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Blur Studio has really made a name for themselves with their amazing in-game cinematics that show up in Transformers, Mass Effect, and even the new Star Wars MMO coming from Bioware.  Many people don’t realize that they almost exclusively use Autodesk’s 3ds Max to create them.  Over at MaxUnderground, they interview Blur co-founder David Stinnett about the current state of the CG industry and how it’s evolved.

What is your view of the current state of the CG field? Do you feel it is as exciting as it was 10-20 years ago, or has innovation basically slowed down these past few years?

The 90′s were definitely a big time for CG development. I remember there was new stuff, new programs, plugins, new ways of doing things coming out all the time. When a new version of the software came out (3ds/Max especially), we would all gather around, giddy with excitement playing with the cool new features (yes, we were geeks). Nowadays there is not as much to drool over in new releases, as far as brand new innovative things. That is not to say things have gone stagnant. Advances in rendering, image based lighting, hardware acceleration are all exciting, especially as the hardware gets faster and faster.

Blur Studio on the state of the CG Industry – Max Underground.

Graphics 3dsmax, blur, interview

The Chandra X-Ray observatory recently took a look at the Rosette star formation region, which is located in the constellation Monoceros (Unicorn). This constellation is visible in both hemispheres. This area is located approximately 5,000 light years from earth. This nebula is approximately 87 light years across.

This image is a composite of optical data and x-ray data. The optical data comes from the Digitized Sky Survey and the Kitt Peak National Observatory. The optical data is shown in purple, orange, green and blue. Obviously, the x-ray data comes from Chandra, and is shown in red.

This composite image shows the Rosette star formation region, located about 5,000 light years from Earth. Data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory are colored red. The X-rays reveal hundreds of young stars in the central cluster and fainter clusters on either side. Optical data from the Digitized Sky Survey and the Kitt Peak National Observatory (purple, orange, green and blue) show large areas of gas and dust, including giant pillars that remain behind after intense radiation from massive stars has eroded the more diffuse gas.

A recent Chandra study of the cluster on the right side of the image, named NGC 2237, provides the first probe of the low-mass stars in this satellite cluster. Previously only 36 young stars had been discovered in NGC 2237, but the Chandra work has increased this sample to about 160 stars. The presence of several X-ray emitting stars around the pillars and the detection of an outflow — commonly associated with very young stars — originating from a dark area of the optical image indicates that star formation is continuing in NGC 2237. By combining these results with earlier studies, the scientists conclude that the central cluster formed first, followed by expansion of the nebula, which triggered the formation of the two neighboring clusters, including NGC 2237.

This work was led by Junfeng Wang of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The co-authors were Eric Feigelson, Leisa Townsley, Pat Broos and Gordon Garmire from Penn State University, Carlos Roman-Zuniga from the German-Spanish Astronomical Center in Spain, and Elizabeth Lada from the University of Florida.

via : Rosette Nebula:The Heart of a Rose

Science astronomy, chandra, nasa

There are many differences between the U.S. and Europe. Culture, history, and also in entrepreneurship, as we can see in Grasshopper‘s infographic. Still in the business category, comes Meet the Boss‘ comparison of women salaries on some of the American states. Weight Loss takes a look at the growing problem of obesity, and Spork Marketing brings some curious facts about beer and Colorado. We end this selection with an interactive graphic by CNN, visualizing the world’s energy consumption.

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Graphics, Science design, economy, environment, infographic, infoviz, Visual Loop, visualizations

Over at Develop3D, they got the scoop on Dassault System’s use of new ATI FirePro V9800 cards that supports the 6-way EyeFinity, and find that it actually works pretty well.  I have to admit, I had to wonder if a single card has the necessary horsepower to push 6 monitors with any decent framerate.  I’m not the only one.

Of course the practice of using a single graphics card to drive multiple monitors also has its critics. AMD rival Nvidia, who can currently only support two monitors with one of its Quadro graphics cards, says that there is not enough 3D performance in a single card to drive high-res powerwalls effectively.

This is a claim refuted by AMD, who explained that the card is already in use at a number of customer sites and there has been positive feedback. Dassault Systèmes, for example, has been testing Catia V5 and V6 with an ATI FirePro V9800 and has reported that performance is still very good after switching from one to six HD resolution screens.

ATI claims a 10% performance penalty when driving 4 monitors, and an adidtional 10% when driving 6.  That seems a bit low to me, as that’s a lot of pixels to push on each frame.  However, they may be simply exploiting popular shortcuts, as typically the 2 screens in the center will hold the bulk of the geometry (The user’s natural tendency to put the main focus front and center), with the remaining 4 screens only partially used.  In the example shown above, the upper-left and lower-right screens are nearly unused.

Of course, there is also the question of resolution.  They say “6 HD screens”, but HD could be 1280×720 or 1920×1080.  I run my big screens at 2560×1600, can this run 6 of those in a timely manner?  I honestly don’t know.

via DEVELOP3D blog – AMD drives six HD monitors from a single ATI FirePro V9800 graphics card. via FireUser

Hardware amd, ati, dassault, eyefinity

Next time you open a book, magazine, or other printed literature, look closely at the wide gaps that surround the main text for no apparent reason.  Then, remember what you read in this lengthy piece from Retinart where they discuss exactly why those spaces exist, and how it’s been the foundation of layout theory for centuries.

