fxguidetv #41 – John Dykstra
This week’s fxguidetv continues our “Masters of the Craft” series with a conversation with vfx legend John Dkystra. He sits down with Mike Seymour and chats about how he got started in the industry, the building of motion control systems, working on the first Star Wars movie, and how the digital age compares to the […]
Read the Articlefxguidetv #40 – John Knoll Interview
fxguidetv episode #40 is now available. We continue our “Masters of the Craft” series with a conversation with ILM vfx supervisor John Knoll. He covers his early days at ILM, the creation of Photoshop and Knoll Light Factory, and more….it’s a fun conversation outside of his usual work on films. The end of the episode […]
Read the Articlefxpodcast: Heroes vfx @ Stargate Digital
A new fxpodcast is out, and this week it is an interview with VFX Supervisor Eric Grenaudier from Stargate Digital about their work on the U.S. television series ‘Heroes’. The show recently started its third season in the United States, having been nominated for a visual effects Emmy in 2007 and 2008. Visit the fxpodcast […]
Read the ArticleRon Brinkmann Interview
In this week’s fxpodcast we speak to Ron Brinkmann about his new book The Art and Science of Compositing Ed. II and take time to both look back on the formation of Shake and also into what the future holds with regards to keying, roto and stereo workflow. Ron discusses his early days at Sony […]
Read the ArticleAutodesk Files Lawsuit Against Assimilate
Google alerts and several readers have let us know that Autodesk has filed a lawsuit in Canadian courts alleging that Assilimate is using intellectual property related to 5D’s Cyborg product, now owned by Autodesk (see justia.com). Autodesk purchased the IP related to Cyborg and three other 5D products in 2002 during liquidation proceedings in the […]
Read the ArticleHollywood
The 2nd installation of the Visual Amalgam Art Show was an enormous success, with an estimated eight hundred people attending the event at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica. The semi-annual event features the personal artwork of film industry and visual effects professionals. Show organizers and artists, Patrick Finley and Evan Jacobs, were thrilled with the […]
Read the ArticleHe Sees Dead People: Ghost Town
In the comedy Ghost Town, Rhinofx provided visual effects, but two effects in particular made us curious here at fxguide: a non motion control timelapse helicopter shot and the principle ghost passing through effect. We figured it would be interesting to find out how these two special visual effects were achieved, so we spoke to the team at Rhinofx.
Read the ArticleRED HYPE – RED BULL Round table
Around the Red community there was a strong reaction to an article posted about the RED and the HYPE vs the Reality of 4K, RAW and it valid use for Feature film production. To discuss the article we have recorded a round table discussion with film makers and geeks. This week’s special podcast finds Jason […]
Read the Articlefxguidetv #38 – Quick Takes from IBC
One of the things about trade shows is wandering around and finding the “little things” or surprises on the floor. In this ep we take a look back at a few of our faves in Amsterdam, including a new LCD reference monitor from Barco, cool gear coming out Sonnet, a look at Gridiron’s soon-to-be-in-public-beta Flow […]
Read the ArticleVisual Amalgam Art Show to feature art by VFX Pros
Visual Amalgam Art Show offers the public a rare opportunity to see personal artwork created by visual effects professionals behind some of the biggest motion pictures at one of the premier art venues in the Los Angeles area. Patrick Finley, a successful painter and visual effects artist for motion pictures, conceived the first Visual Amalgam […]
Read the ArticleMassive Mummy Clay Armies
Mummy 3 : Tomb of the Dragon Empero recently opened in secondary markets such as Australia. Digital Domain did some outstanding Massive work to bring the Armies of Mummy 3 to life, as well being responsible for the development and creation of the CG Emperor Mummy villain. We spoke to the DD team about their Massive experience and their procedural pipeline which is heavily reliant on Houdini.
Read the ArticleIt’s Raining White Papers: The Foundry’s Ocula Plugins
Contrats to the Foundry. Their Ocula stereo plugins received a ‘Best of IBC’ Award for Post Production by the IBC Daily/TVB Europe team. fxguidetv episode #037 contains an interview with Simon Robinson about the new plugins. The Foundry has published a ocula stereo whitepaper which provides more in-depth details about the technology behind the product.
Read the ArticleScarlet’s design pulled!
