Guess who's back?! Disney has debuted the first short teaser trailer for Pixar's Toy Story 3. This is a true teaser trailer, the kind we haven't seen in a long while, where all it really shows is the title. But, it is great to see all our favorite toys back in action

Glad to see that rivalry between Woody and Buzz is still going strong, as that's always where most of the great moments in the Toy Story movies come from. All we know about the story in this one is that the toys are dropped off in a day-care center after their owner, Andy, leaves for college. Its been a full 10 years since we last saw these toys, but they'll all finally be back again next year!


Watch the new Toy Story 3 teaser trailer in High Definition: 480, 720, 1080

Tom Hanks returns to voice Woody, Tim Allen returns as Buzz, and Joan Cusack is back as Jessie.

Toy Story 3 is being directed by Lee Unkrich, another one of Pixar's creative masterminds who previously co-directed Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo. The screenplay was written by Michael Arndt, the Oscar winning screenwriter of Little Miss Sunshine who is a newcomer to the Pixar family. Disney is bringing Pixar's Toy Story 3 to theaters everywhere in digital 3D starting on June 18th, 2010 next year.

Related links:

www.firstshowing.net

Title: Gates To Elysium
Name: Christian Hecker
Country: Germany
Software: CINEMA 4D, Photoshop, Vue


Comment here
see Christian Hecker's portfolio here

Related links:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/

Just Found this Video for The Dead Pirates track, Wood, directed by Mcbess&Simon and produced by The Mill. Click through to watch it...



mcbess, whose real name is Matthieu Bessudo, did not simply co-direct this animated promo with fellow director at The Mill Simon Landrein – he wrote and recorded the track under The Dead Pirates moniker, and he also provided the illustrations for the video too. A talented man indeed. Bravo!

Related links:

http://www.mcbess.com/
http://www.the-mill.com/

This is Monsters: 091 Tourists, just the latest of almost a hundred similar shorts made by Volstok Telefunken for a Belgian Show,

“Man Bijt Hond.” The Monster films all feature silly, gross and joking Monsters animated over real live-action shots of people in everyday situations who interact with the drawn Monsters in unexpected and hilarious ways. Mix Candid Camera clips with 2 parts sick and twisted animation, shake and enjoy!



Related links:

http://www.demonsters.be/

Blender 2.49 has just been released. This is a fully-loaded upgrade of Blender including many game engine improvements (video textures, real-time dome rendering,

a Bullet physics upgrade, an improved Python API and a hand full of overall speedups), the long awaited texture nodes, direct painting of textures on your 3D objects, improved boolean operations, JPEG2000 support and Etch-a-ton, a sketching technique for rigging. Full details are in the *excellent* releaselogs. Many thanks to everyone who's involved in this release!

* Blender 2.49 release log
* Download Blender 2.49

Related links:

www.blendernation.com

As options and ease of use in selecting and taking delivery of stock footage from a variety of sources abound, the question of differentiation among different libraries becomes key. Taking a look at the competitive landscape, Artbeats (Myrtle Creek, OR) decided to compile Birth of a Baby, a royalty-free collection of childbirth-related footage that Artbeats President Phil Bates said “fills an industry void.”

No, there’s no shortage of footage out there depicting maternity wards and newborn babies. But the new Artbeats collection covers the whole process, from pre-delivery prep through the actual birth and on to newborn care and family visitation, in unflinching detail. “Very few offer such vivid footage that fully depicts the story of a real-life birth,” said Bates in a prepared statement. “We’ve captured the … raw emotion and intense pain a mother must go through to bring new life into the world.”


Targeted at filmmakers, documentarians, and medical presenters, Birth of a Baby contains a total of 40 different clips in resolutions up to 1920x1080. Single HD clips are $299, and the full HD collection is $1099.

For more information: www.artbeats.com.
Related links:
www.studiodaily.com
www.artbeats.com

Visualization Library is a C++ middleware for high-performance 2D and 3D graphics applications based on the industry standard OpenGL 2.1, designed to develop portable applications for the Windows, Linux and Mac OS X operating systems.


Visualization Library can be used to develop applications for 2D and 3D scientific visualization (like material sciences, geosciences, oil and gas exploration etc.), civil and military training and simulation, virtual reality, augmented reality, visual simulation, data mining and visualization, presentations, multimedia applications, special effects, 2D and 3D games and so on.

For more information about Visualization Library and its features please refer to the Documentation. For a quick overview see About and the Changelog.

If you would like to be notified of the latest developments, events and news regarding Visualization Library subscribe to Visualization Library Newsletter.

Visualization Library has been developed by Michele Bosi. Michele is an independent consultant and contractor in the 3D graphics and visualization fields. Contact Michele to develop ad hoc solutions on a project basis at:
# info@visualizationlibrary.com
# http://www.linkedin.com/in/michelebosi

This new release concentrates on volume rendering: the new vlVolume::SlicedVolume class can be used to directly render 3D volumes with and without OpenGL Shading Language. You can install your own shaders or use the default ones which support realtime dynamic Blinn-Phong lighting and custom transfer functions. The vlVolume::MarchingCubes class is an efficient and powerful implementation of the marching cubes algorithm with support to multiple volume data/thresholds. The vlVolume::VolumePlot is an utility class that generates a 3D plot from volume data processed by the MarchingCubes class. Also support to DICOM files have been added in order to read and write medical images and volumes. Of course this new version brings many other bug fixes and enhancements, see the Changelog for all the details.

Check out the following to see a few images generated by the new volume rendering classes:
# Volume Rendering
# Marching Cubes
Related links:
www.visualizationlibrary.com

alxndrdr shows us how to creat MGS Female Ninja by using Lightwave; zbrush

Read the Making of here

Video:

A turntable render can be viewed at http://vimeo.com/4554815

MSI has added a new member to Lightning Series: N275GTX Lightning, and our fellow site VR-Zone has managed to get a sneak peak of it.

