be an even larger market in the making since 3-D televisions are just coming out.

RealD and Master Image 3D are two companies that make passive circular polarized glasses that cost about 65 cents apiece. It works by having a filter sit in front of the lamp of the projector. This filter oscillates 144 times a second switching the image between clockwise circular polarization (for the right eye) and counter-clockwise circular polarization (for the left eye). The passive glasses have filters so that the right eye has clockwise circular polarization, and the left eye has counter-clockwise circular polarization.

Dolby Laboratories makes passive glasses that cost about $28. The glasses work in conjunction with a special filter wheel installed inside the projector. This filter wheel removes the wavelengths of the light spectrum meant for the left eye only, leaving the right eye to see those wavelengths meant for it. As the wheel spins, it then removes wavelengths of the light spectrum meant for the right eye only, leaving the left eye to see those wavelengths meant for it. The passive glasses have filters so that the right eye only sees its wavelengths, and the left eye its wavelengths.

XpanD uses active LCD shutter glasses to produce a stereo effect. These glasses cost about $50 apiece.

One technology not mentioned in the article is the stereoscopic system used in IMAX 3D, simply Linear Polarization.  While linear polarized glasses are cheap, they suffer from usability problems.  While circular polarization remains constant as you turn your head (clockwise remains clockwise no matter how far you rotate your head), linear does not.  At a 45-degree angle (just lean your head to the right) you see both images with both eyes simultaneously, and just a slight rotation (normal breathing or head-tilt) can be enough to cause the two images to blur and ghost together.  Frankly, I’m amazed that IMAX hasn’t upgraded to circular polarization.

Which technology will triumph? Likely it will turn out to be that which gives the movie theaters the highest profit margin. Does it cost more to view circular polarized glasses as disposable, or to try and keep high-cost active shutter glasses in the theater?

Personally, if I was a theater owner, I would buy the 65 cent disposable glasses and charge an extra dollar on the ticket for them, thus making a profit. Since they are plastic, if people left them behind, I would wash them at the end of the day and reuse them.

It is well worth it to read the entire article at the New York Times: A High-Tech Movie Battle: Which 3-D Glasses Are Best?

Hardware 3d, movie

Avatar has already broken even, proving that audiences apparently like James Cameron’s motion captured “giant smurfs”, as many pundits called the Na’vi after pre-screenings, and that motion-capture is a viable alternative to pure CG artistry.  This has a few industry people wondering if perhaps this is the first step towards replacing traditional actors alltogether?

With the arrival of Avatar we’ve seen a huge amount of publicity surrounding the revolutionary capture system developed by Cameron’s team, based on tiny cameras which pick up subtle facial movements. The film-maker is promising that more than 95% of his actors’ performances are ending up there on screen. The difference is that this time around, we may just have to start believing. There is a feral intensity, in particular, to Zoe Saldana’s alien heroine Neytiri which could not have come from anyone else but the actor. The creature she plays is all grace and fire: it may just be the first motion captured performance that will stand the test of time.

Of course, an actor will be needed so long as motion capture is involved, but not necessarily an A-list multi-million dollar actor.  Anyone willing to endure the time in the mocap suit would do.

Update: @m0rph brings up an excellent point that rather than putting Actors out of work, another possibility is putting Character Animators out of work.  Without needing anyone to rig & animate biped models, that’ll obsolete a large portion of the graphics community.

via Will Avatar put actors out of work? | Film | guardian.co.uk.

Graphics "motion capture", movies, vfx