Well, RED said their specs were subject to change and not a week after saying RED would also be going into the DSLR camera market with their own video, stills hybrid, the company pulled photos of the Scarlet $3,000, 3K camera off its web site and said the camera is being fully rethought and redesigned. […]
Read the ArticleAutodesk Releases Stereoscopic Filmmaking Whitepaper
Autodesk released a Stereoscopic Filmmaking Whitepaper delivering a comprehensive understanding of the state of the industry and its current barriers. The whitepaper provides valuable knowledge for anyone curious about the future of Stereo 3D (S3D) and highlights current industry challenges from technical production complexities to studio considerations and theatrical acceptance. While the industry faces numerous […]
Read the Articlefxguidetv #37 – IBC, a look at Ocula and Eyeon’s latest
In our second fxguidetv episode from Amsterdam and IBC 2008 we get a look at the soon to be released Ocula plug-in from The Foundry for problem solving Stereoscopic images. Also a preview of what’s new in Fusion 6 and Generation from Eyeon. To be notified automatically and have the episodes downloaded in iTunes, subscribe […]
Read the ArticleCooke Optics /i Technology goes live on the RED ONE Camera
Cooke Optics Ltd., a premier manufacturer of precision lenses for the motion picture industry, has announced that its i/ Technology will be available on all RED ONE cameras that ship from 12 September 2008. Jarred Land, Fire Chief at RED, announced on the RED website on Friday 12 September that all new RED ONE cameras […]
Read the ArticleAutodesk Signs RED SDK License Agreement at IBC 2008
Autodesk Inc. has agreed to terms with the RED Digital Cinema Camera Company and has signed the RED R3D Software Developer’s Kit License Agreement. RED provides a high-performance digital cine camera with the quality of 35mm film and the convenience of pure digital. Autodesk is a world leader in entertainment and design software. Read more […]
Read the ArticleThomson Sells Thomson Grass Valley To Private Investors
Thomson announced that it is selling the Thomson Grass Valley equipment business to private investors led by PARTER Capital Group, a German private equity advisory firm. The sale includes the Spirit film scanning family, together with the Bones digital intermediate workflow tools and LUTher, a colour space management product. Financial terms of the sale are […]
Read the ArticleEmmys: John Adams
The series John Adams received 23 Emmy Award nominations, the most of any program this year. Among those was the nomination for Outstanding SVE for a Mini-series. This week we speak to Jeff Goldman, at CafeFX about their Emmy-nominated work. As second President of the United States, and one of the most influential Founding Fathers of the USA, the story spans decades of Adams’ life UPDATED: EMMY WINNER
Read the Articlefxguidetv #36 – The Road to IBC
On the way to Amsterdam John Montgomery stopped in Montreal to get an exclusive and in depth look at the latest releases for Flame and Smoke. Philippe Soeiro from Autodesk takes us through some of the exciting new features including 3D Particle presets, the transition to floating point workflow, real time deliverables and more. To […]
Read the ArticleILM to make full animated feature
After many years of rumor and possible projects, ILM is going to make a full animated feature film called Rango for director Gore Verbinski Variety is reporting. ILM of course worked with Verbinski on Pirates of the Caribbean and like that film the new animated film will star the voice and capture motion of Johnny […]
Read the Articlefxguidetv #34 – New Deal Studios, PFTrack 5.0
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. To be notified automatically and have the episodes […]
Read the ArticleRed Centre #14 : Scratch that
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 […]
Read the ArticleTropic Thunder
In this week’s fxpodcast, Mark Breakspear of CIS (formerly Rainmaker) discusses how Blades of Glory showed his company how fundamentally different the pipeline needs to be for visual effects in comedies. We follow up with more details and background in our online story.
Read the ArticleGenArts releases Sapphire Plug-ins for OFX
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 […]
Read the ArticleFox Sports HD is ripped
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 […]
Read the ArticleDemystifying Motion Capture Technique
The VES recently held a Motion Capture event where a range of motion capture experts presented a snap shot of the state of the art in the industry, David Stripinis reports a personal perspective, from someone who works with it daily.
Read the ArticleLabor Series Part Two: The Animation Guild
In this fxpodcast we speak with Steve Hulett, Business Representative for the The Animation Guild Local 839 IATSE. This is part of an ongoing series discussing the issues involved in labor laws, treatment of workers and general respect for visual effects in the industry.
Read the ArticleBrideshead: Houdini & Troubled Waters
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 […]
Read the Articlefxguidetv #32 from SIGGRAPH
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 […]
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