New Autodesk Site: myfirstflame.com
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 […]
Flame and Smoke 2008 @ IBC
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….
Emmy winners
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 […]
RED Podcast discussion
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 […]
The Film Industry is Broken
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.
PFTrack 4.1 Now Shipping
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 […]
Shooting with RED
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.
RED Day: The Launch in LA
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.
Mr. X creates lasting images for Resident Evil Extinction
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 […]
GLUE TOOLS releases Cineon/DPX Pro v2.5.7
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 […]
fxguidetv episode 013: Doug Chiang
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 […]
fxguidetv @ SIGGRAPH2007: 8 Is Not Enough
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 […]
eyeon Announces Fusion ®64
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. […]
fxguidetv @ SIGGRAPH2007: Episode 6
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 […]
SIGGRAPH 3 fxguidetv : Paul Debevec
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 […]
Second fxguidetv from Siggraph – Massive
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 […]
SIGGRAPH starts
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 […]
Toxik 2008 Good News: Say Goodbye to the Database
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 […]
Harry Potter: The Magic of Double Negative
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.
fxguidetv New Episode
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 […]
High-Resolution Gigapixel Panoramic Photography Takes VFX to New Level
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 […]
eyeon announces new 5.2 version of Fusion
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 […]
Charging up Creative at rhinofx
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.
Emmy nominees announced
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.
Eight takes a stroll through Petra’s world for HP
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 […]
Don’t miss…
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 […]
SIGGRAPH2007 Preview
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.
Bombastic flower-themed graphics for Concert for Diana
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 […]
CafeFX swims with the fish for ‘Evan Almighty’
SANTA MARIA, California ‘“ Feature film visual effects facility CafeFX created a scene-stealing school of computer-generated tropical fish for Universal Pictures’ EVAN ALMIGHTY. The visual effects-intensive comedy, the second in the ‘œAlmighty’ series, is directed by Tom Shadyac. In the film, Evan Baxter (Steve Carell), newly elected to Congress, leaves Buffalo behind and shepherds his […]
Your Reel, your dream job @ Siggraph
We are really excited by the July 07 term and the courses on offer at fxphd.com. As part of our plans for this term, we have a Siggraph Special Service! A key part of Siggraph’s appeal is the job market. To help you, if you’re going to Siggraph – we are offering to individually review […]