Spanish Graphic Designer and Digital Painter - Omar Díaz shows us how he has done one of his latest work named ”Be my Valentine”


HERE YOU GO!

Dante’s Inferno is a video game inspired by the epic “Divina Commedia” (Divine Comedy) poem written by Dante Allighieri in the 1300’s. Italian mercenary Dante returns home from war to find that his beloved Beatrice has been murdered, and her soul pulled down into Hell by a dark force. He gives chase and subsequently fights through the nine circles of Hell to bring her back

CG Channel has just showed the Dante’s Inferno's art works and nice interview with Richard Larm, Lead Environment Artist and Ash Huang, Art Director for Dante’s Inferno here

In this article Javier Pintor from Málaga will describe the creation of a bathroom interior in his personal study project, House N,

HERE YOU GO!

FurryBall is the first unique real-time GPU renderer in production quality implemented directly into Maya. No more time-consuming exports, waiting and tuning in new applications!!
You can see your render in real-time with bumpmaps, textures, soft shadows, reflections and refractions,ambient occlusion and color bleeding, depth of field and many other features directly in Maya viewport. No more waiting for render! FurryBall is about 30-300x TIMES faster than CPU renderers on regular Graphics card.

New features in version 1.2

* Realtime Subsurface shader with presets (eg. human skin shader)
* Realtime Translucency rendering
* Realtime Displacement maps (DX11 only)
* Maya 2011 support (In next hotfix in June)
* New hair system with per-face selection and better Maya integration
* DirectX 11 support
* Multi-core CPU support for some operations
* Triangle subdivisions (DX11 only)
* Adaptive tesselation (distance, silhouette or displacement map adaptive)
* Image sequence textures
* Color balance for all textures





Related links:
furryball.aaa-studio.cz

Football fans in 7 countries including South Africa, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, Brazil and Mexico will have the chance to watch in 3D not only the highlights of the 25 matches filmed during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, but also music, movies and games from across the Sony Group. The premier location being Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton, Johannesburg, other locations will also include three 2010 FIFA World Cup stadiums including Soccer City, Durban, and Cape Town.



The 3D experience pavillion at the Nelson Mandela Square is scheduled to be opened to the public starting Wednesday, June 9, while in the rest of the countries mentioned the pavillions will be opened on the starting date of the World Cup, on June 11.



Related links:
en.akihabaranews.com

GIGABYTE will exhibit three 10.1-inch Pine Trail-M netbook platforms combining style, technology and functionality. These are the T1000, M1000 and Q1000. The T1000 has a rotating multi-touch screen, chiclet keyboard and is aesthetically appealing with its gold textured surfaces. The M1000, includes the innovative docking station from GIGABYTE, allowing the netbook to be used as a mobile device or as a workstation when docked. Finally, the Q1000 emphasizes its design simplicity while offering functional mobile computing. Consumers will now have a wider variety with better options available to them with the introduction of these 3 unique netbooks.


The Notebook series from GIGABYTE combines both business and entertainment aspects of your lifestyle, into one powerful device. Gigabyte, has recently, exhibited a variety of notebooks based on the Intel® Calpella platform with screen sizes ranging from the 14-inch Q1447 to the 15.6-inch Q1585. These notebooks are integrated with an NVIDIA® Graphics chipset including an HDMI interface allowing users to indulge in high quality multimedia for business or for pleasure. The Q1585 features the latest LCD technology supporting 3D cinema and an exhilarating gaming experience.



GIGABYTE remains committed to its R & D and is constantly working on new, exciting and innovative ideas to meet the needs of consumers. GIGABYTE's passion for delivering the ultimate user experience, through innovative mobile computing solutions, will be on show this year. GIGABYTE will endeavor to continue developing products that match consumer lifestyles with enhancements to suit both business and recreational activities.

About GIGABYTE

GIGABYTE Technology Co. Ltd., headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, is known as a leading brand in the IT industry with branch offices located in 24 countries around the world. Founded in 1986, GIGABYTE started as a small research and development team and has since taken a position as one of the in the world's top motherboard manufacturers. In addition to motherboards and graphics cards, GIGABYTE further expanded its product portfolio to include notebook and desktop PCs, datacenter servers, networking products, mobile handsets, and home entertainment devices to serve each facet of the digital life in the home and office. Everyday GIGABYTE aims to "Upgrade Your Life" with innovative technology, exceptional quality, and unmatched customer service. Visit http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/ for more information.
Related links:
gigabyte.com.tw
engadget.com

In this new 3D Studio Max tutorial from Max Cookie we’ll learn how to create the Sand Creature by using Prime Focus Krakatoa.

