Atmosphere Visual Effects: Emmy Winner

September 24, 2007

This week we honor winners of 2007 Emmy Awards, starting with Atmosphere Visual Effects for their amazing work on Battlestar Galactica. The work is all the more exceptional considering it is episodic television – done week in, week out. Coming up later in the week, we’ll speak to other category winners from this year’s outstanding collection of Visual Effects submissions.

Read the Article
fxfeatured

fxguidetv: flame2008, Nuke Tech Preview – Shot on RED

September 13, 2007

A new episode of fxguidetv is up which has interviews with Philippe Soeiro from Autodesk who talks about the new 2008 smoke and flame releases. We also speak with Matt Plec from the Foundry about what they were showing at IBC, which is a technology preview of the upcoming Nuke — complete with a brand […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

New Autodesk Site: myfirstflame.com

September 12, 2007

Autodesk has rolled out a new web site targeted towards flame users called myfirstflame.com. It’s a fun site with some longtime flame users such as Sheena Duggal, Jake Parker, Vico Sharabani, and more. It also has links to the past NAB tutorials, including the presentation I gave earlier this year. Fill out the survey and […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

Flame and Smoke 2008 @ IBC

September 12, 2007

New versions of flame 2008 and smoke 2008 were at IBC this weekend. The most striking thing is that the UI has been adjusted to fully take advantage of the 16:9 screen. Yes…time to give that muscle memory a bit of a shock. The smoke release has a totally reworked DVE module, inspired by the Action module, as it provides compatibility with the effects app. Read why you’ll want them….

Read the Article
fxfeatured

Emmy winners

September 10, 2007

Congrats to the winners of this year’s creative Emmys. Dexter, Battlestar Galactica and NightMares & Dreamscapes. Outstanding work once again in this years 59th Prime Time Emmy awards. Outstanding Main Title Design: Dexter (Showtime) Eric Anderson, Creative Director Josh Bodnar, Editor Lindsay Daniels, Designer Colin Davis, Main Title Producer Oustanding Special Visual Effects for a […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

RED Podcast discussion

September 6, 2007

Jeff Heusser and Mike Seymour have an informal discussion about the new RED, their experiences on set with them and most importantly the post pipeline. You can download from the right hand side podcasting panel on our homepage or from iTunes. Coming up on fxguide . . . In addition to our audio podcasts, we […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

The Film Industry is Broken

September 4, 2007

Stu Maschwitz over on his ProLost blog has written a must read article titled “The Film Industry is Broken” about the lack of a Universal Color Metadata format.

Read the Article
quicktakes

PFTrack 4.1 Now Shipping

September 4, 2007

The Pixel Farm is pleased to announce PFTrack 4.1 is now shipping. Released at Siggraph this year, the additional features within PFTrack 4.1 – including the addition of Autodesk FBX and Apple Motion file format and support for Vista – further enhance the company’s well established reputation for innovation in the field of high-end digital […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

Shooting with RED

September 3, 2007

Saturday was our first day shooting with the RED Camera. We know the community is keen to see real shots and we will publish more in coming days and weeks. For now, we aim to address the expectation of RED with the reality of filming with it. It is after all a camera – it exists to produce footage – and so that is what we did.

Read the Article
fxfeatured

RED Day: The Launch in LA

September 1, 2007

RED has begun shipping their RED ONE camera After many people initially questioned the project and some even called it a sham, the RED team today proudly delivered their first 25 cameras. We were there to pick up our camera number 22. In characteristic RED style it was informative, crazy and a really great place to be.

Read the Article
fxfeatured

Mr. X creates lasting images for Resident Evil Extinction

August 31, 2007

A Case Study from the FoundryWhat follows the Apocalypse? Extinction, of course. Like its predecessors, the third installment of the Resident Evil trilogy is rife with zombies, survivalists, Milla Jovovitch, villains, and… zombies. But given that this was the final chapter (so says the official word), the filmmakers wanted to send fans of the video-game-inspired […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

GLUE TOOLS releases Cineon/DPX Pro v2.5.7

August 29, 2007

Glue Tools has released v2.5.7 of its Cineon and DPX QuickTime Components. This new release now includes direct support for 10-bit Uncompressed YUV 422 codecs in Final Cut Pro. This development greatly improves loading and playback speed for Final Cut Pro users. By performing the conversion inside the Cineon/DPX Pro QuickTime components, several internal steps […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

fxguidetv episode 013: Doug Chiang

August 28, 2007

Our latest episode of fxguidetv is now available via iTunes. We have coverage of the release of the first RED cameras, Nuke, and an interview with vfx art director Doug Chiang. Chiang has art directed films such as ‘Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace’, ‘Forest Gump’, and ‘Terminator 2’ and we took the […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

fxguidetv @ SIGGRAPH2007: 8 Is Not Enough

August 15, 2007

We finished our 8th Episode from Siggraph with an exclusive interview with Syd Mead. Syd was brought down to Siggraph By Softimage to talk at the XSI user group. Part of our interview with Syd can be seen in Episode 8 but we will be rolling out longer versions by request in coming weeks. And […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

eyeon Announces Fusion ®64

August 13, 2007

In a press release, eyeon announced the first 64-bit desktop compositing application on the market, Fusion ®64. Fusion64 will be the first desktop compositor in the industry to break the current accessibility limit of 4 gigabytes (GB) of both virtual and physical memory. eyeon’s extensive developmental knowledge secures the benefits of multi-core and multi-processor systems. […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

fxguidetv @ SIGGRAPH2007: Episode 6

August 9, 2007

It’s been a great week here at SIGGRAPH2007 covering the show and we hope you’ve been enjoying the coverage. Sony Pictures Imagework’s Rob Bredow lead a great course given by the crew at Sony Pictures Imageworks about the making of “Surf’s Up”. It was a fanastic presention to a packed room — in fact, attendess […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