The card is equipped with a bigger fan and 5 heatpipes to ensure improved cooling performance.



N275GTX Lightning adopts 8+2 phase power supply, and SSC (Solid State Chokes) which can eliminate the buzzing noise under heavy load because of vibration and increase power density.

It’s unknown that when N275GTX Lightning will be available, but MSI plans to present this card at the upcoming ComputeX.
Related links:
en.expreview.com

Modo is one of the most requested new plug-ins for Maxwell, and NextLimit are happy to reveal it will be available with v2 - as another free plug-in alongside their other free plug-ins.

"The Modo plug-in for Maxwell Render is looking really good. The intergration into Modo is exceptional, even the installer is simple!
With regards to workflow, I like the way you can use Modo materials and the way they are converted automatically. I also like the way you can use a replacement MXM material without having to leave Modo. The fact that you can still use the Modo interactive render and then render with Maxwell is a bonus.
In conclusion, I think the plug-in is exceptional"

Neil Evans
e3dinteractive
Related links:
www.maxwellrender.com/version2

The Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 4.1.0 update adds additional support for REDCODE and Avid-captured DV or IMX footage, third-party support, and .vob extension support along with numerous other stability and quality improvements. The update is recommended for all Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 users.

File Information
Product Premiere Pro
Version 4.1
Platform Windows
File Name PremierePro-4.1-mul-AdobeUpdate.zip
File Size 30.5MB
Proceed to Download

System requirements

Refer to the current system requirements for Adobe Premiere Pro CS4.
Installation Instructions

After downloading a ".zip" file, use the operating system or a utility such as WinZip or PKZIP to access the file's contents.

Need help with downloading? See our Downloading Help documents.

1. Double-click the EXE file to launch the update.
2. Click Continue to start the installation.
3. When the installation has completed, click Finish to close the update file.
Additional notes

Refer to the ReadMe file for more information.
Related links:

www.adobe.com

One of the core functions of ZBrush has always been to provide artists with the ability to create in an environment that allows for complete freedom of expression. The lack of technical barriers that make working with in ZBrush feel like real world sculpting and painting is why so many have created such ground breaking work.

PIXOLOGIC introduces you to, GoZ, a new core feature of ZBrush that will bring you even closer to creating at the speed of your imagination. With GoZ, artists can spend less time on technical aspects, and more time on simply being creative. With a single click of a button, GoZ lets you quickly transfer your geometry back and forth between ZBrush and other 3D application like Maya, Cinema 4D, and Modo, with many other applications soon to come. This means that you can place ZBrush and its GoZ feature at the center of any workflow. Not only can you instantly transfer geometry between ZBrush and other 3D applications, but any texture, normal, and displacement maps created with in ZBrush will automatically be connected to the appropriate shader networks in the program of your choosing. Now you are free to work with out the distraction of timely export and import operations. GoZ breaks down the walls between other applications extending the power and fluid nature of ZBrush even further. GoZ is actually a small glimpse at the many powerful features that have been developed for ZBrush 4. At this time we will be releasing the first version of GoZ with the next Mac OSX update in June, Windows users will be able to take advantage of GoZ along with all of the new features that have been added to ZBrush 4 when it is released this August.

For now enjoy the preview movie

and get ready to

GoZ


A detailed GoZBrush communication protocol and software development kit (sdk) will be made available at GoZBrush.com following the relase of GoZ.
This will enable you to easily customize GoZ to fit your existing pipeline.

Current GoZ enabled applications

• Maya
• Cinema 4D
• Modo
• With many more coming soon!
Related links:

www.zbrushcentral.com

Two crewmen awaken from hyper-sleep aboard a spacecraft. None of their equipment is working, and their memories are incomplete. What was their mission? How much time has passed? Where are they? As they try to piece things together, they discover they are not alone, and the ship's new inhabitants - tribal warriors carrying crudely made weapons - are moving among them, intent on killing all aboard.


Pandorum is directed by German filmmaker Christian Alvart, of only the horror films Curiosity & the Cat and Antibodies previously. The screenplay was written by Travis Milloy, of Street Gun and Just Like Mona previously. Overture Films is bringing Pandorum to theaters everywhere on September 4th this fall.

Related links:
www.firstshowing.net

Hyperfocal Design has released the Very High Dynamic Range Skies collection. The panoramas in VHDRI Skies weigh in at a huge 14,000 x 7,000 pixels with super high dynamic range - up to 17 stops

Chris Nichols, author of Global Illumination: Exteriors and Interiors from Gnomon Workshop says, "These VHDRIs by Hyperfocal Design are different from most HDRI libraries in that they are created with a very high dynamic range exposure which is ideal for really accurate lighting."

Chris was also kind enough to provide Hyperfocal customers with an expert overview and tutorial using the new VHDRIs in Vray and 3DS Max.

VHDRI Skies is available at Hyperfocal's VMstore either as a physical or downloadable product, and retails for $297 USD.

- VHDRI: Very High Dynamic Range, Very high resolution
- Collection includes 12 high quality hemispherical VHDRI Skies
- Includes clear, cloudy, stormy, and sunset conditions (see the catalog below)
- Sun Aligned (swap HDRIs and retain sun position)
- Dynamic Range: Up to 17 stops
- Format: Lat/Long Spherical
- File Type: EXR and HDR

- Bonus: Three 10,000 X 5,000 pixel sky HDRIs for a total of 15 HDRIs
- Bonus: Tutorial by Chris Nichols, author of Global Illumination: Exteriors and Interiors, on how to best use and show off the results of VHDRI lighting using VRay and 3dsmax


High Resolution HDRI Skies
- 14,000 X 7,000 HDRI*
- 14,000 X 7,000 LDR Jpg
- 512 X 256 Lighting HDRI

VHDRI Sky Catalog

Recommended Retail Price: USD $297

Order Online at the Hyperfocal Store today! You're covered by our 100% satisfaction guarantee.
For more information, visit the website at www.hyperfocaldesign.com/vhdri-skies

Related links:
www.hyperfocaldesign.com

Toon Boom Animation Inc. today announced the release of Toon Boom Animate Pro, the high-performance animation software for professionals. Toon Boom Animate Pro is the most complete professional animation software for serious animators, offering award winning state-of-the-art content creation, animation and compositing toolset for any animation style within a single all-in-one desktop application.