HERE YOU GO!

With the launch of the new Adobe Suite of programs comes the long awaited Adobe Photoshop CS5. Packed with new features to speed up your workflow it truly is the most advanced edition of Photoshop to date. One of the new features we will be looking at today is called Content Aware. This feature allows you to quickly fill in a selection with surrounding content making it look like a part of the original image. In this case we will choose to remove a person from a photo, this can be done in less than five minutes. With the additional image enhancements this tutorial will take you less than 10 minutes to complete.

HERE YOU GO!

Jocelyn Strob Simard - freelance 3D Artist from Canada shows us the Iron Baby - A fake trailer done by team work with his friend Patrick Boivin
using 3dsMax 2011 and rendered with Vray




comment in CGTalk

V-Ray RT for 3ds Max 1.50.SP2 is now available for immediate download
New Features
Options to turn on/off rendering of proxy objects, X-Ref scenes and particles;
Support for stereoscopic rendering with different preview types (anaglyph, interlaced, checker, dual-window);
Adaptive sampling support with the ability to stop the RT once noise has cleared to some level;

Feature Requests
Support for the offset parameters of the physical camera;
Support for mesh lights;
Support for VRayAmbientLight;
Support for bitmaps in the Gradient Ramp texture;
MaxScript callback when a frame is complete;

Bug Fixes
Different result when there is a missing map in the enviroment slot;
Errors when there is a Bitmap texture without a file name specified;
horizontal shift for physical camera not working properly;
Differences with the production renderer when texture filtering is "None" and "Blur" is other than 1.0;
Animation of materials and textures is not updated in the ActiveShade window;
Animation of physical camera properties (focus distance, focal length) is not updated in the ActiveShade window

Related links:

chaosgroup.com

V-Ray RT on GPU presentation from Peter Mitev





Related links:

youtube.com

mental mill SE is a complete visual development environment that allows users to quickly assemble complex shader graphs from the provided library of shaders and tweak the parameters, and includes powerful debugging capabilities and shader authoring features for the MetaSL™ shading language. While shaders can be read natively in Autodesk® 3ds Max® and Autodesk® 3ds Max® Design 2010 & 2011, and mental ray® 3.8, mental mill also provides exporters to targeted DCC and CAD software including Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk® Maya® and Autodesk® Softimage®, Dassault Systémes CATIA®, and customizable back-end plug-ins for HLSL, GLSL, and CgFX.

Related links:

mentalimages.com

Chaos Group and CGschool have joined forces to a live webinar on June 8th. The 3D instructor Brian Smith from CGschool will be teaching V-Ray Intermediate webinar broadcasted directly from Chaos Group office in real time.
CGschool is a training center providing online and in-person on-site training for architects, artists, and designers in a variety of industry standard software platforms. CGschool online classes are webinar based, which allows the instructor and student to see each other screens and speak through computer microphone and speakers.

Related links:

chaosgroup.com

Marc Gabbana's artworks and contributions can be seen in some of the coolest movies of this past decade. Including Star Wars ep1 and 2, Matrix 2 and 3, Hellboy, War of the Worlds, and Beowulf.
Check out the video interview with Marc Gabbana he was in town for the Gnomon Workshop Live ‘08.

WATCH HERE!

CameraMapGemini is a new camera map modifier that makes your 3ds max projection work more flexible, more stable and easier to manage.
It overcomes the limitations of all currently available camera projection modifiers and finally allows you to use projections that do not rely any longer on having the same resolution and/or image aspect ratio as the rendered output image.

Features

• supports up to 10 individual projections ( = camera & map channel ) within 1 modifier, good for complex projection setups
• projection resolution settings independent from render resolution, more flexibility for aspect ratios that diverge from rendered output image
• all projections can be toggled on and off individually within the modifier
• projection camera names clearly visible in separate scrolling text field
• projection cameras directly selectable in the modifier panel
• acts like a WorldSpace Camera Map modifier, takes object and camera transformation into account (this means if an object is moving through the projection it will update every frame), projections will always stay "live" and recalculate on the fly if the camera or the projected object is animated
• is in fact a regular ObjectSpace modifier, so other modifiers still can go on top
• more stable than 3ds max's default Camera Map object space and world space modifiers, no more lost connections to cameras or mapping channel numbers when cloning, no reassignment necessary
• works properly as instanced modifier, many objects can share the same projection setup
• all parameters exposed and controllable via MAXScript

