VizWorld.com

NVidia is embracing the market’s sweet spot ($199) as the entry point of their new GTX460 card, boasting DirectX11 graphics, 3D Vision support, and the raw horsepower only Fermi can bring.  Seems to be taking the industry by a bit of a storm right now.

“With the GeForce GTX 460, NVIDIA is really upping the ante with an amazingly fast DirectX 11 GPU available at a great, mainstream-friendly price. Its new hardware tessellation support will enable games to reach an entirely new caliber of graphics.”

– Epic Games / Tim Sweeney / Chairman, CEO and Technical Director

“NVIDIA platforms continue to be the Gold Standard at Id Software for quality, performance, and support.”

– Id Software / John Carmack / Technical Director

Reviews are all around:

• Read – AnandTech
• Read – HardOCP
• Read – Hot Hardware
• Read – Tom’s Hardware
• Read – PC Perspective
• Read – Bit-tech
• Read – Guru 3D
• Read – Legit Reviews

via Nvidia Investor Relations.

Hardware nvidia

Well, the World Cup buzz is over, but there’s still time to bring a couple of infographics about it. And the true star of this edition was, without question, the Vuvuzela. Mint.com gives us some numbers about the most hated instrument ever!! Despite the growing popularity in the U.S, soccer players salaries still have a long way to go, according to the information also from Mint.com. Taking advantage of the World Cup fuzz, The Big Wild shows us who’s the World Champion of wildlife protection, and designer Robin Richards paints a beautiful piece about the Ecosystems of the World. Finally, the Grasshoper Group takes a look at some famous entrepreneurs past.

By the Numbers: Vuvuzela!

Nowhere Near LeBron: Soccer’s Slim Salaries

The World Cup of Wilderness Protection

Ecosystems of the World by Robin Richards

Famous Entrepreneurs & Steve Job’s First Job

And today’s video:

Online Video as a Marketing Tool

For a lot more visualization goodies just pay a visit to Visual Loop.

A great week, everyone!

Graphics, Science design, infographic, Visual Loop, visualizations

Google’s Long History of Social Media Attempts

Graphics, Science digest, infographics, list

The World Cup will be winding up soon, but there’s no doubt that this World Cup generated a horde of infographics and visualizations across the internet.  While I can’t say for certain, it definitely seems that there were far more this time than in any World Cup in the past.  Is the technology better?  The data better?  Or just reader’s appetites?  Over at DataVisualization.ch, they talk about it a bit and end with a great piece about visualization in general.

To successfully create a business case, a visualization must solve a real user need. This is evident for business analytics and scientific visualization. When it comes to more casual visualization projects this problem-solving nature isn’t always given. Visualization is thus positioned closer to entertainment—which isn’t a bad place to be either, but has different mechanics. We have a more playful repertoire of drivers available. At the same time we also face the challenge of communicating the information with clarity and integrity.

via Thoughts Sparked by World Cup Visualizations on Datavisualization.ch.

Science visualization

The Animation Guild is trying very hard to correct some of the wrongs in the VFX and animation industry, but they need support and help from animators and members if it’s to work.  To help with this, they just sent out a lengthy email with a few ideas, and the announcment that they have hired Steve Kaplan as their new Organizer to help in the effort.

The Animation Guild is getting more proactive working with non-signator animation studios in Southern California. To that end, we’ve recently hired Steve Kaplan, a veteran visual effects artist, as our new Organizer.

There are a number of medium-sized shops doing work for the entertainment conglomerates, and it is our plan and goal to bring as many as possible into the Guild’s family of studios.

We encourage our members to take whatever work they can to stay employed and in the industry, and we fully understand that many of us work at non-signator studios from time to time. Unfortunately, not all studios are aware of the benefits to them of becoming part of our family.

So, we’d like your assistance. If you are currently working non-union, contact Steve Kaplan or Steve Hulett and let us know where you are working and what project you are working on.

The Guild has never nor will ever have a problem with its members remaining employed. Our aim is to provide a seamless cloak of portable health and pension benefits for everyone in animation.

Respond to these e-mail addresses and help us help you to get the contractual benefits you deserve.

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

via Visual FX Digital Artists Guild » Blog Archive » The Animation Guild Gets Proactive.

Graphics animation, guild

Di-o-matic is showing off an upcoming product called ‘Maskarad’ that enable facial capture without markers or dedicated scanning equipment, just working on any regular video.

Maskarad uses state-of-the-art technology to automatically locates and tracks head motion as well as facial expressions and precise lips movements. No messy or cumbersome face markers setup, no expensive dedicated hardware and no need to outsource any part of your pipeline. Just a simple video file featuring an actor performance is all you need to create lifelike facial animations.

Of course, this won’t work for any video as it pretty much required a straight on shot of the actor’s face.  However, taking that straight-on shot, mapping it onto a CG actor, then using that in a 3D scene on top of more traditional mocap should be trivial.

via Maskarad: Automatic markerless facial performance capture software for Windows.

Graphics "motion capture", di-o-matic, software

Google’s Long History of Social Media Attempts [INFOGRAPHIC].

infographics google, social media, timeline

The Periodic Table of Swearing

15 Things You Didn’t Know about Michael Jackson

The Cost of Spam: C02 Emissions

Graphics, Science digest, infographics, list

Modern Toss Shop.

infographics

It’s been less than a year since YouTube brought us 1080p streaming, and now they’ve gone to the extreme by offering us 4K streaming.  Of course, there isn’t a lot of 4k content right now, but they’ve made sure to add some just for that.

To illustrate the power of 4K, please check out the videos in this playlist; each one was created by a filmmaker with access to a 4K camera. (Be warned: watching videos in 4K, even on YouTube, will require ultra-fast high-speed broadband connections).

You really do want to check this out, but it takes a pretty strong connection.

via YouTube Blog: What’s bigger than 1080p? 4K video comes to YouTube.

Graphics youtube