If you’re not terribly familiar with how some of the big fight scenes in movies like Iron Man 2 are made, then check out this video from G4TV where Candace Bailey visits the Skywalker Ranch and suits up in the full mocap suit and they break out a virtual camera and take it for a test drive.
Another day, another high-end rendering engine for SketchUp. This time from ‘SB2′, the Render[in] engine is a real-time radiosity engine that comes with a few other bells and whistles.
Render[in] is a fully-integrated, real-time radiosity rendering engine developed for SketchUp Free and Pro. Render[in] is fast, easy to use, and works with all the same SketchUp settings, like geometry, camera, sun, colors, textures, etc. You don’t need to change a thing – just render your project! You can also add your own specific settings like specular reflection, point lights, spotlights, and 3D sky and clouds
They have a trial version available for download in the members area, and the full version retails for $160 USD.
Render[in] – Fully-integrated real-time radiosity engine for Sketchup – Welcome to Renderin.com.
4Gamer got their hands on some of the slides (22 to be exact) used in the recent AMD Fusion Launch event. See them below in a slideshow gallery.
4Gamer.net ― CPUとRadeon GPUを統合したAPU時代，開幕。AMD，新世代プロセッサ「E-Series」「C-Series」を正式発表（E-Series，C-Series）.
The recipients of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science annual Scientific & Technical Awards have been named, and it’s some well deserving projects. Just some of the awards:
To Dr. Mark Sagar for his early and continuing development of influential facial motion retargeting solutions.
Dr. Sagar’s work led to a method for transforming facial motion capture data into an expression-based, editable character animation system that has been used in motion pictures with a high volume of digital characters.
and
To Tim Drnec, Ben Britten Smith and Matt Davis for the development of the Spydercam 3D volumetric suspended cable camera technologies.
The evolution of the Spydercam technology has made it possible to move a camera safely and accurately anywhere through a three-dimensional space.
But most surprisingly, 4 awards to render queue technology in use in Render Farms:
To Greg Ercolano for the design and engineering of a series of software systems culminating in the Rush render queue management system.
Mr. Ercolano’s work has been influential across the industry, and has enabled scalable render farms at numerous studios.
To David M. Laur for the development of the Alfred render queue management system.
This system was the first robust, scalable, widely adopted commercial solution for queue management in the motion picture industry. Its user interface and support for multi-machine assignment influenced the design of modern day queue management tools.
To Chris Allen, Gautham Krishnamurti, Mark A. Brown and Lance Kimes for the development of Queue, a robust, scalable approach to render queue management.
Queue was one of the first systems that allowed for statistical analysis and process introspection, providing a framework for the efficient use of render farms.
To Florian Kainz for the design and development of the robust, highly scalable distributed architecture of the ObaQ render queue management system.
ObaQ has scaled from managing a few hundred processors in 1997 to many thousands today, with minimal changes to the original design.
10 Scientific and Technical Achievements To Be Honored with Academy Awards® | HollywoodNews.com.
CyberLink is demonstrating the new PowerDVD at CES this week, with added support for 3D BluRay playback on Autostereoscopic devices. In particular, they’re showing the 3DeeFlector with SpatialView, 215FS01 with CPT, and the SeeFront 3D Rig. These are all “addon” devices that put a special screen in front of your usual screen, similar to the previously mentioned iPhone Wazabee case.
CyberLink Demonstrates Glasses-Free Auto-Stereo 3D Solutions With Strategic Partners | Business Wire.
If you’ve seen the launch ads for the new ‘Oprah Winfrey Network’ (OWN), then you’ve seen the bright colors, smooth glassy elements, and floating dust all together to create the unique look. Working off a logo designed by Bruce Mao Design, BIGSMACK brought all the elements together for the ads.
To create the on-air look BIGSMACK shot an array of natural elements — including light reflected through a variety of objects like crystal and Plexiglas, as well as water, glitter and particle dust — on a soundstage using a Canon 5D camera. That organic basis was then composited with digital elements animated using Cinema 4D and Adobe After Effects.
”Given Oprah’s style and personality, it was important that we ‘keep it real’ design-wise and incorporate these organic elements,” Hann adds. ”It would have been much easier to create these elements digitally, but the organic elements were more in keeping with the Oprah brand and what she is building with OWN.”
Full release after the break.
Russian artist Alexandra Zutto has a great Adobe Illustrator tutorial about the image shown, detailing some of the finer points of Gradients in Illustrator.
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to build up many elements to create a vector image with real depth and richness. Zutto explains: “I spend most of the time picking out colours that match each other to form harmonic colour composition. It takes a lot of time, but it’s worth the effort.
via Master dynamic gradient techniques – Illustrator Tutorial – Digital Arts.
Don’t forget folks, the Early Registration discounts for the O’Reilly Strata2011 conference end this Sunday (2 days!). If you miss it, that’s an extra $250 you’ll have to pay to get into what looks to be the premiere conference on open data, analysis, and visualization.
Also don’t forget, you can use the special VizWorld conference registration code str11vzw to get an impressive 25% discount, dropping the $1645 entry fee down to $1235, a savings of $400. That’s like a free hotel room!
Plus, just look at the lineup. They’ve got some of the biggest names in the industry from The New York Times to bit.ly, Amazon to Reuters, Google to NASA Ames. Go sign up now!
Registration: Strata 2011 – O’Reilly Conferences, February 01 – 03, 2011, Santa Clara, CA.
We close our collection of 2010 retrospective infographics with some entertainment reviews: MySpace‘s Year in Music, the 2010 Hip Hop Gold & Platinum Plaques, brought by HipHop DX, and a cool interactive view at the 2010 US Movie Box Office, by Zach Beane. Finally, we go deeper in time, with io9‘s comparison between 2000 vs. 2010, and how the world has changed during that time, and with Ross Dawson‘s interesting Map of the Decade.
Times are a changing at Dassault systems as they appoint Bertrand Sicot the new CEO of SolidWorks. Taking effect January 1st, SolidSmack has an interview with Jeff Ray on the change, including this little paragraph:
He wants to makes sure that all barriers to growth are removed and that the company is positioned to continue to grow. He’s not interested in being the CEO of a 2 billion dollar software company. He wants to be a CEO of a 4, and then 8 and beyond company. He’s one of those rare people who is very, very comfortable not only reassessing things, but also talking about what the future can be and look like. It’s just a natural part of that.
But then Bertrand chimed in later with this:
With the demonstration at SolidWorks World last year, you know what we’ve been working on, so there is nothing new per se, but those initiative are still alive and more than ever these new technologies are really promising. So, as far as going in a different direction from where Jeff has taken the company, it’s going to be a evolution, not a revolution.
Here’s hoping SolidWorks remains the great product it is without being crushed under the mad dash to become a “8 billion dollar software company”.
via Jeff Ray Promoted… Bertrand Sicot Takes Over as SolidWorks CEO. [Interview] – SolidSmack.com.
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