Limitations

As with all other modifier-based solutions in 3ds Max, CameraMapGemini cannot overcome the limitation of getting distortions when projecting images onto geometry that is too "low-res". Mapping coordinates are interpolated between mesh vertices and if there are only few faces covering a wide projection area, distortions might occur. To solve the problem, please subdivide your mesh before the projection by using the Tesselate or Turbosmooth modifiers underneath. Or refrain from using camera map modifiers and instead apply the "camera map per pixel" map in 3ds Max's material editor.

Planned Features

• special support for faces behind the camera
• special support for faces that point away from camera
• offset and tiling of maps
• and many more...

Demo

Here is a litte animation to illustrate the concept. Here is the demo scene, in case you are interested. The demo is actually only using one camera projection but it shows you how the modifier is used.

Download and test the FREE beta version !

Related links:
projectgemini.net

After six months of intense one-man development, it is finally released. Sculpt and paint awesome 3D stuff, for free!

Vdieo Demo










DOWNLOAD !

Related links:
sculptris.com

FaceFX is OC3 Entertainment’s cutting edge solution for creating realistic facial animation from audio files. FaceFX is the culmination of years of experience working with lip-synchronization, 3D graphics, and facial animation. The product makes it easy to batch process thousands of audio files for your game, add expressions to a single animation without ruining the lip-synchronization, tweak an animation to perfection, or integrate the entire solution into your art pipeline.

FaceFX 2010 is now available

New Features

• Created the License Manager
• License Manager FAQ
• Sharing Licenses with License Pools
• Added the following functions to the FxStudio Python module.
• dingBell
• displayDirectorySelectionDialog
• displayFileOpenDialog
• displayFileSaveDialog
• displayMessageBox
• displayYesNoBox
• displayYesNoCancelBox
• errorBox
• getAppName
• getAppTitle
• getAppVersion
  
• getBonePoseBoneNames
• getBonePoseFrame
• getBoneNames
• getBoneRefFrame
• getBoneFrame
• getCurrentTime
• getFaceGraphFrame
• getMultipleChoicesFromUser
• getPasswordFromUser
• getSelectedKeys
• getSingleChoiceFromUser
• getTextFromUser
• lockSelectedKeyTangents
• msgBox
• unlockSelectedKeyTangents
• warnBox
  
• Added the following console variables:
• g_maxaudioduration
• ogre_default_fov
• fg_enableunrealnodes
• g_autoaddmorphtargetnodes
• Added the following python callbacks
• newanimationdataavailable
• postxmlexport
• preloadtext
  
• Made several improvements to the .facefx exporters.
• Added ability to import morphs and combiner nodes.
• Added audio analysis, newtake and change analysisactor functionality
• Created the following new script functions:
• fxcreatenode
• fxlinknodes
• fxnewtake
• fxisanalysistool
• fxgenerateanim
• fxsetbipedheadrotation (3ds Max only)
  
• Event widget can automatically create missing animations when their events are double-clicked.
• Browse for audio directory (batch processing) now defaults to last selected audio directory.
• Added delete accelerator to the timeline widget for deleting selected keys.
• Added -curveName option to key command, can be used in place of any -curveIndex.
• Added -add, -subtract, and -refbones options to the bonepose command.
• Non-shared geometry supported. Non-FaceFX Ogre Exporters rarely supported shared geometry. Use of more 3rd party Ogre tools now possible.
• Added "field of view" camera support to the ogre command.
• Added curve smoothing
• Added curve smoothing button and insert key button to the curve toolbar.
• Added option for overriding colors of phoneme classes in phoneme widget.
• Added 24-bit and 32-bit audio support to FaceFX. (Be aware of multiple 32-bit formatting standards...32-bit int (type 1 - 32-bit) assumed).
• Added delete node button to Face Graph Select widget.
• OGG Vorbis audio files (*.oga) now supported.
• Rendering and FBX export are now available from command-line mode.
• Max exporter now supports setting keys on the Biped Head bone.
• When no lights exist in an Ogre .SCENE file or a .MESH file is loaded, the default camera has a light attached.