Feature Highlights

Toon Boom Animate Pro combines state-of-the-art vector technology, real-time animation tools and nodal compositing to simplify the conception of complex effects. With its easy-to-use interface, non-destructive and resolution independent workflow, featuring a new and unique 3D space environment Animate Pro delivers incredible power at an economical price.

Explore true digital animation

Toon Boom Animate Pro enables you to create tradigital and bitmap animation as well as combining both styles. You can access advanced lip-sync and cell swapping tools to give an extra edge to your content creation process.

Keep traditional art alive

Animate Pro masters traditional art thanks to advanced clean, ink and paint tools as well as an Xsheet with drawing capabilities to simulate a paper exposure sheet. Animate Pro supports Pencil Check Pro to preserve the line test exposure sheet.

Artistic style unleashed

With Toon Boom Animate Pro, you can develop any project without having to compromise quality. Refine your artwork style using multiple brush tools, textures and gradients to get a unique look and feel.

Beyond multi-plane camera

Animate Pro delivers full control on all 3 axes. Move, scale and rotate any of your elements to create amazing 3D scenery with real-time playback. Access a powerful Graph editor and apply subtle acceleration with ease motion control.

Animation’s holy grail

Easily perform frame tweening using the timeline; expose your drawing using the Xsheet; quickly create key poses with inverse kinematics; create in-betweens automatically with the Morphing

tool and even let Animate Pro detect the audio phonemes for you.

Animate faster

Symbols and pegs work in unison. Keyframing in cut-out and tradigital animation is a breeze. Easily fine tune your animation to get the result you have imagined.

Sparkling effects and compositing

Toon Boom Animate Pro compositing takes place at any time during the production cycle. Manipulate the effect network to apply any combination of effects on elements in real-time. Over 50 special effects, ranging from blurs to colour correction and deformation.

Enjoy an adaptable user interface

Whether you want to create artwork, set up your action or add special effects, customize your workspace as you need. Each tool comes with a contextual interface that will let you set your preferences in a click.

Smooth pipeline and workflow integration

Toon Boom Animate Pro can import leading file formats, including MOV, SWF, PSD, AI and PDF, as well as export to video in MOV and FLV. In addition, Animate Pro comes with full scripting capabilities and command line tools. Add Storyboard Pro to integrate the pre-production stages seamlessly into your existing pipeline.

Included kick-start program

Toon Boom Animate Pro comes with more than four hours of video training and ready-to-use templates for a smooth learning experience. Dedicated support programs combined with a practical user forum are additional resources for timely assistance, all handled by the Toon Boom animation experts.

Toon Boom Animate Pro for MAC OS X on Intel® based systems and for Microsoft® Windows® XP and Windows Vista® platforms is ready to ship now with availability through the Toon Boom Store at http://www.toonboom.com/buy/onlinestore/customer. Considering the overwhelmingly positive response received from the field and the great success Animate has garnered since its launch in November 2008, Toon Boom Animate Pro will be released at $1,999.99 US, a saving of $1,000 off the original listed price.

All customers who took advantage of the pre-order campaign which started on March 30, 2009, will receive their Product Code electronically along with instructions on how to install and activate the product.

Toon Boom Animate Pro comes with a Personal Learning Edition and over three hours of video training that will get any new user up and animating quickly.

For more detailed information, please visit Official Website
Related links:
www.itsartmag.com
www.toonboom.com

Join them at the Gnomon Gallery on Saturday, June 6th at 7:00 pm for the opening reception of our next show, Pixologic Action Heroes, from the makers of ZBrush.

Pixologic, makers of the ZBrush 3D sculpting software, have collected the best work from their recent Action Hero contest for display at the Gnomon Gallery.

Artist List

Chris Moffitt
Jason P. Smith
Martin Beyer
Adrien Debos
Yongkiat Karnchanapayap
Cameron Farn
Christopher Tackett
John Cherevka
Konrad Kielczykowski
Daniel Adami
Mohammed Anuz
Matt Berenty
Mathew Board
Jan Daniel
Thaddeus M Maharaj
Diego Maia
Jack Oakman
Adam Skutt
Rasmus Warming
Furio Tedeschi
Jesse Heath

www.pixologic.com

www.gnomongallery.com

1015 N Cahuenga Blvd
Hollywood, CA 90038
View Map

Related links:
www.gnomongallery.com
www.pixologic.com

A talking dog named Dug from animated Pixar film Up has won the Palm Dog, a comic alternative to the Cannes Film Festival's main prize, the Palme d'Or.

Voted by British film critics, it has been presented since 2001 to the best canine performance seen at the event.
Dug, given the power of speech by a human voice collar, was the runaway winner of the unofficial prize.
But it faced competition from a black poodle seen in Quentin Tarantino's war film Inglourious Basterds.
















