fxguidetv #34 – New Deal Studios, PFTrack 5.0

September 8, 2008

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 […]

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Red Centre #14 : Scratch that

September 7, 2008

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 […]

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GenArts releases Sapphire Plug-ins for OFX

September 3, 2008

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 […]

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Fox Sports HD is ripped

September 3, 2008

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 […]

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Brideshead: Houdini & Troubled Waters

August 26, 2008

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 […]

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fxguidetv #32 from SIGGRAPH

August 22, 2008

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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fxguidetv #31 from SIGGRAPH

August 16, 2008

In this episode we continue our Siggraph 2008 coverage from Los Angeles. We look at what Autodesk is doing with Stereoscopic, get the scoop on the latest developments in Fusion, and have some fun in the New Technology area.

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fxguidetv #30 @ SIGGRAPH : fake or real?

August 15, 2008

In this our first netcast from Siggraph we follow up on last week’s netcast with Paul Debevec. We speak to the team at Image Metrics about the facial animation of Emily. In an interview with the real actress she herself did not believe the animation was not just footage of her. This could represent the […]

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fxpodcast online: SIGGRAPH barcamp

August 15, 2008

At Siggraph fxguide/fxphd hosted a roof top party. Recorded live at the event is this week’s fxguide podcast simulcast with fxphdod. The event was great fun and the combined knowledge of all the attendees made the podcast both a lot of fun and vaguely informative ! Thanks so much to everyone who attended – it […]

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New CINEMA 4D R11 announced at SIGGRAPH

August 13, 2008

MAXON Computer introduced a new version of their flagship CINEMA 4D product at SIGGRAPH this week. The tool has long been a favorite of motion graphics professionals and is also used in numerous other applications. A number of huge new features have been added to the software, including built-in support for Pixar’s Renderman, a new […]

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Autodesk Announcements @ SIGGRAPH

August 12, 2008

After last night’s user group meeting at SIGGRAPH 2008, Autodesk today announced new versions of several of their products. Several of the programs, such as Maya and Toxik, include new tools for stereoscopic pipelines. We’ve pulled highlights from the press releases and will be covering this further as well as other news from Los Angeles. […]

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Massive 3.5 Released at SIGGRAPH

August 11, 2008

Massive announced today that they’re shipping the new 3.5 version of their software. New Agent Fields handle local interactions between large numbers of agents for such things as collision avoidance, pedestrian visualization and flocking. Users can define an area, or field, around an agent in which another agent’s proximity, orientation, velocity, direction and color can be assessed.

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If you thought the Superbowl ads were good…

August 10, 2008

If any event could challenge the Super Bowl for outstanding TV advertising it is the Olympics. This week saw a round of amazing and arresting new spots hit the airwaves. A spot that really caught our attention is an amazing United Airlines Sea Orchestra spot, one of five major spots that will be shown during […]

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fxpodcast: DI on Journey to The Center of the Earth

August 8, 2008

In our last fxpodcast we interviewed Dave Rand about the artists who went unpaid by Meteor Studios after working on Journey to the Center of the Earth. This week we take a break from that Labor Series and focus on the technology in the film and in particular doing DI on a stereoscopic film. Our […]

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eyeon To Show Fusion 6 At SIGGRAPH 2008

August 7, 2008

eyeon announced a new version of their flagship composting product Fusion today, which gets a bump to version 6. The release joins the stereoscopic compositing crowd with integrated compositing and viewing. They also have put time into improving their 3D system with a new 3D Open GL renderer, environment mapping, bump maps and more. We’ll […]

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New at Siggraph – Xtranormal

August 7, 2008

Many readers will know Richard Szalwinski as one of the founders of Discreet Logic. After having left Discreet a while ago, Richard and a few other ex Discreet friends such as Mike Hughes have surfaced at a new company called Xtranormal. The company produces visualization software based on natural speech and produces simple 3D video […]

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fxguidetv #029 Posted

August 5, 2008

fxguidetv is back this week with a special pre-SIGGRAPH episode. Mike Seymour recently sat down with Paul Debevec to catch up on the research Debevec and his team have been doing. It’s very interesting stuff, including a cool discussion about separating the specular and subsurface properties of skin and how it relates to creating high […]