Bugfixes

• Default analysis actor won't generate blinks that extend the animation
• Improved handling of error and warning messages from FXL and Python scripts so that they aren't overwritten on the command panel before being seen by the user.
• Fixed words getting slammed together during punctuation removal when only punctuation separated the words.
• Recursive events work correctly in analysis actors
• When breaking up a text file with audio chunking text tags, inserting event or curve text tags into a section with no text will not cause analysis to analyze the audio for phonemes.
• Node selection is shown in the face graph select widget after changing node groups as appropriate.
• Fixed curve baking on boundary case of curves that look like steps.
• Fixed curve baking on boundary case of constant curve with non-zero value
• Browse for audio directory dialog is now modal to prevent crash associated with triggering multiple dialogs.
• Evaluated tick times in studio are now constrained to be within [animStart, animEnd]. The user can scrub the timeline anywhere, but the anim is only ticked appropriately.
• Multi-selected links in the face graph node properties widget may now be deleted in batch.
• Fixed bug in copy curves command so that the copy curves button works
• Fixed bug in bonepose -transfer command
• Fixed bug in the face graph widget where it was looking at invalid indexes in the compiled graph on a refresh prior to compiling the face graph when undoing a node removal.
• Fixed XML exporter. The default value for event start time was 1.0. The importer used the correct value of 1.0. As a result, any events with start_time = 1 were getting incorrectly imported with start time = 0. XML files exported with 2009 will continue to have this problem, but XML files exported in future versions do not.
• Removed some cases of gimble lock from FBX files exported form FaceFX Studio.
• Fixed a bug where batch processing would ignore any file with an uppercase letter in its extension, thus disqualifying *.WAV or *.Wav. Now, file extensions are lowercased before the extension comparison.
• Pasting keys in the curve editor on top of an existing key now modifies the existing key rather than adding a duplicate key at the same time.
• Fixed refresh issues with the XSI plugin.
• If a prompt-to-save triggered by the application closing fails (ex, a read-only target file), the application no longer ignores the failure and closes anyway. It properly aborts closure to give the user a chance to save his work.
• Fixed a crash when the user passes an invalid curve index to the key command.
• Fixed a crash when creating a combiner node from sliders with events selected in the take view. Also resolves a refresh issue when canceling the create combiner from sliders dialog.
• Curve widget correctly draws selection box in XOR.
• Fixed bug with menus from the menubar being hard to use when the application is at the bottom of the screen. Now the menu system is aware that the menu is coming from the menu bar and pops the menu up above the menu bar so you can still interact with it.
• Event command full analysis take now correctly sets the analysis language.
• Run the text preprocessor when the analysis take is being completely regenerated. This will regenerate text tags meant for the analysis actor. The original analysis text is used (not the phoneme wordlist text because it doesn't have punctuation) and the word times are based on a fresh analysis of the audio and text.
• Fixed bug in events tab that caused the event tracks to jump up and down when panning with the middle mouse button.
• Reanalyze range will no longer fail when the final phoneme end time is slightly past the end of the audio.
• Long diphthongs will be split into their component vowels in the phoneme bar. Previously, this was occurring in coarticluation, so the curves were correct but the phoneme bar still listed the diphthong.
• Fixed bug in animation forward and back buttons that would select incorrect animation.
• Fixed a bug in FxList::Sort()
• Fixed machine specific bug that would occur when setting keys with Max exporter.
• Fixed bug when loading Ogre .SCENE files where no MESH entity was specified. .MESH file is now searched for when .SCENE loading fails.
  

Structural Changes

• Updated to FBX 2011.2 SDK
• Updated Ogre to version 1.7.1
• Updated Python to version 2.6.4
• Updated wxWidgets to version 2.8.10
• Updated libsndfile to version 1.0.21
• Updated to Visual Studio 9 (2008) SP1
• Using Evolver's mascot character as sample content. Maya, FBX, and other versions of her available from www.evolver.com
• The the anim command's -changeaudio flag no longer accepts the new audio as an argument, it requires the -newaudio flag to pass in an argument.
• Warnings are now generated when loading an actor that contains a target in the phoneme mapping without a corresponding node of any type in the face graph.
• Revised key copy/paste to be much more intuitive.
• Pitch and stress curves in analysis actors insert keys at 1 during silence. These curves are normalized, so 1 is the most appropriate value.
• Removed all STL code from SDK logging system
• Added support though 2011 versions for 3ds Max, Maya, XSI, and MotionBuidler.
• Removed support for versions of MotionBuilder prior to 2009.
• Updated XSI script functions from "FXA" to "Actor"
• Replaced Slade's Max content with FBX ASCII file. Normalize scale must now be used appropriately after impporting the FBX content into Max.
• Changed sample audio files to OGG Vorbis format *.oga
• FBX morph curve data is now exported by creating a special morph data skeleton and moving bones with the appropriate morph target names in the X-axis.
• The NoTextNoTweaking.animset file was removed. Both sample characters now mount the SpeechSnippets.animset file, which is used by the FxAdvancedFunnel.py file to insert tongue-only movements.
  

