Times have changed when attending a geek fest is cool. Or maybe that’s just me. But you won’t want to miss The Foundry GeekFest taking place on Monday the 26th of July at SIGGRAPH this year. With their acquisitions of Mari and Katana, a 6.1 version of Nuke in sight on their roadmap, a 3D […]

Most of us live in a world where the most important aspect of our work is that it looks good, tells the story and provides entertainment,… most but not all. There is a small but highly competitive group of artists who’s work needs to be engaging, tell a story but most importantly be completely accurate. […]

‘Birth of a Spartan’, an Xbox 360 Halo: Reach trailer directed by Noam Murro for agencytwofifteen, features visual effects by Animal Logic. The trailer follows Carter-259, the future leader of Noble Team, as he undergoes the medical augmentation procedures to become a Spartan III super soldier. Ian Failes takes a look at the work with […]

cineSync is a remote review and approval tool that enables synchronized viewing and annotation of content across the web, Shotgun is a web-based project management and collaboration system. Both products have been mainstays in pipelines at leading facilities for years, but they have operated independently. With remote collaboration a staple of modern production it makes […]

Bruce Beresford’s Mao’s Last Dancer, the story of a poor Chinese boy’s journey to a top American ballet troupe, features just over 70 visual effects shots from Rising Sun Pictures, including traditional greenscreen composites, a matte painted stage backdrop and crowd replication. We talk about the seamless work with visual effects supervisor Tim Crosbie. fxg: […]

Los Angeles, CA (April 28, 2010) — The Previsualization Society today announced “Previs 2010,” the organization’s inaugural event in Los Angeles scheduled for May 8. The one-day gathering will bring together a wide spectrum of professionals who use and interact with previs for an exploration of current previs approaches, workflows and new work. The event […]

In our third episode covering NAB 2010 (#81) we talk with Ted Shilowitz and get exclusive access to the Epic demo room at RED Day, we talk with Michael Coleman and Karl Lee Soule from Adobe to get some insight into the CS5 releases of After Effects and Premiere, and Angus MacKay brings us up […]

Of all the coverage we bring you from NAB our annual wrap up roundtable is one of the most popular. This year Jason Wingrove (Red Centre), Dave Edgar and Mat Graham (fxphd) join John, Mike and Jeff to share what they saw and heard on the show floor. Topics include Black Magic dropping DaVinci Resolve’s […]

In our second episode covering NAB 2010 (#80) we look at Cineform, the latest release of Mocha and we get details on Arri’s latest offering for digital cinematography, Alexa. This new camera can record raw files and at the same time generate ProRes files for immediate use in post production so we asked to shoot […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]