Dug (centre) is given the power of speech by a special dog collar


'Cone of shame'
The rules were bent this year to allow the talking fox who appears in Lars von Trier's horror film Antichrist to compete.
Moses, a dog represented by a chalk outline in Von Trier's drama Dogville, won the prize when it was presented at the 2003 festival.
The makers of Up will receive the traditional trophy - a leather collar bearing the name of the quirky award in silver letters.
Last year's collar went to Lucy, the dog who went missing in US film Wendy and Lucy.
This year's jury also handed out a "cone of shame" to Filipino thriller Kinatay, in which a dog is seen being hit by a car.
Up is out in the US on 29 May but does not open in the UK until 16 October.
Related links:
news.bbc.co.uk

Voxelogic is developing a voxel-based mesh modeller called Acropora. Acropora takes user imported models or user specified primitives and modifies them spatially via volumetric noise modifiers, geometric modifiers and warps. The resulting mesh can then be retopologized via surface operators (tesselation, smoothing, optimisation,...).
A procedural modeler, Acropora combines volumetric modifiers with multi-octave 3D noise sampling to generate detailed surfaces in far less time than conventional surface modeling software. Acropora adopts a less deterministic approach to generating complex, organic shapes by applying sequences of modifiers on large voxelized meshes. The effect is to create an endless, seamless expanse of surface that undulates and changes in a natural way. The resulting meshes contain caves, ridges, overhangs and other natural features that are not possible with height maps. Meshes can then be broken up into segments, with segments further divided into different levels of details.


Just some of the features available:

*
A variety of base shapes including sphere, plane, cylinder, torus and others.
*
Compound shapes (heightmaps, pillars, caves, weaves)
*
Voxelisation of user imported models (.3DS, .FBX, COLLADA, .OBJ)
*
Mesh export to .3DS, .FBX, COLLADA, .OBJ
*
User-specified volume block and voxel dimensions.
*
Over 30+ volume modifiers
*
Automatic generation of up to 15 octaves of noise (user-programmable settings include orientation, strength, quality, frequency, phase, and range of influence)
*
Extensive voxel and noise editing tools
*
Batch processing
*
Multiple LOD support
*
Intuitive editing and manipulation of very large meshes
*
Seamless joining of adjacent meshes
*
Mesh decimation, smoothing and tesselation.
*
Mesh filtering and vertex blending tools
*
Ambient occlusion
*
FX effect file support and multitexturing
*
Multithreaded CPU support and GPU acceleration (on supported cards)

How it works
Mesh generation begins with a base geometry and combines complex noise sampling with user-specified shape modifiers to generate a unique density field, which is then “marched” to generate a surface that becomes the solution mesh. Once the iso-surface is extracted the user can smoothen, tesselate, optimise or filter the resulting mesh. Density function evaluation is numerically intensive; therefore, the volume is often broken down into blocks. Mesh operations can be carried out globally on the entire mesh or on selected/activated blocks. Acropora automatically takes care of alignment, ensuring smooth seams between adjacent meshes. GPU support provides realtime response to volume editing. In addition to applying global modifiers the user can create localised regions or volumes, operating in tandem or independent of other regions. Acropora can also be used to test and develop procedural surfaces, that are later applied in shaders for mesh generation in hardware. More info...

Semi-deterministic approach
Voxel modelling via implicit mathematical expression is by its very nature a non-precision approach to sculpting surfaces. While 3D models can be sampled by fine grain voxels, the strength of Acropora lies in rendering complex, multi-joined surfaces that are inherently difficult using conventional modelling tools: Labyrinthin cave structures, complex organic weaves, believable rock outcroppings, overhangs, and canyons are just a few of the possiblities. The user can control the strength and quality of surface structures.

Check Gallery for Images and videos

Related links:
www.voxelogic.com

The SIGGRAPH 2009 Technical Papers program is the premier global forum presenting groundbreaking research from today's leading international organizations. Topics will feature the latest computer graphic innovations from a detailed simulation of intrusive surgical procedures to the development of infra-red flash photography. A total of 439 submissions were reviewed by a distinguished panel of 54 jurors, and 78 papers were selected for presentation at SIGGRAPH 2009.

Papers cover core topics of computer graphics, such as modeling, animation, rendering, imaging, and human-computer interaction, and also explore related fields of audio, robotics, visualization, and perception. Presenters are from all around the globe -- from the Czech Republic to Japan.

"These research papers provide a preview of the latest advances in computer graphics, and they highlight how important computer graphics are to art, science, medicine, and other fields," stated Tom Funkhouser, SIGGRAPH 2009 Technical Papers Chair from Princeton University. "SIGGRAPH papers have historically provided the most groundbreaking innovations in computer graphics. This content represents some of the greatest achievements in this field from across the globe and could very well lead to advancements that impact all of our lives."

Select highlights from the SIGGRAPH 2009 Papers Program include:

Interactive Simulation of Surgical Needle Insertion and Steering

This paper presents algorithms for simulating and visualizing the insertion and steering of needles through deformable tissues for surgical training and planning. Novel features include a fast mesh maintenance algorithm and physics-based methods for needle-tissue coupling.

Authors:
James F. O'Brien, University of California, Berkeley
Nuttapong Chentanez, University of California, Berkeley
Ron Alterovitz, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Daniel Ritchie, University of California, Berkeley
Lita Cho, University of California, Berkeley
Kris Hauser, University of California, Berkeley
Ken Goldberg, University of California, Berkeley
Jonathan Shewchuk, University of California, Berkeley

Bokode: Imperceptible Visual Tags for Camera-Based Interaction From a Distance

Detailed analysis of how to enable a commodity camera to photograph and capture a 3mm barcode from two meters away. The key is to exploit camera bokeh, which maps binary data encoded in directionally varying rays into a large disk. The next step is to decode ID as well as camera pose for augmented reality applications.