Supported Animation Packages

• 3ds Max - 9, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011
• Maya - 8.5, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011
• XSI - 6.5, 7, 2010, 2011
• MotionBuilder - 2009, 2010, 2011

Related links:

The VIEW Conference 2010 is approaching. VIEW is the main point of reference for digital cinema, CG and animation pros in Italy.

The 2010 edition of VIEW devotes ample space to companies and to the most important realities in the entertainment and CG industry. VIEW will take place from October 26-29, 2010 at the Conference Center Torino Incontra in Turin, Italy.

Submission deadlines approaching:
Papers, Videos, and Artworks-- August 31, 2010
VIEW Award-- September 15, 2010
VIEW's Promo Contest-- October 23, 2010

VIEWfest, 'a global network of digital movie festivals', is also organized by the VIEW Conference and is from October 29-31, 2010 at Cinema Massimo in Turin, Italy.

The deadline for ITALIANMIX is September 15, 2010.

HERE YOU GO!

Related links:
features.cgsociety.org
viewconference.it

According to 3D World and http://haff.awn.com/ 14th Holland Animation Film Festival will be launched 3-7 November and now Call for entry is opening

Check and join them here


Related links:

haff.awn.com
3dworldmag.com

World's First TV Incorporating "Google TV" Platform, Delivering Unprecedented TV-Internet Integration

Sony Corporation (hereafter "Sony") today announced the launch of "Sony Internet TV," the world's first TV to be based on the "Google TV" platform announced by Google Inc. (hereafter "Google"), Sony, Intel Corporation and Logitech today at Google I/O in San Francisco. "Sony Internet TV " combines the future growth potential and accessibility of the Android-based open Google TV platform with Sony's industry-leading expertise from product development to marketing. "Sony Internet TV" is scheduled to first launch in the U.S. in the Fall of 2010, with the lineup featuring both a standalone TV model and set top box-type unit incorporating a Blu-ray Disc drive.

As part of its ongoing efforts to introduce new business categories, Sony has proceeded to develop an "Evolving" TV that delivers new viewing styles exceeding conventional preconceptions, expandability through application downloads and other compelling features such as seamless operability and multitasking. "Sony Internet TV" realizes this vision, and is a new generation of TV that not only offers new forms of TV enjoyment through unprecedented Internet integration, but is also able to "evolve" through the download of applications. By leveraging the flexibility and growth potential of Google TV platform, Sony will be able to provide consumers with easy access to a range of rich and attractive content.

As the range of new internet content and services continues to grow and diversify, Sony's development of an "Evolving" TV will enable it to deliver this world of internet-based entertainment directly into consumers' living rooms. Furthermore, Sony will continue to apply its wealth of display technology expertise to create ever more compelling and attractive TV products.

Related links:
sony.net

Anninos Konstantinos made this short screencast of his interior 3d render post processing workflow in Photoshop

Watch Video Tutorial!

Related links:

ronenbekerman.com

Andrew Kramer announced that The Optical Flares 1.2 update is now available and includes several new features for all Optical Flares customers:

• Added 64-bit support for AE CS5
• New “Unified Interface” with automatic scaling
• Rearrange window panels
• Full-Screen Mode
• 16:9 Guides now visible
• Show BG warning
• No more slide-out panel

Watch Video Demonstration of New Interface

Download Optical Flares 1.2 (Order Email Required)

Related links:

videocopilot.net

French CG artist Sebastien Nebout shows us how he did the Project: Wibot 2.0 by using Autodesk 3dsmax 2010 and Mental ray

CHECK TUTORIAL HERE!

From ACMSIGGRAPH's youtube channel we can watch the Technical Papers Trailer of SIGGRAPH 2010



Related links:
youtube.com

This week The Gnomon Workshop releases a superb DVD on Animal Anatomy by Marshall Vandruff. Marshall is an acclaimed art instructor who has combined a love of drawing with a pursuit for the ultimate teaching strategies for anatomy, perspective and composition. Introduction to Animal Anatomy is a lecture that was months in development and presents an intelligent approach to Animal Anatomy based on form analysis. This lesson will provide artists new to animal anatomy with an accessible and exciting foundation on which to build, and will also be a refreshing guide for experienced artists looking for inspiration and new approaches to learning anatomy.





