2010 Scientific and Technical Academy Award Winners announced
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced the winners of the Sci-Tech awards. Scientific and Engineering the awards go to: Dr. Mark Sagar for facial motion retargeting solutions, Mark Noel and John Frazier for NAC Servo Winch System, James Rodnunsky, Alex MacDonald and Mark Chapman for the development of the Cablecam 3-D […]
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Director: Deathly Hallows animation
One aspect of HP7 part 1 continuing to receive an incredible amount of praise is the animated ‘Tale of the Three Brothers’ sub-story directed by Ben Hibon and executed by Framestore. fxInsider talks to Hibon how he approached the sequence and making it fit into the Harry Potter universe, in the lead up to the Oscars.
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Dneg: Paul Franklin & Nathan McGuinness
Double Negative has worked on 4 of the 7 films in this year’s Oscar Bake Off. Plus is now on John Carter of Mars and Captain America. Also the Singapore office has just appointed former Asylum VFX CEO Nathan McGuinness as that office’s Creative Director. We talk to McGuinness about his new role. Plus we have an fxpodcast with Dneg vfx supe Paul Franklin about the studio’s proprietary software tools.
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Short List announced for VFX Oscar, 7 head to Bake Off
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that the “long list” of 15 films eligible for the Achievement in Visual Effects for the 83rd Academy Awards® has been whittled down to the “short list” of seven films. The members of the Academy’s Visual Effects Branch Executive Committee decided which seven films will […]
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Foundry Formally Announces KATANA Plans
The Foundry issued a press release today formally detailing their plans for KATANA. Created in house at Sony Pictures Imageworks, KATANA is a look development tool specifically targeted towards to the demands of production: non-destructive, dealing with large amounts of data, and collaboration’ At the end of last year, fxguide traveled to SIGGRAPH Asia and […]
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Bullet open source physics engine
Several of the top visual effects studios and game developers are now adopting the Bullet open source physics engine for collision detection and rigid body dynamics work. We talk exclusively to Bullet’s main author Erwin Coumans about the current implementation of the physics engine and its future development.
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Emotion capture
A short ILM/Paramount video on Rango Emotion Capture. Download mov We wanted to post this as it is an interesting way of capturing a more animated acting performance. We have often wondered why this was not done before now – it seems like such a more friendly actor environment than just doing a straight to […]
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New Courses at fxphd.com
A new term has just been launched at fxphd.com for film and TV professionals. This term is focused on three main areas: – workflow from not only a variety of cameras & formats but with a special focus on stereo production (including RED Arri-RAW, HD-SR and more) – along side this is several courses focused […]
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Yogi Bear live action CG integration
For Yogi Bear, Rhythm & Hues mixed 3D versions of the beloved Hanna-Barbera characters with live action whilst preserving the popular elements of the 2D cartoons. We talk to visual effects supervisor Betsy Paterson and animation director Joe Ksander about getting the right performances out of a 3D Yogi and Boo Boo.
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Only EPIC camera delivered has been stolen, $100,000 reward offered
In our most recent Red Centre podcast we talked with Mark L. Pederson from OffHollywood about receiving the very first EPIC camera to be shipped to a customer by RED, serial #00006. On REDuser.net today comes word that this camera was stolen from a chalet in the alps when thieves forced entry and took the […]
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fxpodcast: Steven Poster, ASC
Steven Poster, ASC is the National President of the International Cinematographers Guild, Local 600 of I.A.T.S.E.. In this fxpodcast we discuss his background, the relationship between visual effects and cinematographers, color correction, digital cinematography and the recent efforts to organize visual effects. Visit the fxpodcast page for direct downloads and RSS feed links. To be […]
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The VFX Tourist
Visual effects supervisor Ted Rae oversaw nearly 400 shots for The Tourist, a romantic Venetian comedy thriller starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. We take a look at how Rae simulated a critical train journey and re-arranged the rooftops of Venice for the film.
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Enter the Void made by fx
Director Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void follows drug dealing teen Oscar who, after being killed in Tokyo, watches over his sister from the otherworld. Images of Oscar’s subjective POV, many based on hallucinations and near death experiences, were created and augmented by Paris studio BUF. Vfx sup. Geoffrey Niquet talks to us about the unique nature of the film.