Authors:
Ankit Mohan, MIT
Grace Woo, MIT
Shinsaku Hiura, Osaka University
Quinn Smithwick, Media Lab MIT
Ramesh Raskar, Media Lab MIT

Dark Flash Photography

Camera flashes produce intrusive bursts of light that disturb or dazzle. In this paper, a "dark" camera flash is presented that uses infra-red and ultra-violet light just outside the visible range to capture pictures in low-light conditions while being two orders of magnitude dimmer than a conventional flash.

Authors:
Dilip Krishnan, New York University
Rob Fergus, New York University

Real-Time Hand-Tracking with a Color Glove

This research describes a system that can reconstruct the pose of the hand from a single image wearing a multi-colored glove and demonstrates a system as a user-input device for desktop virtual reality applications.

Authors:
Robert Y. Wang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jovan Popovic, Adobe Systems Incorporated, University of Washington, and MIT

Harmonic Fluids

This presentation proposes an algorithm for synthesizing familiar bubble-based fluid sounds such as splashing, pouring, and babbling. The researchers acoustically augment existing incompressible fluid solvers with particle-based models for acoustic bubble creation, vibration, advection, and radiation. Acoustic transfer functions are estimated using the fast dual-domain boundary integral Helmholtz solver.

Authors:
Changxi Zheng, Cornell University
Doug James, Cornell University

Directable, High-Resolution Simulation of Fire on the GPU

This presentation proposes a hybrid particle and grid simulation system which utilizes graphics hardware (GPU) to quickly simulate artist-directable, high-resolution fire. Simulation resolutions as high as 2048 are able to be computed in a few hours by parallelizing work among multiple GPUs.

Author:
Christopher Jon Horvath, Industrial Light & Magic

Based upon the popularity of the program at SIGGRAPH 2008, this year's Technical Papers program is once again expanding to include 19 conference presentations for each paper published this year in the journal ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG).

For a complete listing of all the papers presented in this year's program visit http://www.siggraph.org/s2009/sessions/technical_papers/index.php.

For detailed information on the SIGGRAPH 2009 dynamically evolving program or to download a copy of the SIGGRAPH 2009 Preview Video, visit www.siggraph.org/s2009.
Related links:www.siggraph.org/s2009.

Three years ago, the first Night at the Museum turned to Rhythm & Hues to create its fantastical CG characters. From a playful T. Rex skeleton to talking Easter Island heads, the crew was charged with the responsibility of bringing the exhibits of New York's American Museum of Natural History to life after hours. Now, with the sequel, Battle of the Smithsonian, the plot expands to include the entire Smithsonian in Washington D.C. and Rhythm & Hues has returned to significantly up the stakes.
Leading the team is Visual Effects Supervisor Raymond Chen, whose 13 years of work for Rhythm & Hues has included (most recently) The Golden Compass and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. For Smithsonian, Chen found that the sheer scale of the film's storyline was a call for some ambitious planning.

Octy makes a big splash in Battle of the Smithsonian. All images courtesy of Rhythm & Hues © 20th Century Fox.


"The biggest difference is the scope of the work," says Chen, "…In Scooby Doo or Garfield, you might have one character with a number of props with 400 to 500 shots. On this, it felt like working on a lot of different shows because each sequence had its own challenges that aren't necessarily connected to each other."

Not only are the new characters staggering in number, but each required a different specialty for Chen's team to pull off properly. Whether it's the hair on a photo-real squirrel or the light and luster of a moving, talking marble statue, Chen had to simultaneously deal with characters and events in completely different scales, from miniature cowboys to a gigantic, writhing octopus. That's in addition to compositing matte paintings and creating CG set-extensions.

Though its headquarters and primary facilities are in L.A., Rhythm & Hues also has offices in India in both Mumbai and Hyderabad, both of which operated under Chen's supervision, bringing the total number of working artists to between three and four hundred. Though others did spend some time traveling back and forth between the countries, Chen was able to stay on the continent, communicating with the other offices through video conferencing.

"We use something very similar to CineSync," explains Chen, "It's our own sort of review system. It actually sets it up so that you can run clips in two different locations. You can kind of draw in the frame or go frame by frame or zoom in. Stuff like that. In terms of review, it's very, very straightforward and extremely helpful."

Chen did get to slip out of the country, though, for the film's principal photography, which all took place in Vancouver. Operating on-set, Chen was able to assist in greenscreen placement and work ideas out during production that would become invaluable in post. The biggest concern, in his eyes, was ensuring that the live talent be able to establish realistic eye-lines with the CG characters.

Keeping a giant Lincoln's eyeline with actors was a challenge.



"That's one of the things that gives away CG the most. The live-action performers need to act or interact and if the eye-lines are off by a couple of inches, it makes it feel like they're not engaging one another in the same space. A lot of what we do on-set is trying to set-up accurate and relatable eye-lines or marks or anything that can give a proper indication of where characters are and what they're going to be doing when they're not actually there on the set."

To this end, several different stand-ins were used, all depending on the size and range of movement of the respective animated character. When Ben Stiller's night watchman, Larry Daley, enters the National Gallery of Art, all of the sculptures come to life. On set, these mostly-immobile characters were represented by ping-pong balls on sticks, held by C-stands at the appropriate level. For other, more substantial characters, such as a giant octopus or the Lincoln Memorial, full-size cardboard cutouts were created with cardboard or foam-core that could then be imagined in full by the actors. Other times, it was even as simple as using a laser pointer to represent a shifting focal point.

When photography concluded last September, Chen entered into a seven-month post-production stage that called on a vast catalogue of animation software, ranging from proprietary programs to "off-the-shelf" products such as Voodoo, Lighthouse, Houdini and Maya as well as their internal rendering engine, Wren and internal compositor, ICY.

The most challenging element to bring to the screen involved the film's villain, Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria), an Egyptian Pharoah who plots to bring his 3,000-year- old army of the undead into the modern world. The army is glimpsed at in a place called the "Netherworld," a concept that Chen had to define visually.

