The first ever Nuke master class in London was held in Soho today and over 200 artists from all around Europe attended the event. The session was definitely geared towards artist-types and started with the Foundry’s Jon Waddleton covering python scripting for artists. There were also a ton of cool tips and tricks shown by Nuke gizmos guru Frank Rueter and artists Tahl Niran and Matt Leonard (favorites of fxphd.com members). Double Negative’s Roy Stelzer showed cool techniques for touchup relighting in 2.5D, with a nod to efficient irradiance environment maps developed by Ramamoorthi and Hanrahan. It was really a great session with a ton of fantastic tips and ideas.

The day closed with The Foundry divulging their short term plans for Nuke moving forward, with a presentation by Richard Shackleton. Click through for details about plans for version 5.2, nuke 6, and beyond…..
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A new episode of fxguidetv is available for your viewing pleasure. It features an interview with vfx supervisor Eric Durst, who chats with Mike Seymour about the craft of turning elements of a script into visual effects which help tell the story. Also, we have a look at a fun Levi’s 501 spec spot helmed by director Paul Schneider.

Visit the fxguidetv page for direct downloads and RSS feed links. To be notified automatically and have the episodes downloaded in iTunes, subscribe via this link.

The Foundry and Autodesk have rebuilt the arrangement we reported on earlier this month and the Foundry will once again fully develop Sparks for the Autodesk Systems products. We had reported earlier in the month on the complex issues leading to the Foundry slashing prices to just 10% of their normal price, and the loss of Autodesk developer status that would end further new Spark development. This has been fully solved and new Spark development will begin again immediately, meaning that all Foundry sparks will be fully supported & tested and the community can look forward to new Sparks for the Autodesk system products.

It also means that the price reduction to just 10% of original price (90% off) will also end in about two weeks – Feb 14th. Between now an Feb 14th you can buy the Foundry Plugins for the dramatically lower ‘dispute’ pricing of US$1000 per each of Tinder and Furnace (and $500 for keylight). After that date the Spark prices all return to normal. So if you have any plans to buy, our recommendation is don’t delay.

The three films nominated for the Visual Effects category for the 2008 Academy Awards are:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron

The Dark Knight
Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber and Paul Franklin

Iron Man
John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick and Shane Mahan

The Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2008 will be presented on Sunday, February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

A complete list of nominees can be found here.

Iron Man Leads with 5 Noms

The Visual Effects Society (VES) today announced the nominees for the 7^th Annual VES Awards ceremony recognizing outstanding visual effects in over a dozen categories of film, animation, television, commercials and video games.  Nominees were chosen Saturday, January 17, 2009, by numerous panels of VES members who viewed submissions at the FotoKem screening facilities in Burbank.  

In making the announcement, Jeffrey A. Okun, Chair of the Visual Effects Awards Committee said, “Because visual effects continue to grow in complexity and intensity, touching every aspect of the entertainment industry, we are proud to announce the nominees and their work, which have been deemed by the judges as the best of the best.  I congratulate all the artists on their achievements.”

The nominees for the 7^th Annual VES Awards are:
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Autodesk: cuts 750 jobs

We spoke to Autodesk overnight. They confirmed that 10% of jobs across the board had gone. Some friends from M&E division have gone, from offices around the world not just in Montreal. All of the final people have not even been decided, in some cases areas they have been told there will be cuts but the actual people have not been decided yet.

We did get from Corporate that it this is intended to not affect the product roadmap. “Like the rest of the business, the M&E division was impacted by the 10% workforce reduction. Product roadmaps haven’t changed as a result of this.” 

AVID: Returns to NAB.

We also spoke to AVID overnight and Paul Lypaczewski, VP and GM , Video and Amy Peterson, Head of PR confirmed that they will have a booth on the floor of NAB.. We pushed for more and if this signaled a major introduction and they replied “I can confirm that we will have a booth on the show floor, but that is about all I can share at this point. ” – they did however promise to let us know closer to the date.

The new year brings a new episode of fxguidetv and it’s a milestone for us: our 50th episode. We decided to have some fun at take a look back at some of our favorite moments from the past year and a half. What an 18 months it was! We also take a look ahead at the new term — featuring over 15 new courses — over at our sister site fxphd.com.

Visit the fxguidetv page for direct downloads and RSS feed links. To be notified automatically and have the episodes downloaded in iTunes, subscribe via this link.

In addition, 2009 marks the year of our 10th anniversary of fxguide.com! 10 years….whoudda thunk it?If you want a glimpse into our past, its fun to check out the archive over at the internet archive wayback machine.

Last, but certainly not least, Mike, Jeff, and I want to thank you: our readers, listeners, and viewers. While the three of us have certainly had a blast doing the site, it means a great deal to us to have your support over the years….it’s the oxygen that keeps us going. Thanks!

The British Academy Film Awards nominations were announced today. Nominees for the category Special Visual Effects are:

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button – Eric Barba, Craig Barron, Nathan McGuinness, Edson Williams
The Dark Knight- Chris Corbould, Nick Davis, Paul Franklin, Tim Webber
Indiana Jones and The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull- Pablo Helman
Iron Man – Shane Patrick Mahan, John Nelson, Ben Snow
Quantum Of Solace – Chris Corbould, Kevin Tod Haug

full list here

The powerful but affordable SynthEyes camera tracking application is now available in a 64-bit version for OS X Leopard. The new version provides a bit of a speed increase, but the main benefit with a 64-bit app is the ability to use more than 4 GB of RAM. This is useful for maintaining longer and higher resolution imagery in RAM for playback, calculations, and such.

The 64-bit app is available as a $200USD upgrade from the current OS X 32-bit SynthEyes 2008. Other upgrade paths are also available. Click through to read more from the press release.

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As foreshadowed in the rumor mill yesterday, Autodesk today announced 3 new OS X versions of their products: Toxik, Mudbox, and ImageModeler. The most interesting development is probably the release of Toxik, which brings a new high end compositing package to the Apple platform. The rumor of on OS X Toxik version has existed for years, but possibly with its increased interopability with Maya 2009 (which is on OS X), the powers that be felt the time was right to do a full up version for the platform. Mudbox is also being developed on OS X for the first time.

While ImageModeler has existed in past releases on the OS X platform, it’s good to see the continuing development of the product since RealVIZ came under the Autodesk banner.

Hopefully, this foreshadows the fact that Autodesk will be simultaneously releasing new software releases on all platforms. For the full press release from Autodesk, click through….

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