Photoshop CS5 : new HDR imaging & content aware
Today Adobe unveiled CS5 – there are multiple applications in CS5, but for many Photoshop and After Effects are the most vital. In fxguidetv later this week we will profile the new AE, while in this article we take a critical look at Photoshop’s HDR and Content Aware functions. Plus we’ll explain and list the JDI fixes.
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fxguidetv: Flame/Smoke 2011 Releases
Our first fxguidetv episode from NAB covers the new Flame and Smoke 2011 releases from Autodesk. This is one of the biggest releases in years, adding stereoscopic support, an entirely new rendering engine in Action, and an improved footage import workflow that includes “import history”. We have over an hour of interviews that cover the […]
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Exclusive: Foundry Storm revealed
As The Foundry booth was being built around us, the fxguide crew managed to get the world’s first Storm demo. Storm is a workflow tool, initially aimed at working with RED files, highly focused and leveraged off a wealth of GPU R&D and years of GUI development. Storm will not be released for several months but in this exclusive look we profile the product, uncover its projected cost and discover a few surprises.
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Nuke on Episodic TV @ Fusefx
When Burbank-based visual effects studio FuseFX began working on the new season of Showtime’s “United States of Tara,” it turned to Nuke, The Foundry’s powerful compositing application, which is normally thought of as primarily a feature film compositing tool, or for CG/3D multi-pass TVC workflow. As the series requires extensive green screen effects, given the […]
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fxpodcast with Tom Walsh, President of the Art Directors Guild
As part of our continuing labor series we sit down with Tom Walsh, President of the Art Directors Guild to discuss the role of the Guild. We talk about job categories represented by the Guild, the global business, how the Guild relates to the visual effects business and much more. Tom is also a working […]
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New fxguidetv Mari @ the foundry
In the new fxguidetv episode we have an exclusive first look at the texturing and paint software Mari with The Foundry’s Bill Collis and Jack Greasley. Mari was developed at Weta as the in house tool, and is now moving to the Foundry. Mari is a remarkable paint and texturing tool able to handle very […]
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The tech behind the tools of Avatar part 2: Naiad
Avatar won Best single visual effect of the year at the VES for the Neytiri “leaf drinking shot” – central to that was the new Naiad fluid tool. Exotic Matter’s Naiad is an extremely powerful fluid tool that is about to go into Beta following extensive development from its use on Avatar.
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New Version of Silhouette Released
Silhouette has always been an incredibly strong tool, in large part due to its dedication to a specific task: roto. This week, version 4 was released which contains major enhancements and additions to the application. The first is what is called “Power Matte”, which uses inner-outer shape algorithms to determine the edges of the object. […]
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VFX Town Hall #1 Audio File
If you missed the first VFX Town Hall meeting we are helping with bandwidth by hosting the mp3 of the audio recording of the event. You can listen by using this link.
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VFX Town Hall – Community Links
One of the things we have been impressed with since the town hall was announced is the grass roots growth we have seen in the community. People have been taking full advantage of tools on the internet like wiki’s and google documents to share information and help develop guidelines. After the jump you will find […]
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Digital Domain: The Lightning Thief
For Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, director Chris Columbus and visual effects supervisor Kevin Mack looked to Digital Domain to create some of the key creatures and effects in the film. We talk to DD’s visual effects supervisor Kelly Port and animation supervisor Erik Gamache about their work for the Hydra beast, the six-winged Fury character and the film’s final New York face-off.
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VFX Town Hall – how did it go, what did it mean?
Last night the first in a series of online town hall meetings was held – organized by Lee Stranahan, the panelists were Chris deFaria -Vice President, Warner Bros. Pictures, Jefferey A. Okun – Visual Effects Society Chair and visual effects supervisor and Scott Ross – Co-Founder of Digital Domain & former CEO of Industrial, Light […]
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Exclusive: Foundry NAB Preview
In this sneak peak we outline the new products from the foundry to be shown for the first time at NAB 2010 in Las Vegas. New products include the acquisition of Weta’s Paint and texturing program Mari, a new optical flow tool for AE and new Nuke versions.
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Reminder – VFX Online Townhall Meeting
Monday, March 29th at 7pm (Pacific) there will be “an open discussion of a visual effects industry in transition”. This free online townhall meeting has been put together by Lee Stranahan, a former visual effects artist and writer for The Huffington Post whose Open Letter To James Cameron: Fairness For VIsual Effects Artists sparked a […]
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Leap Year – Cinesite
Cinesite visual effects supervisor Matt Johnson takes us through the invisible effects of Anand Tucker’s Leap Year, a film in which Amy Adams plans to propose to her boyfriend in Dublin on leap day – Feburary 29th.
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Green Zone – Double Negative
In Green Zone, director Paul Greengrass tells the story of rogue U.S. Army Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) in the search for weapons of mass destruction during the Second Iraq War. Double Negative augmented numerous locations to double as Baghdad, created CG helicopters and devised other visual effects for the film. We sat down with Dneg’s visual effects supervisor Charlie Noble and co-CG supervisors Julian Foddy and Dan Neal.