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Red Giant Software Acquires Digital Anarchy Plug-Ins

August 4, 2008

Red Giant, one of our favorite plugin vendors, has acquired the motion plugin portfolio of Digital Anarchy. The plugins include PlaneSpace (formerly 3D Assistant Lite/Pro), a 3D layer animation tool; Datamator (formerly Data Animator), which creates and animates charts and graphs in 3D space; Psunami (formerly Psunami Water), a photorealistic water and wave generator; ToonIt (formerly […]

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red centre #011r posted

August 1, 2008

A revised Red Centre Episode #011 is up – we had some killer server issues this week, but it is all solved and we are sorry for the delay. This week we discuss workflow from a personal point of view. We discuss Jason’s recent baby TVC spot – which was shot all on RED. We […]

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fxguidetv is back!

July 27, 2008

After an early summer hiatus, fxguidetv is back on the net. We haven’t abandoned the podcast, but simply had a lot of other work to get done as well had a couple of interviews back out. We know our fxguide visitors love the netcasts and we simply want to keep them at a high level. […]

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60th Primetime Emmy Awards Nominations

July 17, 2008

Early this morning Kristin Chenoweth (“Pushing Daisies”) and Neil Patrick Harris (“How I Met Your Mother”) announced the 60th Primetime Emmy® Awards Nominations at the Academy’s Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre in North Hollywood. We have the visual effects nominees after jump as well as a link to a complete list of nominees.

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The Animation Guild Blog

July 14, 2008

We have recorded an interview with Steve Hulett of The Animation Guild for an upcoming podcast and part of a series we are working on concerning labor laws. I thought it would be a good idea to introduce you to them in advance by providing this link to their blog post about some visual effects […]

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VES releases “The State of Visual Effects” White Paper

July 14, 2008

The Visual Effects Society has released a document titled “The State of Visual Effects In the Entertainment Industry”. Written by Renee Dunlop, Paul Malcolm and VES president Eric Roth it covers topics like “Advances in Visual Effects Technology Drive Changes On and Off the Set ” and “Impact on the Bottom Line”. You’ll find the […]

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fxpodcast: Motion Theory

July 12, 2008

In this weeks podcast we talk to Motion Theory in California. We speak with Nick Losq (VFX Supervisor) and Matt Winkel (VFX Producer) about their work and the powerful mini-studio concept that they have helped build in Motion Theory the company.

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red centre #009r posted

July 4, 2008

A revised Red Centre episode #009 has been posted, which corrects the issues with the audio towards the end of the podcast. This week the attention is on Shutters with the boys back from shooting Kung Fu in China. RC interviews DOP Peter Holland and talk to Toyko based Paul Leeming in the Red Room. […]

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fxpodcast: New Deal Studios

July 2, 2008

In this fxpodcast we get an overview of New Deal Studios with co-founder Matthew Gratzner. New Deal made their name in miniatures but can take a project from design through finish using whatever tools and tricks the job requires. Matthew shares some great stories about favorite past projects as well as offering a perspective on […]

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New July08 term courses announced at fxphd

June 30, 2008

We announced our new July 08 term over at fxphd today and have a line up of 29 courses this term — including a record 15 new courses. This includes a new advanced DOP course covering RED, a miniatures and stop motion course, an advanced After Effects offering with some serious compositing and graphics, and […]

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Build 16 for RED released: Red Centre #8

June 18, 2008

In this week’s Red Centre the guys finally talk about build 16 and explain both the immediate benefit of the new version and also explain some of the the theory behind the improvements. Plus News, Reviews and the Red Room.

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fxpodcast: Luma Pictures profile

June 15, 2008

In this fxpodcast we talk with Chris Sage, VP of operations at Luma Pictures, an artist driven facility in Venice California that does high end visual effects. From time to time we like to do facility profiles rather than stories about specific films or techniques. Luma Pictures initially caught our attention because they promoted themselves […]

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Red centre #7 Geoff Boyle, Kino 525, Red Room and more

June 10, 2008

This episode the guys chat with Cinematographer Geoff Boyle, founder of the Cinematography Mailing List, about his recent stereo 3D RED feature film. They also chat about lighting and introduce their first guest into… The RED Room. All this and the winner of last week’s quiz in the “Pimp My RED” competition. If you haven’t […]

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