Chapters

1. Introduction to Animal Anatomy
2. Muscles
3. Foreshortening
4. The Torso
5. Hindlegs
6. Forelegs
7. Necks and Heads
8. Anatomy of the Skull
9. Animal Faces
10. Animals as People
11. Additional Resources

Specifications

* Product Code: MVA01
* ISBN: 1-59762-808-5
* UPC: 805366017569
* Duration: 82 minutes
* Formats: DVD-ROM

About Marshall Vandruff
Freelance Illustrator

Marshall Vandruff has worked as a writer, illustrator, voice-over artist and consultant for nearly thirty years. His clients include MAD Magazine, Warner Brothers, Hanna-Barbera, Dark Horse Comics, Nickelodeon, Insomniac Games, Disneyland, LeapFrog, Rockstar, Blizzard Entertainment, AutoDesk, The Gnomon Workshop, Imagine FX, and over forty advertising agencies. He has taught over 200 Drawing, Anatomy, and Storytelling courses at colleges, universities, and corporations.

CHECK IT HERE!
Related links:

thegnomonworkshop.com

Storm Studios recently did some environment work for a Subaru commercial



Client: Subaru, Dag Asbjørnsen

Agency: Futatsu Industries
Martin Midtbø, Niri Bøyesen, Frode Bjerved, Aris Theophilakis, Tone Salvesen og Hågen Pettersen

Storm Studios

Director: Jamie McCarter
Producer: Anja Nicolas

Co-Director Live Action: Anniken Lien (Moland Film Company)
Production Manager Live Action: Hans-Jørgen Osnes (Moland Film Company)
Cinematographer: Petter Holmeren

VFX Supervisor: Jamie McCarter
Production Manager: Fredrik Arntzen
Lead Artist: Espen Nordahl
On-Set Supervisor: Otto Thorbjørnsen
Comp Supervisor: Morten Moen

FX: Magnus Pettersson, Colin Doncaster
Modelling: Martin Andersson, Henrik Karlsson
Compositing: Samuel Karlsson, Morten Jacobsen
Animation: Jonathan Symmonds
Matte painting: Olve Askim, Stig Saxegaard, Nikolai Lockertsen
Lighting: Espen Nordahl, Steven Elvesæter
Rigging: Ragnar Brynjulfsson, Jamie McCarter
Technical Support: Ragnar Brynjulfsson, Daniel Flehner Heen, Tom Joelsen
Colourist: Ghislain Rio
Trainee: Jan Ivar Solås
Production Assistant: Monica Østbø Østgård

Related links:


stormstudios.no
pixologic.com

Another Mari tech video demo by The Foundry, this time showing animated textures. In this video a 2K animated texture is applied as one layer in a 5 component shader (Diffuse, Spec Gain, Spec Rough, Bump, Animation) . The scene has 31 4k textures and a 100 frame 2k animation. This animation was captured on a laptop with a Quadro Mobile 3800M and 8Gb of ram.



Related links:
youtube.com

Bertrand Benoit describes in detail the way he created the 3d water drops effect in his GH House Challenge winning interior image

Enter TUTORIAL !

Related links:
ronenbekerman.com

May 20th 2010, Sitni Sati announced the release of FumeFX 2.0 for Autodesk's 3ds Max platform.

New features that have been added for FumeFX 2.0 are focused on minimizing project turnaround times and providing the ability to add more detail to the simulations - quickly and memory efficiently.

Project turnaround times can be significantly reduced when there is a need to fine tune final simulation playback speed. Until now, this was only possible by running the whole simulation again with different time scale parameter. That approach has a number of drawbacks, most importantly - it is very time consuming and always results with a different fluid flow. Out proprietary Retimer algorithm operates on existing cache files to re-create missing frames. Retiming process is fast and more importantly, it preserves exactly the same flow as in original caches.

Wavelet Turbulence algorithm is well known to the CG industry for some time and FumeFX 2.0 utilizes it to create additional detail on low detail simulations. In contrast to existing Fluid Mapping code, Wavelet Turbulence scales up the grid and adds detail that is not distorted over the time domain. Computation is fast and has lower memory demands compared to the simulation using same grid spacing.

