The Life, a live action short directed by MJZ’s Rupert Sanders to promote the launch of Halo 3: ODST for the Xbox 360, features visual effects by Asylum as we follow Tarkov, an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, through training and a major battle sequence. Visual effects supervisor and lead compositor Rob Moggach tells fxguide how Asylum added elements and grit to the live action.

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Late last year, The Foundry announced a tech sharing agreement with Sony Pictures Imageworks which included access to SPI’s Katana 3D software. Since that time, there has been some discussion (even grumbling) on the net and mailing lists about The Foundry losing focus regarding the heart of Nuke: compositing. If you’ve watched some of the recent fxguidetv episodes, you’ve also seen how the 2D and 3D worlds are becoming closely entwined via 3D compositing techniques and tricks. The Foundry’s Head of Product Development, Richard Shackleton, tries to put the concerns to rest in a recent post on the company blog.

The Foundry also recently released a group of brand new Nuke tutorials on their website. Nuke experts Frank Reuter and Steve Wright cover introductory aspects of the software as well as individual nodes, python scripting, and various workflows.

For those of you who have been in seclusion for the last 3 years, we also have an ongoing Nuke curriculum over at fxphd.com. We have a total of five Nuke courses this term, including a new Nuke 6 course and a new Nuke cgi relighting offering.

In Shorts, director Robert Rodriguez delivers his trademark colourful imagery to tell the story of a young boy’s wish-granting rock discovery. Working alongside the director were artists at Rodriguez’s own Troublemaker Studios who, with other effects studios, delivered a bevy of fun visual treats, including an impressive booger monster. Troublemaker’s Chris Olivia talks to fxguide about his contribution to the film.

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The Foundry has released two new versions of their Nuke compositing software, Nuke 6.0 and NukeX 6.0. Nuke 6.0 includes a completely new shape rotoscope and paint toolset and also bundles Keylight as a standard feature. NukeX 6.0 contains a new 3D camera tracker, lens distortion tools, depth generator, and Furnace Core — 12 Furnace plugins which are bundled with the higher end Nuke offering.

Downloads can be found for Linux, Mac and Windows at The Foundry download page. However, enjoy the weekend, as licenses for customers entitled to the upgrade are due to be mailed out on Monday.

For the full press release, click through….
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Avatar, District 9, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Hurt Locker and Star Trek have been nominated for British Academy Film Awards in the category Special Visual Effects. The Orange British Academy Film Awards take place on February 21st at The Royal Opera House, London.

A complete list of nominees can be found at the BAFTA site and the names attached to the visual effects nominations can be found after the jump…
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The VES nominations have been released a tad early it seems by the Hollywood Reporter, which is claiming James Cameron’s “Avatar” led the list of nominations scoring 11 nominations.

The animated “Coraline,”also released in Stereo, followed with four nominations.

New Zealand-based Weta Digital, which worked on “Avatar,” led the company noms with nine.

For visual effects in an effects-driven motion picture feature, the nominees are “2012,” “Avatar,” “District 9,” “Star Trek” and “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”

Noms for supporting visual effects in a movie went to “Angels & Demons,” “The Box,” “Invictus,” “The Road” and “Sherlock Holmes.”

“9,” “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,” “Caroline,” “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” and “Up” were nominated for outstanding animation in an animated feature.

VES noms in 20 categories, covering film, animation, TV, commercials and video games were chosen Saturday by blue-ribbon panels of VES members, meeting in Burbank, San Francisco and London.

Information on the Night and the James Cameron Special Award: VES Awards site

UPDATE: FULL PRESS RELEASE WITH ALL THE NOMINEES
AFTER THE READ MORE….
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At last year’s SIGGRAPH in New Orleans, Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI) announced their open source initiative in 5 areas. At the time, we spoke with Rob Bredow in fxguidetv episode #69 about this and other happenings at Sony.

Today, SPI released the alpha version of the source code for their Open Shading Language (OSL) at code.google.com. The shading language was developed at SPI to work with its in-house renderer and is built to be adaptable to advancements in rendering technology.

For the full press release from SPI and how OSL is different from other languages, click through….

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Yesterday on the net, a story started circulating that Panavision was suing Canon over the use of HD Video from a CMOS Sensor. The rumours started flying that Panavision would no longer rent Canon gear, and that might include even Canon lenses.

Here is the truth, as best we can verify. In a March 2009 FCC filing in the USA: Omnivision technologies disclosed that they were a complainant in an alleged Patent infringement. The Case: Panavision Imaging, LLC v. OmniVision Technologies, Inc., Canon U.S.A., Inc., Micron Technology, Inc. and Aptina Imaging Corporation, Case No. CV09-1577.(full excerpt after the more link below)

We contacted Panavision USA, and Derrick O. Boston, EVP & General Counsel Pres., Advanced Imaging Group Panavision Imaging, confirmed that one of Panavision’s subsidiaries is in fact suing Canon and other companies – and that the FCC reference is true and on going. As it is continuing they can not discuss it.

We can also disprove the assertion that Panavision no longer rents any Canon gear. As recently as yesterday Panavision offices were happily renting Canon cameras and gear.

The reality is that Patent infringements are alleged to happen a lot and often suit begets counter suit. We do not know yet the full details of this particular case, but even if the case is found in Panavision’s favor it is a huge jump from that to any impact on retail sales, rentals or pricing of cameras. Canon, should it loose, would most likely arrive at a deal with Panavision, or swap patents or appeal, – as is the case with most of these such patent cases. Omnivision is bound to disclose such issues but is unable to comment on them. Without any insider knowledge one could bet this will prove a storm in a tea cup for anyone but the lawyers involved. (If it is not a tea cup storm – we’ll be the first to report it).

Full excerpts are below

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fxguide/fxphd and the boutique post house Hootenanny are hosting an Autodesk Smoke on Mac event on Thursday, January 14th in Chicago. It’s an event being run by Autodesk and reseller Midwest Media Group. You’ve read the articles on fxguide about the release, now come and see it yourself and get your questions answered in person. There will be several systems set up so you can try it yourself on a Mac system built for Smoke.

Product specialists from Autodesk such as Paul Andrews, Bill Ennis and others, smoke editor and fxphd prof Brian Higgins, and the tech crew from Midwest Media Group will be on hand to answer questions. Oh…and yeah, I’ll be there too. We’d love you to come by and see Smoke on Mac as well as check out the new fxguide/fxphd digs.

To register for the event and more details, visit http://smokeonmac.eventbrite.com

New fxpodcast
Part 1 of our coverage of Avatar. An in depth interview with Joe Letteri, senior vfx supervisor for Weta Digital, discussing details of mocap/facial capture tech and other aspects of their work on Avatar.
www.fxguide.com/fxpodcast.html

New Red Centre
We kick off 2010 as we aim to continue, RED news, DSLR chat, gear reviews and ratholes. Happy New Year!
www.fxguide.com/redcentre