Georgia Tech has some rather big projects in the pipeline adapting gaming technolgies for use in “Serious Gaming”, the new field of creating applications and tools that use popular “gaming” techniques and tools in fields like simulation and education. One such example is in autonomous robots, where they first simulate the robots behaviour in realistic video-games.
At this level, the high-fidelity physical details of robot motion or car damage are not vital. What’s most important is understanding whether the robot can apply reason to the situation and then activate an avoidance behavior.
“Game engines and virtual worlds allow exploring these interactions in ways that, until we understand the issues, are much safer than building systems and identifying problems the hard way,” Weiss said.
In addition, they are working on integrating tools like SecondLife into remote education platforms, and using systems like the Wii Remote to analyze human kinetics for signs of repetitive stress injury.
Online shopping is growing every year, and Site Jabber breaks down who’s buying what – and where – in North America. Another market that is increasingly taking over the World is Mobile, and the main players are, of course, Apple, Google and Microsoft. The graphic by Socialemon shows us how the Big-Three are handling their presence on the different aspects of the Mobile universe. Then, we move to some health issues: first, Medical Coding‘s informational piece on America’s Fast Food obsession, followed by a view on diseases and causes of death affecting U.S. Senior Citizens, brought by Life Fone. And today’s last infographic is an overview about the countries with most endangered species, by Mother Nature Network.
iClone4, a real-time WYSIWYG animation suite that includes motion graphics, 3d animation, and compositing, has just added new 3d Stereoscopic efficts to their portfolio. Icrontic took a look at it at SIGGRAPH2010, and wrote up their experience.
My initial reaction was that it was actually fairly impressive. Once activated, the user can adjust how intense to make the stereoscopic effect, along with other fine-tuning. I also asked if the software is limited to the red-cyan anaglyph imagery, fearing that it was. To my delight, iClone4 is compatible with several other 3D technologies such as polarized and active-shutter 3D glasses.
Autodesk has finally published the results of their “Best Of The Best 2010″ Show reel, and the results truly are impressive to watch.
Get blown away by some of the best work from around the world being done by Autodesk Entertainment clients using both Autodesks popular 3D Animation products and its Effects and Finishing products like Autodesk Flame.
The Tarantula Nebula is approximately 160,000 light years away from Earth, but it is very bright. If the Tarantula Nebula were as close to Earth as the Orion Nebula is (approximately 1,340 light years) then it would cast shadows on Earth at night.
This zoom sequence starts with a broad panorama of one of our neighboring galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud, and we gradually close in on the Tarantula Nebula, a very active star-forming region. First we see a detailed visible light image obtained with Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile and the sequence ends with a new near-infrared VISTA image of the region around the Tarantula Nebula that was obtained as part of the VISTA Magellanic Cloud Survey.
credit: ESO/M.-R. Cioni/VISTA Magellanic Cloud Survey and Eckhard Slawik ([email protected]). Music: John Dyson (from the album “Moonwind”). Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit.
Cinesite had previous experience with CGI dogs from Underdog and Beverly Hills Chihuahua, but recent film Marmaduke required some extra work due to the many closeups and wide variety of breeds. Over at FiredByDesign, they discuss how they created the various faces.
Cinesite used a hybrid technique which involved combining fully textured and lit CG passes with parts of the original photography re-projected over the animated geometry. To create the CG faces of the different canine characters, Matt’s team built base head models in Autodesk Maya using photographic references of the dog actors. Blend shapes based on individual muscle shapes were then integrated into the rig using in-house tools.
NVidia’s quarterly financials were announced yesterday, and NVidia wound up taking a pretty big hit this quarter. What was the culprit? Well, as usual the Recession and Lacking Consumer Demand made an appearance, but the big hit was the $193.9M charge related to settlement costs in the class action lawsuit related to their notebook chipset problems.
“Rapidly changing market conditions made for a challenging quarter,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia’s CEO and president. “We delivered excellent results in Quadro professional graphics, Tesla GPU computing, and our Tegra system-on-a-chip business. But our GeForce consumer business fell significantly short of expectations amid weak PC demand in Europe and China. Although demand among end-users remains uncertain, we expect to drive revenue and grow market share with new products that are gaining momentum in each of our businesses.”
Nonetheless, NVidia released several new products right at the end of the quarter (new Quadros, 3D Vision Pro, new GeForce’s like the 460), and they’re getting great reviews in the wake of new stuff like StarCraft2. Plus, they must be doing something right if a $193M writedown became only a $141M loss in the quarter. Hopefully with that out of the way, next quarter will look up again.
Attention modelers, fire up Blender and build the most ostentatious and amazing Ray Rifle you can for a chance at an all-expenses paid trip to New Zealand to meet Gred Broadmore and Richard Taylor at the Weta Workshop.
The most ostentatious example of personal Ray Armament. Two-handed operation is a must in this category and your contraption must have the power to dissolve at least 7/9ths of an African Elephant in two blinks of an eye. Approved materials are cast iron, wood, Bakelite, porcelain, brass, copper and tremontium!
Full details are at their site, along with some neat models of Ray Guns.
Does 3-D Stereo have harmful effects? Probably not. There are no studies that show that watching 3-D content will harm you. But then again, there are also no studies that show it won’t. Absence of proof is not proof of absence. Personally, I have seen some really bad 3-D content that makes me sick. Then again, I have also seen some really bad 2-D content that makes me sick. I guess that means that someone needs to fund a study to find an answer to the question. Until then, Gamasutra has asked an ophthalmologist for his opinion.
Stereoscopic 3D video games and movies make your eyes do weird things to create the illusion of depth. As a result, for some, 3D viewing elicits a feeling of imbalance, disorientation or a general indication that lunch is on its way back up.
But beyond those short-term effects, with 3D televisions hitting the market and Sony and Nintendo releasing 3D stereoscopic video games, is there risk of permanent eye damage from exposing eyeballs to the faux third dimension for prolonged periods of time?
“It’s not likely to cause any permanent harm to vision,” said Dr. Mark Borchert, a respected L.A.-based ophthalmologist with the American Academy of Ophthalmology, talking to Gamasutra.
Georgia Tech has some rather big projects in the pipeline adapting gaming technolgies for use in “Serious Gaming”, the new field of creating applications and tools that use popular “gaming” techniques and tools in fields like simulation and education. One such example is in autonomous robots, where they first simulate the robots behaviour in realistic video-games.
Online shopping is growing every year, and 
iClone4, a real-time WYSIWYG animation suite that includes motion graphics, 3d animation, and compositing, has just added new 3d Stereoscopic efficts to their portfolio. Icrontic took a look at it at SIGGRAPH2010, and wrote up their experience.
Cinesite had previous experience with CGI dogs from Underdog and Beverly Hills Chihuahua, but recent film Marmaduke required some extra work due to the many closeups and wide variety of breeds. Over at FiredByDesign, they discuss how they created the various faces.
NVidia’s quarterly financials were announced yesterday, and NVidia wound up taking a pretty big hit this quarter. What was the culprit? Well, as usual the Recession and Lacking Consumer Demand made an appearance, but the big hit was the $193.9M charge related to settlement costs in the class action lawsuit related to their notebook chipset problems.
Attention modelers, fire up Blender and build the most ostentatious and amazing Ray Rifle you can for a chance at an all-expenses paid trip to New Zealand to meet Gred Broadmore and Richard Taylor at the Weta Workshop.
VizWorld.com 
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