"They wanted to show eternity," says Chen, "They also wanted to show these Horus guards or soldiers that transform from flapping birds to human soldiers with hawk-heads like the ancient Egyptian God. It was particularly difficult, because we're trying to put a face on something that is very abstract. They did a number of concept paintings that were very detailed and specific about what it should look like. Even getting from that concept art to the final shot was a long exploration."

Kahmunrah's army descends onto the museum.


Also an enormous challenge was the film's giant octopus, something that Chen believes to be one of his proudest accomplishments.

"That's one of those characters that's a particularly hard animal because, in addition to having more limbs than most, and having eight different tentacles, there's a lot of freedom of motion in that it doesn't necessarily have a skeletal structure or bones. The rig that we had to make for it is extremely complex. There's a lot of movement in the tentacles themselves, plus there's a lot of close-ups and the character itself is quite big. You have to have controls for things like the suckers and the gill and the blowhole."

To add to the challenge, the Octopus' photoreal look prevented obvious facial expressions that the director wanted to be communicated to the audience. In the end, Chen thinks that they managed to hit just the right balance of being anthropomorphized without looking or feeling overly cartoony.

Other new characters introduced for the sequel include flying Cherubs (whose faces the team modeled after the Jonas Brothers) and a bunch of talking Albert Einstein bobbleheads that Daley comes across in the gift shop of the Air and Space Museum.


Major works of art like the Thinker and Venus come to life in Smithsonian.

"[Even more] didn't make it into the film," adds Chen, "There's a whole sequence in the National Gallery of Art where a lot of the sculptures come alive. We have some of our main ones like the Thinker or Venus or Degas' Little Dancer, but there are some minor ones like a Noguchi globular thing. There's a spiral man. There are a lot of background sculptures that were only going to be used in a few scenes. Some of them got built and they got cut from the film or the director didn't like certain sculptures."

With about 535 effects shot having made the final cut, Chen found his team working hard right up until the delivery date, including a big shot that came about just two weeks from the final deadline.

"It was one of the Horus gods emerging from the netherworld. The studio felt that they didn't have a big sort of payoff. We never got a really close look at the heads of these guys so we put in a nice close-up of one of these hours guys walking toward camera and having a big squawk. It was kind of an extreme close-up of a CG head."











Read full here
Related links:
vfxworld.com/

In this video, from “Rendering with mental ray in 3ds Max 2010”, learn how to combine two of mental ray’s most powerful features, GlobalIllumination and Final Gather. Discover how to use these two indirect illumination algorithms together in order to render photo-realistic images fast and easy.




for bigger video please click here
If you are on slow connection or want to keep these tutorials for future viewing then you can download these video tutorials from CGArena forum. But need to register (free) before download these tutorials. Download Now - RAR Format

Related links:
www.cgarena.com
Rendering with Radiosity - Watch here

A strange man builds a world using holographic tools for the woman he loves.

This award winning short was created by filmmaker Bruce Branit, widely known as the co-creator of '405'. World Builder was shot in a single day followed by about 2 years of post production. Branit is the owner of Branit VFX based in Kansas City.

More info, background and info on future releases can be at facebook.com/pages/World-Builder/73936485659 Become a fan and keep in touch.

Kei and Bobby Chiu thought it would be fun if they held a contest on their DEVIANTART page to get everyone drawing!

It's been so much fun, we thought we'd post it on the blog too!
Prizes: Their're giving away a copy of Their 'Guy Sketches' signed with sketches inside by Kei and Bobby Chiu.

Topic: Do your version of one of our paintings in your style!

Submission and Deadline: June 8th by 12:00 midnight eastern time.
-Submit as many entries as you wish.
-Post the submission on your blog or Deviantart page and email the link to info(at)imaginismstudios.com with the subject title: 'Art Contest'

Please submit NEW artwork only, which means artwork created for this contest, any artwork posted after April 13th. Any artwork before this date will not be accepted to this contest.

Have fun drawing and painting everyone!

-------------------------------------------------------------

If you don't have time to draw, that's ok as well. They'll be giving away a signed copy of Guy Sketches to one of Their random 'FOLLOWERS.'

Check out all of the fun entries so far!

Related links:

http://imaginismstudios.blogspot.com

Frédéric PlanchonAcademy Films did a great job directing the project towards a satisfying finish.I’m not sure who handled the vfx, but they’re spot on. (Any help with further credits would be great.)La Maison did a beautiful job on the CG.

Thanks to Todd Akita in the comments for this link, which sheds a little light on the fluid simulations at work in the spot.Red Bee: “House of Saddam”
I can’t help but also share an earlier project here, a promo from agency Red Bee for the BBC “House of Saddam” series.The vfx (handled by Finish) for “House of Saddam” are much less ambitious and on a smaller scale, but they serve the spot well enough. It’s the application of the melting concept in the second spot that wins me over, though. It perfectly encapsulates the rise and fall of Saddam’s empire—from stately confidence to embarrassing meltdown. The house of wax metaphor sticks with you well beyond the last frame

Related links:

www.motionographer.com
http://dennytu.wordpress.com/

Through an online community, contests, and events, Challenge Your World connects emerging entrepreneurs to the resources and expertise they need to launch companies that restore the environment, contribute to society, and build a healthier economy.

