Infographics Summary for 2011-03-04
9:30 pm
AMD Renames Stream to APP, and Offers a University Kit
6:30 pm
Realizing the success of Nvidia’s CUDA university initiatives, AMD recently announced a new OpenCL University Kit, a collection of materials that can be used in any university environment to teach OpenCL programming.
“Teaching students to effectively leverage the OpenCL standard involves all the intricacies of parallel programming plus support for a new class of heterogeneous computing devices built on a variety of hardware technologies,” said David Kaeli, professor and associate dean of undergraduate programs, Northeastern University College of Engineering. “The OpenCL University Kit introduced by AMD is an easy tool to enable educators to quickly introduce OpenCL learning into their curriculum, helping them strike a balance between teaching syntax and higher level architectural issues.”
The kit includes 13 lectures, with instructor and speaker notes, as well as code examples. Combined with the recently announced ‘Accelerated Parallel Processing SDK‘, (the new name for the old Stream SDK) it’s a great way to get into OpenCL development.
via AMD Helps Advance Parallel Computing with OpenCL™ University Kit.
AMD Showcases New OpenCL Bullet Physics Plug-in for Maya 2011
6:00 pm
Not wanting to let NVidia get all the hype for their announcements at GDC this week, AMD also announced new features in the OpenCL space. One of interest to many is a new OpenCL-driven Bullet Physics plugin for Maya 2011.
“AMD is committed to collaborating with partners like Autodesk on industry standards and open-source software solutions that open up a world of vivid visual experiences,” said Janet Matsuda, general manager of AMD Professional Graphics. “This new plug-in will give CG content developers an open development path with OpenCL and a powerful solution for incorporating high-quality physics that offer realistic animation of how rendered objects move in a game or film.”
Unfortunately, it’s not standard with Maya2012 like the NVidia PhysX solution but it’s at least another option.
via AMD Showcases New Open Source Physics Plug-in for Autodesk Maya 2011 at Game Developers Conference.
Craft Animation in NASCAR: The Game 2011
5:30 pm
If you’ve seen the trailer for Activision’s new “NASCAR: The Game 2011″, then you saw Craft Animation’s Craft Director Studio toolset in action as they drove 40 NASCAR cars around the track with an XBox controller to plot the animation tracks prior to rendering.
“Not only did CDS make animating as fun as actually playing the game, the tools themselves provide a very high level of control which adds even more realism and quality to our end product,” says Mi Technical Director, Gareth Thatcher. “We were able to create shots from day one, immediately experiencing time and cost savings.”
Combined with 3dsMax and Maya, Mi used the 4-Wheel Extended tool to simulate the cars at over 190mph to get the realistic actions and physics they needed for the action-packed trailer.
Get the full release after the break.
Read more…
Eden Games Utilizes Luxology’s modo on Test Drive Unlimited 2
5:30 pm
The latest chapter of the Test Drive Unlimited franchise raises the bar on automotive realism, thanks to new models created with help from Luxology’s Modo.
“Each car we modeled for TDU2 was a challenge because we only had 30,000 vertices to model the interior and exterior of the entire car,” said Jonathan Marole, lead car artist at Eden Games. “Thankfully, with modo, we are able to easily model very detailed cars due to the software’s advanced optimization techniques.”
While other divisions at Eden Games use a wide variety of software, the Car Modeling division uses modo almost exclusivly thanks to it’s speed and flexibility.
via Luxology.com :: Eden Games Utilizes Luxology’s modo on Recently Released Test Drive Unlimited 2.
The new Lexus CT200h, brought by Dan Abrams
5:00 pm
The newest ads for the Lexus CT200h premium hybrid show the car driving through unbelievable terrains that can only exist in the world of CG. However, you may not know that the ads are created through the use of some new software created by Dan Abrams.