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I am the DJ
DJ Hero, the popular Activision console game, features a frenetic introduction created by Framestore and directed by Marco Puig. In the intro, the game’s main DJ characters are terrorised by a giant LP needle inside a vinyl planet. Visual effects supervisor Diarmid Harrison-Murray and digital producer Mike Woods tell fxguide how it came together.
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Orphan with Image Engine
For Orphan, overall visual effects supervisor Richard Yuricich called on Image Engine to realise several sequences in the film, including a burning children’s tree house set alight by a seemingly evil girl with her adopted brother still inside. Image Engine visual effects supervisor Robin Hackl and visual effects producer Steve Garrad discuss their work with fxguide.
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CafeFX “Downsizing and retooling, not closing”
All week there have been rumors that CafeFX is closing. Today Jeff Barnes responded to this chatter by way of David S. Cohen at Variety who said via Twitter (@Variety_DSCohen): Jeff Barnes of CafeFX texted me they are “downsizing and retooling, not closing.” and “Barnes of CafeFX also writes “We did NOT lay everyone off. […]
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Hurt Locker Special Effects: Physical Bombs
In Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar winning The Hurt Locker, a U.S. Army bomb squad unit in Iraq confronts the threat of IEDs and more . Helping to bring the physicality of that threat to the film was special effects supervisor Richard Stutsman. In this Q&A we talk to Stutsman, who recently received a BAFTA nomination for Special Visual Effects, about the difficulties his team faced in creating explosions in Jordan and about keeping everything real.
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Nuke Stereo Master Class Plus 6.1 Preview
The Foundry held its second Master Class in London on Friday, playing to packed house at the Vue theatre in Leicester Square. The event was standing-room only, having given away all the seats in only 24 hours when it was announced earlier this year. The event focused on stereoscopic production and post…a timely program after […]
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New Moon Rising on DVD
New Moon, the second film in the Twilight series, is just out on DVD.Director Chris Weitz and visual effects supervisor Susan MacLeod called on Tippett Studios to bring to life a pack of large wolves. We speak to some of Tippett’s key visual effects team about the creation of the wolves.
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CORE is closing down
It appears that C.O.R.E Digital is closing down. C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, was one of Canada’s leading digital visual effects and animation studios, based in Toronto, Ontario. The company is closing very abruptly, it seems. Reports on the net are circulating that this closure was so sudden employees entitlements may be in question, (we have not […]
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Sherlock Holmes
Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes recently received the Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Feature Motion Picture prize at the 8th annual VES Awards. Vfx supervisor Chas Jarrett led the effort behind more than 1000 effect shots to recreate Victorian London in 1891. In this article, we focus on three visual effects sequences from the film: the shipyard fight and the wharf explosion shot, both by Framestore, and the Tower Bridge shots by DNeg.
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Bunny power
French studio Digital District completed the animation for ‘Bunny Fusion’, a Duracell Ultra spot directed by Pleix via Ogilvy Paris. In the spot, hoards of Duracell bunnies launch themselves in massive numers as a waterfall then morph into a tornado, sumo wrestler, elephant and finally a steaming train.
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ImageMovers Digital Closing
It was announced today that ImageMovers Digital in Marin County will be closing after completing Mars Needs Moms, expected to be January 2011. ImageMovers Digital was built by Robert Zemekis with Disney and is best known for producing A Christmas Carol. We first heard this news from a San Francisco friend’s Facebook posting, then a […]
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Alice in Wonderland
Tim Burton’s re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland features a cast of real and digital characters, plus some that are in-between. One such character is the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) who appears on screen with an enormous and imposing head care of visual effects by Sony Pictures Imageworks. In this interview we focus on the Red Queen shots by talking to Carey Villegas, one of Imageworks’ visual effects supervisors on the film.
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Ok Syyn Labs Go…Adam Sadowsky
In the last 48 hours an amazing video has swept the net. The OK Go “This Too Shall Pass” music video – built and engineered by a creative geek group of mad scientists, art lovers, and inspired geniuses that collectively go by the name of Syyn Labs. As Adam Sadowsky, of Syyn Labs, was getting […]
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The tech behind the tools of Avatar part 1: Ocula
Ocula is at the very heart of the new post-production tools that have emerged to deal with stereo. Nuke and Ocula were used extensively on Avatar, and we explore the lessons learned with Simon Robinson, Chief Scientist of the Foundry. Ocula, in particular, is a real partnership between filmmakers on the cutting edge and the UK software developer.
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Visual Effects link roundup
The internet has been particularly active this week with visual effects news. Here is a list of links that we found interesting, if we missed any please add to comments and if we find more this week we’ll add them here. Visual Effects related links: Wall Street Journal: Working as a Visual Effects Artist Shoot: […]
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