It’s with great pleasure that I share with you the first five films from this year’s inaugural Challenge Your World 20/20.Each year, 20 video artists create 20 wild, whimsical, and unconventional machines that solve environmental issues. If we’re going to transform the world we have to push ourselves to think differently — so these videos reject the status quo, explore crazy ideas, and blast beyond boundaries.Want to participate? For information on how to submit a video contact Julien Vallée at video@challengeyourworld.com
Related links:
http://motionographer.com/2009/05/26/challenge-your-world

Title: Draeke
Name: Alex Alvarez
Country: USA
Software: BodyPaint, Maya, mental ray, Photoshop, ZBrush



Comment here
see Alex Alvarez's portfolio here

Related links:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/

EXPOSÉ 7 is now shipping! The new edition fits in more art than ever before, and the quality of entries was truly outstanding this year. The judging panel were also unanimous in praising the quality of entries this year:

“There is some fantastic work in there and it was extremely hard to choose what to omit. On the whole the quality of entries was brilliant and the complexity of ideas was astonishing—better than last year I believe!”
Max Dennison, founder of Matte Painting UK

“OH MY GOD! WOW! Some scary good work going on out there. Exciting to see.”
Lorne Lanning, co-founder Oddworld Inhabitants

EXPOSÉ 7 Preview
You can flip through EXPOSÉ 7's pages here to see the amazing work featured in the book.




Exclusive offer
A specially-commissioned 30-minute Camtasia video walkthrough by EXPOSÉ 7 cover artist Bente Schlick will be freely downloadable to the first 300 customers who purchase either a Hardcover or Softcover edition of EXPOSÉ 7. The walkthrough cover's Bente's techniques in painting her fantasy character from her “Touch of Gold” cover artwork.




EXPOSÉ 7 Limited Edition
A collector's Limited Edition EXPOSÉ 7 is available to pre-order, featuring a black leather-bound cover with gold embossing, a numbered Certificate of Authenticity, and an additional 16 pages of Master artist profiles.




EXPOSÉ 7 Limited Edition: Bonus prints and Camtasia walkthrough
A stunning set of eight bonus prints are yours free when you purchase EXPOSÉ 7 Limited Edition. Customers will also receive the specially-created 30-minute Camtasia walkthrough by EXPOSÉ 7 cover artist Bente Schlick, showing how she created part of her ‘Touch of Gold’ fantasy character.



1. Bente Schlick ‘Touch of Gold’
2. Daniel Dociu ‘Guild Wars: Steam Demon’
3. Arthur Haas ‘Jungleman’
4. Simon Dominic ‘The Sculptor’
5. Kekai Kotaki ‘Slayer’
6. Liang Yue ‘Wielding a brush’
7. Marta Dahlig ‘Judith’
8. Alexandru Popescu ‘Sail City’

Related links:
http://forums.cgsociety.org

Luxology and Escape Studios invite you to join us at the modo® 401 launch event on June 3, 2009 at The Moving Picture Company in London.

Come see the brand new version of modo with stunning new 3D animation and rendering features and hear from leading artists who have already employed modo 401 in production. Meet modo users from throughout the UK and learn about this amazing software for the PC and Mac.

Details
Location

The Moving Picture Company
Tel: +44 20 7434 3100
127 Wardour Street
Soho, London
W1F 0NL
Format Full Time (Wednesday, 2.30pm - 5pm)
Duration Two and a half hours
Software Modo
Price Free

Start Dates

June 3rd

Programme

Andy Brown (Luxology)
modo 401 demonstration

Simon Hodgkiss (Director & Producer, SPHdigital Ltd) The use of modo 401 in a multi-application pipeline for "The Adventures of Raz & Benny"

Stuart Rowbottom (3D artist with experience at Senate VFX, Framestore and Passion Pictures) – modo 401 beta tester

Additional Information
Light refreshments to be served.
Escape Studios and Wacom will join Luxology at the event. All attendees will be eligible for a special promotion price for modo 401. Space is limited so please register for this free event now. Click here for more information on modo 401.

Related links:
http://www.luxology.com/
www.escapestudios.com

UVLayout is a stand-alone application for the creation and editing of UV coordinates for 3D polymeshes and subdivision surfaces. Used by professionals in the games and visual effects industries, by hobbyists of all ilks and by students

, UVLayout's unique approach gives texture artists the tools they need to produce high quality low distortion UVs in significantly less time than they would by traditional methods.

This is where we'll post general background information and news for everyone to see, plus links to the user guides, training videos and the latest software installs for registered support customers. Visit the Forum to read what other people have to say, or to post your own message.
UVLayout v2.05 is now available for download by all users. Use the Support Login panel above to login to your support account, then click on the Support Download menu to the left to access the Windows, OS X and Linux installers.
UVLayout v2.05 is now available for all users from ...

http://www.uvlayout.com/update

New tools added in this version:

- Segment : Speeds up the flattening of "hard" surface geometry,
that is, non-organic shapes like buildings, furniture and other
props. See it in action under the Advanced section of the
uvlayout.com videos. Professional version only.

Changes to existing tools:

- Symmetry Find : When packing, symmetrical shells will now be
arranged to the left and right sides of tiles and boxes.

- Symmetry Find : Now the left half of the mesh will always be
shaded darker, and the right side lighter. If you want it the
other way round, spin your model around before selecting the
center-line edge.

- Copy UVs : Added quick select hotkey that finds edges on shells
with matching topology. Copying UVs is now one button click, to
select an edge on the source object, then a hotkey tap to find all
matching shells, and a final hotkey tap to confirm the selections.
The Advanced Copy-UVs-3.mov video shows how its done.

- Packing : Added Align Shells to Axes option, which will square
up shells to the U and V axes during packing.

- Packing : Added Allow Box Overlaps option, which was the default
before but can now be turned off. This option will allow other
boxes or shells to use empty space found in larger boxes.

- Packing : Added Shrink Boxes To Fit option, which will shrink
wrap boxes around their contents after packing.

Bugs fixed:

- Big World Import preference. If you are importing objects that
are part of a much larger world (e.g. a gargoyle on top of a
cathedral), and experience things like collapsing shells while
flattening, try turning this preference on. It moves the objects
to the origin on import, and moves them back out on export.

- Optimize : Would sometimes keep on running, even though all
shells were optimally flattened, because of some remaining
"spinning" shells.