This method existed long before the computer, the printing press and even a defined measuring unit. No picas or points, no inches or millimeters. It can be used with nothing more than a straight edge, a piece of paper and a pencil.

And you can still use it. This is a system which is still as valid, beautiful and elegant with ultra-modern design as it ever was for the work of the scribes, Gutenberg and Tschichold.

via The Secret Law of Page Harmony – Retinart.

Science books

Several companies have experimented with 3D in the operating room, and the field of laporascopic surgery seems a perfect fit: Inserting tiny cameras and probes into tiny holes to see things on screens, it seems a perfect fit to add back the important depth characteristics.  However, most of these systems to date have used bulky and low-resolution HMD’s.  Just recently, however, Viking Systems has received FDA clearance for their next generation-system which uses the Sony 3DHD flat planel and those same lightweight glasses that everyone is using these days.

It is purported for use in general surgery, urology, gynecology, spinal surgery, bariatric surgery, ENT and thoracic surgery. The system is scheduled for official launch at the American College of Surgeons’ Annual Clinical Congress which will be held from October 3-7. The company is working on getting the system CE approved as well.

via Viking Systems’ Next Generation 3DHD Visualization System.

Hardware 3d, biomed, sony, stereoscopic

NextLimit may have a competitor to their popular RealFlow CFD package coming up soon in the form of a new tool called Slipstream FX from canadian company Exocortex.  They use an automatic adaptive tetrahedral mesh and claim that their simulation algorithms, while currently only marketed to the movie industry, are suitable for use in real-world engineering problems (after some rigorous validation testing, of course).

Normal CFD meshes must be aligned with fluid boundaries and flow fields to produce accurate results. This technique requires much fussing by the analyst to get the mesh right. When the flow-field changes, as it does unsteady flows, analysts must revise or recreate the CFD mesh.

Exocortex’s approach enables the tetrahedral mesh to be quickly and automatically refined and redefined in regions where the flow velocity changes rapidly. Consequently, the software is able to model complex phenomena such as breaking waves and water sloshing in a tank.

The rapid refinement is made possible by dividing the mesh-generation and CFD solution among multiple processors.

via VEKTORRUM » Exocortex Debuts Adaptive Multi-Core Fluid Analysis.

Science cfd, simulation

Hot on the heels of the V-Ray RT for Maya announcement, the Chaos Group announces the same for their 3dsMax fans.

V-Ray RT GPU is fully integrated within Autodesk 3ds Max and allows up to 30 times faster rendering and real time interaction with the virtual environment. This highly scalable rendering solution offers a number of new features like real time shading and lights set-up, distributed and cross platform rendering, progressive path tracing and many others. After the beta testing period, V-Ray RT GPU will become a part of V-Ray 2.0.

If you’re an existing V-Ray RT User, then you can get the beta now.  All of the features you see in the new V-Ray RT beta will become part of the V-Ray 2.0 release, including the 3dsMax production renderer, CPU realtime renderer, GPU accelerated realtime rendering.

Full release after the break.

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Graphics 3dsmax, chaos group, plugin, vray

CGSociety has a great behind-the-scenes look at the visual effects of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, including the work of Asylum and Double Negative.

There were a variety of rigs to deal with, everything from simple car rigs to eight legged dragons. And for animation, Asylum uses a transformation based blending system, “essentially like a pose-based deformation system, but we have direct control of all the inputs, which you don’t typically get with a pose-based system,” explained Rick Grandy, Asylums’ Rigging and Pipeline Supervisor. “We control the x-forms and all the individual blends, and it’s layered, so each one can be independent geometry or components of the geometry, so it’s much more scalable than applying a giant PSD through a muscle system.” This was used in most of the characters, with the dragon using this technique the most.

via CGSociety – SORCERER’S APPRENTICE.

Graphics asylum, doublenegative, movie, vfx

Tomorrow at IBC, NVidia will be demonstrating their latest Quadro Digital Video Pipeline in their booth, demonstrating how the new Fermi-driven Quadros can realy boost the performance.  They’ll have the new 3D Vision Pro system onsite as well for you to try, and be showcasing some of the never-before available features.  Such as:

The recently introduced, new NVIDIA Quadro 5000 and Quadro 4000 GPUs enable faster computational performance across a broad range of visualization applications, including Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 software, shattering previous benchmarks². With Adobe Premiere Pro software CS5, version 5.0.2, users can now experience even richer, more vivid image quality with the broadest dynamic range and support for 30-bit color fidelity (10-bits per color; available only on Quadro GPUs). Featuring more graphics memory than any other products in their class, the NVIDIA Quadro 5000 (with 2.5 GB) and Quadro 4000 (with 2 GB) professional graphics solutions benefit anyone working with complex video production projects, including ultra high resolution 4K video streams such as RED.

Live editing and preview of HD stereo frames, and 4K video.  Nice stuff.  I saw it at SIGGRAPH, and to be able to do it with a single simple computer with a nice video card, rather than a rack full of specialized equipment, is a real game-changer.

Full release after the break.

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Hardware ibc, nvidia