Lexus is announcing a new series of ads for its all-new CT-2000h premium hybrid today. The ads further push the creative envelope of CG technology, thanks, in part, to new custom software created by Hollywood visual effects wizard, Dan Abrams (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “The Aviator”, “Spiderman” and “Spiderman 2”). This is the first time that Abrams’ technology has been used in a feature film or commercial.Working with Lexus’ African American and urban market agency, walton|isaacson (http://www.waltonisaacson.com), Abrams was able to help create heart-stopping images that can compete visually with the current crop of Hollywood blockbusters. Abrams’ new technology also pushed the envelope in terms of client and user-friendly, as Lexus was able to see and approve renderings far earlier in the process—always vital with the quick turnarounds required in the ad world. The entire process made for a photo realistic car that stood up to the exacting standards of the company. Real footage was also used in the commercial.
The ads are impressive to watch, as shown below.
Get the full press release after the break.
Dell Systems in Oscar Winning Productions
4:30 pm
A new press release from Dell covers the user of Dell Poweredge blades and Precision workstations that were used in the creation of some of 2010′s biggest films such as “Iron Man 2″, “Inception” and “Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows pt1″. Dell talks about their new cluster technologies great for render farms, as well as their 24×7 support model and reliability numbers.
Double Negative relies heavily on server clustering to render computer-generated imagery (CGI). Rendering involves the computer-generated construction of a three-dimensional digital image from a model and contains geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information. That takes a ton of computer horsepower. Double-Negative requires an IT infrastructure with immense capacity and power to meet project demand. That’s why they deployed an architecture consisting of more than 300 Dell™ PowerEdge™ M610 blade servers and 19 Dell™ PowerEdge™ M1000e blade enclosures.
Get the full release, including details of Pixomondo’s setup for Iron Man2, after the break.
4Q Add-in cards under expectations, still $17Billion
4:00 pm
Jon Peddie’s latest AIB Report is out and reveals that the fourth-quarter ended down a bit lower than expected, shipping slightly fewer units than Q3. NVidia showed some strong growth, shipping more units and growing their market share, while AMD took a beating in both respects.
Overall shipments of graphics AIBs for the year, 2010 came in lower than the recession year 2009 at 72.8 million units compared to 75.3 million for 2009 – a disappointing result given the enthusiastic start of the year. Shipments in Q4 2010 did not exceed Q3 as expected. Nvidia increased its shipments by 4.1% from Q3, while AMD declined -4.8% for the same period.
And in terms of market share, market leader Nvidia increased its share by 3.6% from Q3, while AMD’s market share declined -5.2% for the same period. On a year-to-year basis AMD increased its market share by 12.6% while Nvidia lost 6.2% of market share.
The AIB market is fueled at the high-end by the gamer, small in volume (~3m a year) but high in dollars (average spend for an AIB ~$300.) The volume comes from the mainstream. And GPU-compute is adding to sales on the high end. The workstation market is about the same size as the gamer, but much it is characterized by higher average selling prices (ASPs).
They attribute the lower figures to the growth of the IGP thanks to AMD Fusion and Intel’s Clarkstown, and the growth of laptops and tablets which can’t make use of addin cards.
I would love to see these figures revised to include AMD’s Fusion card, and see if that pushes AMD higher than NVidia. I doubt it would (it’s too young), but would make for an interesting comparison to see all of AMD Graphics, all of NVidia Graphics, and all of Intel’s graphics.
Framestore and Amalgamated on the Carmax Ads
3:51 pm
A new spot for Carmax showcases the work of Framestore and Amalgamated, working under direction from Tom Kuntz to combine live action, CG, and digital matte paintings into some clever spots.
For “Kid in a Candy Store” Framestore uses digital matte paintings and augmentation of live action plates to show what a geek, a mermaid, a wrestler, a hippy and an acrobat have in common. In the spot, “Gas Station”, Framestore helps a modern day man collide with an old-fashioned gas station in order to show that customer service should not be a thing of the past.
“It’s been great working with Tom Kuntz again on this campaign” says Framestore Executive Producer, James Razzall, “We worked together closely to layer in those additional details- adding crowds and flying saucers, replacing skies/backgrounds as well as bringing the mermaid’s tail to life – that really bring the spots to life.”
Both spots below.
VizWorld.com 
Comments