FumeFX already has been production proven in titles such as 2012, Spiderman 3, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Superman Returns, Iron Man, The Host (Gwoemul) and various games cinematics such as Warhammer Online, Classic Transformers, Dante's Inferno and others.

Key Features

- Production proven results demonstrate this technology's ability to achieve realistic smoke and fire effects for cutting-edge industry applications.
- FumeFX supplements the user's artistic vision with the power of real-world physics for the ultimate in both style and realism.
- A multitude of parameters and FumeFX helpers give users maximum control of the fluid's behavior and appearance.
- Easy to use, basic effects can be created with just a few clicks.
- Options include the use of powerful AFC and Gradient controls, which are unified through all Sitni Sati products.
- Plug-in design incorporates extensive support for Particle Flow and Thinking Particles.
- Dynamic simulations allow for bi-directional influence between FumeFX and particle systems.
- Advanced scripting via MAXScript is possible with almost every aspect of FumeFX, including access to all simulation data.
- FumeFX is capable of dynamic interaction with other scene objects.
- For those technical artists who want to write their own shaders, a standalone rendering library is avilable for Windows and Linux, both 32 and 64 bit versions.

Simulation

- Start simulations from scratch or by using other simulation results as a starting point.
- Stop, pause and continue simulations at any point.
- Simulation is multithreaded - users can select how many CPU's to dedicate to their simulation.
- Users can watch the simulation progress in the interactive Preview Window.
- Draft simulations can be created in mere minutes for fast previewing.
- User has control of which data is written to output files for rendering and further processing.
- Wavelet Turbulence algorithm quickly adds extra detail to low resolution simulation caches while preserving the existing overall motion.
- Retimer is a very efficient and fast method to slow down or speed up caches without the need to re-run simulation.
- Post Processing module can significantly reduce cache size by optimizing grid size around smoke/fire. It also allows users to decide which channels will be excluded from the final caches.

Rendering

- mental ray for 3ds Max renderer support - available for both Windows and Linux.
- The Preview Window gives users almost instant feedback on render settings.
- Fast self-shadowing is produced through an Illumination Map which is integrated inside of the FumeFX object.
- A highly efficient Multiple Scattering model enhances light dispersion throughout fluid.
- Fluid Mapping integrates procedural map details with fluid motion.
- The dynamic FusionWorks atmospheric renderer provides:
- Render Elements: Fire, Smoke, Velocity
- Proper blending with AfterBurn and ScatterVL Pro.
- Balanced mixing of FumeFX and compatible atmospherics with 3ds Max Fog
- Ability to apply Image Motion Blur
- Option to affect Effect Channel
- Z depth



Related links:

afterworks.com

The cganim8or's Channel is where Blender User could find a lot of video tutorials.

Check it out !
Related links:

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Paramount Pictures’ “G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra,” a live-action film adaptation of the 1960s action figure’s evolution into a team of elite soldiers in Marvel Comics is so CG rich, it took 10 visual effects houses to make it. One of the contributors was CIS Hollywood (www.cishollywood.com), part of the award-winning CIS Visual Effects Group, which also has a studio in Vancouver, Canada. While they have worked on effects-packed shows in the past, this was definitely one of the biggest projects CIS Hollywood has tackled, says Diana Miao, who served as look development supervisor overseeing modeling, texturing and lighting. “There were hundreds of shots that included CG environments, set extensions, vehicles, props, and we also did a lot of digital doubles where we had to take live-action characters and create a CG version of them,” she explains.

CIS worked on the film for nearly a year. During that time, about 30 different artists did everything from modeling and texturing to lighting and compositing. Using MAXON’s BodyPaint 3D, Ben Dishart, CIS Hollywood’s lead texture artist, did the bulk of the texturing work while also acting as texture supervisor. “This was a fantastic project for us because there was so much painting and so many assets to work on,” says Dishart, who was trained as a technical illustrator and has been using CINEMA 4D since 2004.



CIS artists (who work on the Mac platform for BodyPaint 3D and Photoshop) used reference photos and concept artwork to create their 3D models with Autodesk’s Maya. Once the models were finished, Dishart began texturing them, going back-and-forth between BodyPaint 3D and Photoshop as he worked. “After importing the model into BodyPaint 3D I would select the view I wanted to work on and then send it over to Photoshop, where I took detail from reference photos and cloned it onto the model,” he explains.



