During Siggraph we decided to break from the show floor and visit New Deal Studios to talk with Ian Hunter and Matthew Gratzner about their fantastic work on The Dark Knight. We also talk with Richard Spohrer from The Pixel Farm about the next version of PFTrack.

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The new Red Centre #14 is out. This week we discuss the RED DLSR and start a series looking at Red Post gear - starting with Assimilate Scratch.

Visit our red centre page to listen or subscribe via RSS or iTunes.

As always we’d love to hear from you please email us at Red at fxguide.com

GenArts is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Sapphire Plug-ins for OFX products. Our entire collection of more than 200 Sapphire effects can now be easily applied by users of The Foundry’s Nuke, Autodesk Toxik, Eyeon Fusion, FilmLight Baselight, Digital Vision Film Master, and Assimilate Scratch.

Click through for more details and the rest of the release….
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When Fox Sports On-Air team decided to unveil a new HD Identity they wanted to create something that would feel entirely new, unique and special.

Their new ID needed to showcase the featured sports Fox broadcasts (the NFL, MLB, and NASCAR) and do so in a way that would illustrate the power of watching sports in HD. Vibrancy, color, clarity, and richness were the key design elements Fox Sports were looking for, they tapped into Amsterdam-based Renascent to create this piece for them. Working with Fox Sports CD’s Josh Nichols and Mark Simmons along with Fox Producer Keith Hritz, Renascent developed a stunning take on footage being shred into metallic ribbons.

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Brideshead Revisited,” Miramax Films’ recently released feature adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel, is peppered with seamless invisible visual effects created by CIS London. Working closely with the film’s director, Julian Jarrold, visual effects supervisor Adam Gascoyne oversaw the challenging subtleties that were essential in bringing Jarrold’s version of the classic story to life.

fxguide spoke to the vfx artist in London.
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A new episode of fxguidetv is up today, with more from last week’s SIGGRAPH conference in Los Angeles. Motion capture seemed to take center stage on the exhibition floor this year, and we cover it from two angles. First, Jeff Heusser visits House of Moves in Los Angeles to see real-world applications of motion tracking technology. Then, Mike Seymour stops by the Organic Motion booth to check out their markerless tracking technology.

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In this episode we continue our Siggraph 2008 coverage from Los Angeles. We look at what Autodesk is doing with Stereoscopic, get the scoop on the latest developments in Fusion, and have some fun in the New Technology area.

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In this our first netcast from Siggraph we follow up on last week’s netcast with Paul Debevec. We speak to the team at Image Metrics about the facial animation of Emily. In an interview with the real actress she herself did not believe the animation was not just footage of her. This could represent the bridge to the other side of the uncanny divide of unnatural facial animation.

fxguidetv will be netcasting multiple episodes this week from SIGGRAPH 2008 in Los Angeles. To be notified automatically and have the episodes downloaded in iTunes, subscribe via this link. Visit the fxguidetv page for the direct RSS feed links.

At Siggraph fxguide/fxphd hosted a roof top party. Recorded live at the event is this week’s fxguide podcast simulcast with fxphdod. The event was great fun and the combined knowledge of all the attendees made the podcast both a lot of fun and vaguely informative ! Thanks so much to everyone who attended - it was great to see you there and watch the sunset over Los Angeles.

guidetv will be netcasting multiple episodes from SIGGRAPH 2008 in Los Angeles. To be notified automatically and have the episodes downloaded in iTunes, subscribe.

MAXON Computer introduced a new version of their flagship CINEMA 4D product at SIGGRAPH this week. The tool has long been a favorite of motion graphics professionals and is also used in numerous other applications. A number of huge new features have been added to the software, including built-in support for Pixar’s Renderman, a new global illumination model, improvements to the texture painting-focused BodyPaint 3D, 64-bit on OSX, and more.

Click through for the full press release from Maxon….

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