VisualEconomics.com Best Infographics of 2010
9:19 am
One day closer to the end of 2010, and another “Best Infographics of 2010″ post, this time from VisualEconomics.com
VisualEconomics.com Best Infographics of 2010 – VisualEconomics.com.
3D in 3D in 3D, or 37 movies in 2 minutes
3:00 pm
Will 2010 be remembered as the year that 3D went mainstream? Or perhaps the year that 3D was overblown, overutilized, and poorly implemented?
Watch this little compilation of the biggest film trailers of 2010, and then decide for yourself.
Luma Pictures Saddles Up with the Coens for “True Grit”
2:00 pm
A movie like “True Grit” wouldn’t initially seem like the type of movie to have a lot of CG trickery in it, however Luma Pictures found themselves with lots to do in the movie to make the modern sets looks like scenes from the late 1800′s. In addition to modeling the town and buildings, they had various animals and environmental scenes to touch up or create from scratch.
On the outskirts of the town is a river that the main characters cross at a dramatic point in the story. Although the scene was shot practically, the Coens thought the river seemed too placid. Luma turned calm waters into a swift current by blending in CG fluid simulations and particle systems. “To add to the complexity, the water effects needed to interact with the actors as well as with a horse that was also digitally enhanced,” notes CG Supervisor Richard Sutherland.
via Computer Graphics World – Luma Pictures Saddles Up with the Coens for “True Grit”.
Feds Sues Lucasfilm for Undermining VFX Artists
1:28 pm
In the ongoing saga of VFX employees and companies being screwed by major hollywood studios, a new court case is on the horizon where the US is suing two of the biggest names in VFX: Lucasfilm and Pixar. The charge: Antitrust violations.
Lucasfilm and Pixar agreed to a three-part protocol that restricted recruiting of each other’s employees. First, Lucasfilm and Pixar agreed they would not cold call each other’s employees. [snip] Second, they agreed to notify each other when making an offer to an employee of the other firm. Third, they agreed that, when offering a position to the other company’s employee, neither would counteroffer above the initial offer.
The goal is that the two biggest employers of digital animators agreed to a ‘I saw him first’ philosophy, reducing competition in the workplace and limiting employment opportunities for artists. It sounds innocent at first, until you realize it’s a great way to keep wages arbitrarily low (eg “Look, I won’t lure your guys away with more money if you agree not to take mine.”).
via Lee Stranahan: Feds Sues Lucasfilm for Undermining VFX Artists.
The Toy Story 3 Oscar Campaign Posters
1:00 pm
Pixar is trying really hard for a Best Picture Win for Toy Story 3 at the Oscars this year, and to help it along they’ve put out a series of posters. One of them is above, but there’s a series of them showing comparisons to Godfather 2, Titanic, Slumdog Millionaire, the French Connection, and several others.
Disney/Pixar are very aggressively campaigning for Toy Story 3 this awards season. The dream is to get the film a Best Picture win. I have to say I’d be happy with that – it’s not the best picture of the year, but I doubt the Academy is about to recognise a better one.
See all the pictures at their site.
McLaren building 3D Holographic Projection System
12:00 pm
At the recent SIGGRAPH2010 ASIA, McLaren’s design director Frank Stephenson gave a keynote on how computer graphics is impacting design of their Formula One racecars and helping them beat the likes of Ferrari, Porsche, and Aston Martin. Afterwards in an interview with the Korea Times, he dropped the nugget that they are working on developing a holographic viewing system that will “beam” the visualizations into the air, viewable from 360 degrees in full 3D without glasses, and coupled with a motion-detection system for interaction.
“The use of high-quality visual animation and the digitized designing process is based on the needs to improve the speed of product delivery and be more cost effective in the process before we produce the physical product. Conventional methods will leave you with conventional timing schedules, and we will always have to work to find the best processes to accelerate our product strategy plans, improve efficiency and employ cutting-edge technologies,’’ Stephenson said.
I haven’t heard of any such system in-use anywhere before, and I’ld love to know who is building and deploying it for them. I suspect some of what he describes is exaggeration or oversimplification, but if this truly is a floating-space 3D hologram…… Wow.
Enter the Void made by fx
11:00 am
“Enter The Void” is the story of a teen who dies in Tokyo and then watches over his sister from “the other side”. Given the subject matter, some manner of representing our world as viewed from the other side, along with various spectral phenomena and the ability to float freely through the environment, representing some unique challenges for VFX house ‘FX’.
Niquet: For the soul’s travel from one location to another, a BUF supervisor oversaw the shooting of the different streets and apartments. Then the editor back in Paris assembled them, but there was a pretty serious problem with the realism and continuity of the geography. We modeled all of the rooms and we placed them so we could achieve continuity via camera movement. We then added crowds and the cars in 3D to bring the city to life. This section represents 20 minutes of the film. For reasons related to the rhythm of the edit, the speed of these flyovers was multiplied by three during the course of production. There are lots and lots of little details that only cinephiles watching a DVD will notice.
13 of the Year’s Best Infographics
9:04 am
CoDesign has posted their selection of 13 of the Year’s best infographics, and unlike Mashable’s attempt they actually have some good choices. Frog Design’s twitter heatmap and the Facebook Friends chart are on the list, along with several other impressive additions.
Nearly every day over the past year we’ve brought you our Infographic of the Day–the best designed, most interesting chart out there (that we saw, any way!), chosen from a brimming sea of thousands. And among the hundreds that have made the cut, several have stood out. Some are remarkable simply for their design; others because of what they say about the world we live in. And still others are notable because they point to trends in how data will soon inform, enhance and impact our lives.
via 13 of the Year’s Best Infographics [Slideshow] | Co.Design.
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