Next, he saved his work into BodyPaint 3D so he could project it onto the geometry and change to the next view before repeating the process to cover the entire model. “There was never a question about using any other 3D paint package because BodyPaint 3D is the only one with the capability to paint on the overlapping geometry and across the UVs of multiple objects,” Dishart says. “I also like [the fact] that it’s really easy to use.”

While Digital Domain worked on the scenes in Paris and MPC’s London studio handled the underwater battles, CIS created G.I. Joe’s headquarters, located somewhere in the Sahara desert in an underground complex called “The Pit”. One of the most detailed parts of the headquarters scenes was the landing platform, which included a giant hydraulic lift used by planes doing vertical takeoffs and landings. Rendering was done with Pixar’s RenderMan, with some frames of the landing platform taking up to two hours to complete.



After receiving the model, Dishart used Maya to do the UV layout. Textures for all of the large, flat surfaces were done in Photoshop and BodyPaint 3D was used to create the dirt and grease layers on the hydraulic parts. “It was great because with BodyPaint 3D it’s so easy to just tumble the model around and paint directly on the surfaces,” says Dishart, who also used BodyPaint 3D to project the stripes on the pad so they lined up between the different pieces of geometry. Blue lights and vents around the platform’s edge were added as layers in Photoshop.



In addition to G.I. Joe’s headquarters, CIS also did several vehicles for the film. Of those, the Mole Pod, which was used by the evil Cobra organization to drill through the wall of the underground headquarters, was particularly fun to work on because Dishart and the other artists had a lot of freedom to develop the look they wanted. “The idea was that the pod itself was metal (with a composite, carbon steel drill bit) but it was covered with mud and dirt from drilling,” Dishart explains. “So we used BodyPaint 3D’s Brush tool to paint in a lot of different layers to build up that dirty look on top of clean, scratched metal.”





About Maxon:

MAXON Computer GmbH was founded in 1986 by the current CEOs Harald Egel, Harald Schneider and Uwe Bärtels. The company's headquarters is located in Friedrichsdorf, Germany, just north of Frankfurt Main.

In 1998 MAXON opened its U.S. subsidiary, MAXON Inc., in California and added its U.K. subsidiary, MAXON Ltd., in 2001. MAXON products are sold by over 40 distributors in over 70 countries worldwide.

In early 2000 the Munich, Germany-based Nemetschek AG (www.nemetschek.de) acquired a 70% share of MAXON. 30% remain in the ownership of the company founders.

MAXON Computer has established itself as one of the leading software developers for 3D graphics. MAXON began as a publisher of computer trade magazines and hardware and software developer. Over the years, MAXON's focus moved exclusively to the development of 3D software packages for graphics.

MAXON's product line is centered around its core applications CINEMA 4D, a leading animation package for media production, and BodyPaint 3D, its pioneering 3D painting package. These applications are characterized by their speed, dependability and state-of-the-art technology.

MAXON Computer works closely with numerous hardware manufacturers, often being the first to adapt its software to the newest technologies. MAXON's client list includes BMW AG, Henkel KgaA, mobilcom AG, Siemens VDO, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Vitra and many more. For more information please visit : www.maxon.net

About CIS:

CIS Visual Effects Group is an award winning international visual effects entity with facilities in Hollywood and Vancouver. The company services high-end feature film, television, commercial and gaming clients in the global marketplace. CIS Hollywood, founded in 1984, is one of the industry's most respected visual effects facilities. In early 2008, the company launched CIS Vancouver. With its boutique accessibility, the company has the capacity to service its clientele wherever production is situated.
Today's visual effects industry is polarized between behemoth 
facilities and small outfits with limited abilities. Filmmakers who can't get attention at the large companies often face the headache of parceling out shots among countless small shops.
Scalability and flexibility makes CIS a brilliant alternative, a mid-sized studio with the creative experience and 
technical acumen to offer a full range of services from 2D composites and rotoscoping to 
complex 3D tracking and CGI. CIS can expand its crew by tapping into a broad network of local freelance talent, bringing in the right people for the task at hand.
The studio uses the most efficient technology available. The hardware and software is widely understood by our pool of freelance talent. When a visual effects assignment grows in size during a production, as it often does, CIS efficiently scales up to the project in a cost effective way.

The CIS Visual Effects Group is a wholly-owned affiliate of Deluxe Entertainment Services Group Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc. For more information please visit : www.cisvfxgroup.com

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