New versions of RenderMan Pro Server and Studio
Pixar has released both RenderMan Pro Server 17.0 and RenderMan Studio 4.0. The company says that Pro Server 17.0 includes object instancing, photon mapping enhancements and volume-rendering optimizations, while Studio 4.0 features include a new physically plausible shader library.
Hotel Transylvania – bonus interviews
For our fxinsider members, we have bonus interviews from our visit to Sony Pictures Animation and Sony Pictures Imageworks for Hotel Transylvania. Also featured are behind the scenes breakdowns from the film.
Animal Logic buys Fuel VFX
In a sign of good news for the visual effects community, Sydney-based Animal Logic has bought Fuel VFX, which had been in voluntary administration.
VES Inducts Seven New Fellows
VES has inducted seven Fellows to the Society based on their contributions to the art and science of visual effects.
VES Summit 2012 – registration open
The Visual Effects Society has opened registration for the 2012 VES Summit to be held October 13th at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Marina del Rey.
GRAPHIC 2012 at the Sydney Opera House
We preview the GRAPHIC 2012 festival at the Sydney Opera House in November, which includes talks from Pixar’s Lee Unkrich and Animal Logic.
Galloping Horse America & Reliance MediaWorks buy DD
Galloping Horse America & Reliance MediaWorks have jointly acquired the assets of Digital Domain & Mothership in DDMG bankruptcy auction. Here is the press release.
Indy on blu-ray, and more
John Rhys-Davies, who played Sallah in Indiana Jones, talks to us about the Indy blu-ray release. Plus we check out some other blu-ray and DVDs with effects-heavy featurettes.
Creative Arts Emmy Winners
The Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards were held tonight in Los Angeles. And the winners are… Plus we have breakdowns of Pixomondo’s GOT VFX, and Brainstorm Digital’s work for Boardwalk Empire.
Open letter response to David Cohen, Variety
An open letter to Variety’s David Cohen, who has suggested VFX today are boring.
Creative strength in advertising / behavioral change
What is the future of creativity in advertising? It may well be walking away from the 30 sec ad format and starting over with a whole new approach focusing instead on behavioral change. At the forefront of this is Naked Communications. Mike spoke in Sydney to co-founder Adam Ferrier.
Digital Domain shuts down Florida studio; LA/Vancouver Still Open
After defaulting on debt earlier this week, Digital Domain announced today it is closing its Port St. Lucie, Florida operations. They intend to operate California and Vancouver without interruption. Click through for the press release.
Hiero 1.5, Hieroplayer and Nuke 7 from The Foundry
The Foundry today formally announced Hiero 1.5, Hieroplayer and Nuke 7.
NVIDIA to launch Quadro K5000 card for Mac
NVIDIA announced today that it will be releasing a new Kepler Quadro K5000 card for Mac later this year. Running up to two times faster than the current gen Quadro 4000, it’s good to see a higher level card make it to the Mac platform.
Bonus Imageworks interviews
In this bonus video for fxinsider members we have extended interviews with Imageworks VFX supes Ken Ralston and Jay Redd, and Imageworks CTO Rob Bredow (all with new additional content). This year Imageworks is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
SIGGRAPH Asia speaker profile – the father of MP3
fxguide is once again the official podcast of SIGGRAPH Asia, being held in Singapore from November 28th to December 1st. We’ll be talking to several speakers and presenters from the conference, including our first guest – Professor Karlheinz Brandenburg – the so-called ‘father of MP3.’
Cinesite’s fresh start
Recently sold to private backers, Cinesite has moved sans-Kodak into a difficult visual effects climate. So where is the company at the moment, and what does the future hold? We sat down with Cinesite VFX supe Simon Stanley-Clamp to find out.
The tech behind ParaNorman
A quick look at the tech behind LAIKA’s latest 3D stop-motion animated film ParaNorman and a timelapse video of the animators at work.
Scientific and Technical Oscar – 2012 consideration list announced
Award season kicks off with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announcing the list of seven achievements under consideration for the 2012 Scientific and Technical Awards at the Oscars.
Death of Naiad. Horse’s head in the bed or vast opportunity?
Autodesk effectively bought the heart and soul of Exotic Matter (EM) but not the company. It purchased the rights to the technology, leaving the product Naiad completely dead. It will not be developed, supported or individually developed past the current version.
iPad app beta program for fxinsiders
Thanks to the amazing support of our readers during our fxinsider membership drive, we’ve begun development of our fxguide iPad application. In fact we’re happy to say that thanks to your support, we’ll soon be opening a beta program for testing the application…
The Foundry releases MARI 1.5
At SIGGRAPH in LA, The Foundry announced they have released MARI 1.5, with new overlapping UV support, Maya texture export, and mirroring in the paint buffer. Click through for the press release from The Foundry.
DaVinci Resolve 9 public beta released
Blackmagic Design has released the public beta version of their popular color grading tool DaVinci Resolve 9, with an entirely redesigned user interface, and further camera and file type support.
Laguna College of Art and Design
Laguna College of Art and Design (LCAD) is celebrating its 50th Anniversary. We visited the campus and spoke with Jonathan Burke, President of the University as well as with Catharin Eure, chair of Design.
Blackmagic Design Acquires Assets of Cintel International
Blackmagic Design has acquired the intellectual property and all aspects of Cintel’s entire portfolio of film scanning products. This includes all of the IP, name and brand ownership and product development rights…
2012 Emmy Nominations
The 64th Primetime Emmy® Award nominations were announced this morning at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in North Hollywood. The nominees for visual effects related categories are…
It’s Art. It’s Science. SIGGRAPH 2012 preview
We preview the key technical papers, visual effects production sessions, talks, courses and more in the upcoming SIGGRAPH 2012 conference being held from 5-9th August in LA. fxguide is a major media partner of Siggraph and will bring you heaps from the show…
Academy Visual Effects Invites
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released the names of those invited to become voting members. The 2012 invitees for Visual Effects are…
Cannes Lions 2012 winners announced
Check out the Cannes Lions 2012 advertising winners in the Film Craft category, and read fxguide coverage of the visual effects work.
Prime Focus adopts Shotgun & Revolver starting with MIB3
Shotgun Software was founded in 2006 by a group of vfx professionals to build production tracking and pipeline solutions. Shotgun today has more than 350 animation, visual effects and game development clients including Digital Domain, Double Negative, Reliance, Framestore, Pixomondo, Playstation, Blizzard and Zoic Studios. The newest addition to this line up is Prime Focus.