- Packing : Will now allow boxes inside boxes inside boxes and
so on, to any depth.
Check the Gallery and Video showing the major features of UVLayout
Related links:

REPLACE THE SOURCE LINK HERE

May 27th in Motion Graphics by Adam Everett Miller
Adam keeps digging through the good ol' built in CC plugins and continues to come up with very clever and visually awesome solutions. In this tutorial Adam uses CC Smear as the basis to create text that appears in as if a spirit whisped into it.

Preview

RSS readers: click post title to view preview video at Aetuts+.

Download Preview
File size: 7mb
Download Tutorial .torrent
File size: 96mb
Downloading .torrent files

Downloading this tutorial will require a free torrent client like BitTorrent (PC) or Transmission (Mac OS X). Seeding tutorials helps us save on bandwidth costs, which means a bigger budget for more great tuts!

Related links:

http://ae.tutsplus.com

With Decimation Master you will be able to easily reduce the polygon count of your models in a very efficient way while keeping all their sculpted details. This solution is one of the fastest available and is able to optimize your high polycount models from ZBrush, allowing you to export them to your other 3D software packages.


Sculpt your model with ZBrush, add all your small details and push your artistic skills, then optimize your ZTool. Export it to your favorite 3D package which will now be able to open your sculpting to create specific textures like Normal Maps or Ambient Occlusion maps by baking the high resolution mesh information on a low resolution mesh.

Another use is to export your model for a Rapid Prototyping process (3D printing) and bring your virtual art to a real object but also displaying your model in a real-time viewer such as PDF 3D. The possibilities are infinite!

Main features
* High quality optimization with accuracy details.
* Two different optimizations for a better control of the result.
* Optimization based on the polypainting information
* Support of Masks for details protection.
* Border protections.
* Support of the symmetry and partial symmetry.
* Optimization of your UVs for exporting models for 3D Color printing
Extras
* Export all SubTool as one OBJ file
* Clone all SubTools

Click to enlarge - Model Courtesy of Epic Games

“I've really enjoyed working with the Pixologic team during the development of Decimation Master. The results are very clean, and the plug-in makes the process of getting models from ZBrush back into 3ds Max as painless as possible. I love the ability to process all SubTools at once, and then dump them all out into a single .obj file. Decimation Master is now an integral part our pipeline because it saves a lot of time, and allows us to process an insane amount of detail at a fraction of the original poly count.”
Shane Caudle, Technical Art Director, Epic Games

"I have been decimating everything today and taking it all into Mental Ray for renders, HOLY CRAP!!!
What a time saver!!! The masking rocks as well! I will most likely be using it this week for some 3D prints. I have only scratched the surface but this is going to be one of my favorites!!!"
Scott Patton - Lead Character Designer, Legacy Effects

"The Decimation Master plugin for ZBrush not only helped speed up production time, its results were of a consistently higher final output quality. The ability to mask areas and preserve resolution after decimation is nothing short of incredible!"
Brandon Fayette - Lead Artist, Bad Robot Productions

"If ZBrush is a rock factory, Decimation Master is the catapult: 2.000.000 points down to 100.000 without noticeable difference… You really have to press the wireframe button to believe it!"

"It was definitively the missing plugin in our previous production pipeline for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter; using Decimation Master now greatly improves quality and efficiency for our next games."
Vincent Delassus - Art Technical Director, Ubisoft Paris

"This works beautifully - the on-the-fly ability to adjust quality level works great and the resulting fidelity preservation is unbelievable! The Decimation Master is better than any reduction tool we've seen available with regard to details and speed; it grants the ability to efficiently work with any level of mesh density with precise control over quality."
Matt Vogt - Artist, Offload Studios Inc.

"This plugin is essential for rendering or printing in 3D. With this tool you can easily achieve the 250 MB file size requirement of 3D printers. Decimation Master makes it possible to freely work on your models with over 15 or even 20 million polygons for high resolution detailing, than transform the model to a medium or low resolution while retaining the same best-resolution details! In other words, you can convert 20 million polygons to 2 million. Decimation Master is an amazing tool!"
Alonso Varela - Green Apple Workshop.

"The Decimator is allowing us to work much more efficiently with ZBrush tools that have insanely high poly counts! The detail that we are able to maintain in the 3D printing process will yield some of the most amazing tactual 3d sculpts ever seen!"
Bill Henderson - Creative Director - Offload Studios Inc.



Click to enlarge - Model Courtesy of Damien Canderle


Click to enlarge - Models Courtesy of Apple Green Workshop

This plugin is available for WINDOWS
You can get it from the Download Center.
(The Mac version will be released within 30 days.)

Click Here to Download the Documentation

If you have any questions please post them in the Support forum here.


Reference

To Install Decimation Master

1. Quit ZBrush
2. Extract the zip file to a temporary folder.
3. Copy the DecimationMaster.zsc to your ZPlugs folder. With a default installation, it will be found at C:\Program Files\Pixologic\ZBrush3\ZStartup\ZPlugs.
4. Also copy the DecimationMasterData folder and its contents to the ZPlugs folder.
5. If needed, launch the vcredist_x86.exe (or vcredist_x64.exe for 64-bit versions of Windows). Both are included in the Troubleshoot Help folder of the plugin’s extracted archive.
6. Launch ZBrush.
7. Open the Zplugin palette. There you will find a Decimation menu, containing the new plugin’s features.

To Use Decimation Master

1. Set your options if needed.
2. If you have one ZTool, press the “Preprocess current” button to launch the optimization computing. If you want to optimize several SubTools at once, press the “Preprocess all” button.
3. When it’s done, choose a quality and press “Decimate” or “Decimate all”, depending of the previous step.

Related links:
www.zbrushcentral.com