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Yet Another Facility Closes: CafeFX
We received an email today from Jeff Barnes and David Ebner, announcing that CafeFX/ComputerCafe have decided to shut down. This comes after a downsizing earlier this year. It saddens us here at fxguide to hear the news of their closing and wish everyone the best. The outstanding company has worked on a number of visual […]
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Toy Story 3 technical podcast : Siggraph Asia
fxguide attended Siggraph Asia and caught up with Brian Green of Pixar (California). Brian has the unique distinction of being the character supervisor of the “most successful animated movie of all time” twice. The Academy Award-winning feature “Finding Nemo” broke all box office records in 2003, and “Toy Story 3” broke box office records in […]
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3D or real: Above Everything Else
When we first saw Alex Roman’s work in ‘Above Everything Else’, a 60″ spot for Silestone kitchen worktops, we were blown away by the 3D realism. So we got in contact with Alex to talk about what was real, what was CG and how the spot was achieved. Beside we figured 1.2 Million views on Vimeo cant be wrong.
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TRON: Legacy, Face off
TRON: Legacy expands on Digital Domain’s already incredibly impressive face replacement work in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. We speak in depth to 4 members of the Digital Domain team and plot the exact steps required to pull off the 165 Clu character shots in TRON: Legacy.
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Nuke 6.2 Ships
The Foundry has just a new major release of its powerful compositing applications NUKE and NUKEX 6.2. Now shipping, this release encompasses artist feedback to deliver continued refinements to core operations whilst also incorporating the new technology. Most significantly the new image-based modeling and projection tools will advance artists’ ability to create and use scene […]
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Dawn Treader Podcasts
We have two new podcasts, The Red Centre podcast focused on digital cinematography and a new fxpodcast – both covering different aspects of the new film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. We speak in a frank and in-depth interview with Angus Bickerton, the VFX supervisor for the film. Part 1 […]
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Narnia: The Dawn Treader’s VFX Crew
For The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, visual effects supervisor Angus Bickerton led the creation of some 1400 shots in the third film adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ fantasy series. We highlight a number of the key effects by Framestore, MPC, Cinesite, The Senate and The Mill.
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Imagineer Shipping mocha pro, Improved mocha AE
We’ve been fans of Imagineer’s mocha, mokey, and monet products and the planar tracking technology that forms the foundation of the offerings. But in the past we’ve also honestly been a bit confused with the lineup and what product did what. So at IBC when we learned that they were simplifying their lineup into three […]
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Click3X Lego Fun
Stop-motion photography and visual effects by Click 3X helped bring together Build Together, a :30 spot promoting the joys of LEGO construction. We take a look at how the commercial was created. Click here for the Quicktime The brief for Build Together centred around LEGO’s new online experience to share the building experience at home. […]
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15 selected as semifinalists for VFX Oscar
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 15 films have been selected as semifinalists for Achievement in Visual Effects for the 83rd Academy Awards®. In early January, the members of the Academy’s Visual Effects Branch Executive Committee, who selected the semifinalists, will narrow the list to seven. Those seven will go […]
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Mirada – Purveyors of Handmade Storytelling
After a string of bad industry news it is great to be able to bring news of a new venture. Mirada is a new production studio that will develop and produce television programming, video games, commercials and films. Designed for storytellers, the studio is a collaboration between director Guillermo del Toro, Motion Theory principals Mathew […]
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RV now integrates with Nuke
Tweak Software announces today that their image sequence viewer product RV is now integrated seamlessly within Nuke. This integration makes the player much more integrated to Nuke than just a flipbook, RV communicates with Nuke over a live connection. To be clear RV is still a separate product, requiring purchase from Tweak Software, there is […]
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Airgrade from Pixel Farm
Ok we would not normally post about a free ap in the itunes Ap store, but this one is just so much fun and indicative of how in the last few years we have moved from multi-million dollar grading suites to free iphone aps. Our friends at Pixel Farm have posted Airgrade. Now unlike most […]
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Several visual effects shops contributed to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 under overall vfx supe Tim Burke. In this article we continue our coverage of the film by focussing on the signature shots by MPC and Cinesite and the work of Double Negative, Framestore, Rising Sun Pictures and Baseblack.
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Assimilate (Scratch): What’s the story?
On twitter this week we posted that Assimilate had settled with Autodesk over the long running law suit. We also heard that Lucas Wilson – for many the public face of Assimilate – had moved on to 3alitydigital. Luckily, we also discovered that an old friend of fxguide – Steve Bannerman had left GenArts to […]
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Spiderman 4 starts shooting Epic Stereo
RED announced today that Spider-Man 4, to be directed by Marc Webb, will be shot in Stereo on the EPIC, with filming beginning today. EPIC is RED’s successor to the 4K RED ONE. It offers 60% more resolution by relying on a 5K sensor and can shoot at frame rates up to 120 fps. A […]
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Black Swan takes wings
For Black Swan, director Darren Aronofsky turned to Look Effects to help bring his dark New York ballerina story to life. Look’s visual effects supervisor Dan Schrecker oversaw 220 shots for the film, from full CG swan wings to prosthetic augmentation, face replacements and other enhancements.
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