SIGGRAPH 3 fxguidetv : Paul Debevec

August 7, 2007

In this episode we look at Emerging technology here at fxguide. At SIGGRAPH each year there is a display of Emerging technologies, some are purely research projects such as robotic head sets, others have a more commercial application – such as Microsoft’s Surface table. We also interview Paul Debevec and discuss not only his ‘holographic […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

Second fxguidetv from Siggraph – Massive

August 7, 2007

The second SIGGRAPH episode is up – this time we speak to the founder of Massive, Stephen Regelous about massive 3.0 and the windows version of the software. Massive also includes Mental Ray support and new hair and Lanes features. Click special SIGGRAPH box in upper right of this page to view. Click below for […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

SIGGRAPH starts

August 7, 2007

We are here and the shows have started! Let me outline our SIGGRAPH coverage – we are doing 8 fxguidetv shows from San Diego, these will include interviews with artists such as the guys from Surf’s Up, ILM and Transformers, the senior renderman team, plus leading equipment manufacturing news and some other cool stuff such […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

Toxik 2008 Good News: Say Goodbye to the Database

August 2, 2007

Autodesk announced Toxik 2008 — and the big news is that it will now be offered as a standalone app without the database. This is hugely welcome news, as it brings Toxik to the same type of app as Nuke, Fusion, and Shake. It would be one thing if it used a database and as […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

Harry Potter: The Magic of Double Negative

August 1, 2007

Harry Potter is one of the great publishing stories of our time and the Warner Brothers films have consistently produced Muggles gold. We provide our own Patronus to explain the true wizards behind Privet Lane, giants, and charms, as well as go inside the Ministry this week in our fxpodcast with Double Negative’s Paul Franklin. We also have notes from some other vfx shops involved in the movie.

Read the Article
fxfeatured

fxguidetv New Episode

July 29, 2007

fxguidetv episode 4 with your host Angie Richards Chicago, Via China: fxguidetv episode 4 is out including a great interview with Steve Pearce and Phillippo Costanzo from Activion, covering the future of the gaming industry. Plus a great tip from Rose Draper on how to extract mattes from difficult – less than perfect – Jpeg […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

High-Resolution Gigapixel Panoramic Photography Takes VFX to New Level

July 25, 2007

xRez Launches Visual Effects Studio Employing Ground-Breaking Technology Los Angeles, CA – With more than two years of R&D under its belt, xRez Studio has launched a visual effects division based on the studio’s work employing gigapixel panoramic photography. Founded by Eric Hanson and Greg Downing, both veterans in advanced photography and motion picture visual […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

eyeon announces new 5.2 version of Fusion

July 24, 2007

Eyeon today announced features which will be part of the new Fusion version 5.2. Pricing and availability of the new version will be announced at Siggraph. The release of Fusion 5.2 includes over one hundred updates and modifications, such as interface performance improvements in various areas that make the artist’s workflow more efficient. A new […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

Charging up Creative at rhinofx

July 23, 2007

The days of work simply walking in the door are long gone and it is key that the vfx facility brings something strong to the table. In the end, if the house adds creative value to spot, it’s likely that the agency creatives will return to work with the artists again and again…like Merkely did at rhinofx when they approached them about a Mercedes spot.

Read the Article
fxfeatured

Emmy nominees announced

July 19, 2007

The 59th Primetime Emmy Awards nominations were announced this morning at 5:40 AM PT. The Creative Arts Emmy Awards will be held Saturday, September 8 and the Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, September 16, both at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The list of visual effects nominees is after the read more.

Read the Article
quicktakes

Eight takes a stroll through Petra’s world for HP

July 17, 2007

SANTA MONICA, CA – Eight VFX continues its stellar collaborative run with director Olivier Gondry and HP with “Petra Nemcová,” the latest in a new three-spot campaign via Goodby, Silverstein & Partners/SF (Eight also contributed the effects for “Vera Wang” and “Michel Gondry”). A shop whose recent credits include projects for Pepsi, Scion, Guinness, and […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

Don’t miss…

July 16, 2007

The latest episode of fxguidetv video netcast is on the air! All you need to do is click here to subscribe in iTunes> fxguidetv episode #3 is out! This show contains a longer interview with Ken Ralston and Dennis Muren recorded at the VES Festival of Visual Effects. John Montgomery talks with them about their […]

Read the Article
quicktakes

SIGGRAPH2007 Preview

July 16, 2007

With Siggraph approaching, we asked Conference Chair Joe Marks to guide us through the highlights for this week’s fxpodcast. For our online story, we also asked Paul Debevec to give us his personal ‘Picks of the Papers”, plus we highlight some of the fun and not so fun surprises in store in San Diego with the Viking Animation Lords.

Read the Article
fxfeatured

Bombastic flower-themed graphics for Concert for Diana

July 11, 2007

New York, NY – When audiences tune in to the highly anticipated Concert For Diana, they will enjoy a graphics package created in a collaborative effort between VH1 and design/branding company Bombastic. The concert is a tribute to the Princess and a fundraiser for the charities she supported during her lifetime. Accordingly, the graphics package […]

Read the Article
quicktakes
>