Computer Graphics World articles from April 2004

Computer Graphics World archives from April 2004

Indie opportunities.(editor's note)(Editorial)
April 1, 2004... Contrary to popular belief, the independent game-developer community is not made up entirely of nerdy teenage boys who spend more time stealing other people's code than creating their own. A comprehensive new survey from Acacia Research Group...

News from NAB2004.(spotlight)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB; www.nab.org) is holding its electronic media show, NAB2004, this month in Las Vegas. The NAB Show reportedly draws approximately 90,000 electronic media professionals from more than 130 countries....

Nvidia expands its Quadro FX family.(graphics cards)
April 1, 2004... Nvidia debuted its latest graphics solution for mobile workstations, the Nvidia Quadro FX Go1000. In addition to 128MB of graphics memory, 12-bit subpixel precision, and 128-bit floating-point graphics pipelines, the Quadro FX Go1000 includes...

Avid enhances multiple product lines.(video)
April 1, 2004... Avid Technology will demonstrate the latest updates to its professional products for the film and video postproduction, broadcast, and asset management markets. The Avid DS Nitris, Media Composer Adrenaline, and Avid Xpress Pro with Avid...

WildTangent debuts WebDriver Version 4.0.(game platform)
April 1, 2004... A leading Web game publisher, WildTangent has upgraded its WebDriver on-line game platform, which boasts more than 53 million users to date. Based on console gaming technology, WebDriver 4.0 enables the real-time delivery of...

Allegorithmic launches MaP/Zone plug-in.(modeling)
April 1, 2004... Allegorithmic has entered the US market with its MaP|Zone texture modeling plug-in for Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Founded by a prize-winning computer scientist, producer, and director of animated movies, the new company's goal is to...

Making waves.(broadcast)
April 1, 2004... New England is notorious for its Nor'easters, nasty coastal storms that wreak havoc on land and at sea. The most infamous of these tempestuous weather systems is the Halloween Storm of 1991, also dubbed the Perfect Storm, whose 100-foot waves...

Video market movement.(market outlook)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The digital video market has been enormously affected by the downturn in the economy since 2000, which has led to a decline in advertising and capital expenditures. However, toward the end of 2003, the economy, at least the part of the economy...

DisplayMate Technologies (Amherst, NH), an independent source for image quality testing, has bestowed Five Star Awards on Nvidia for its Quadro NVS professional 2D graphics accelerators.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... DisplayMate Technologies (Amherst, NH), an independent source for image quality testing, has bestowed Five Star Awards on Nvidia for its Quadro NVS professional 2D graphics accelerators. In fact, Nvidia solutions, such as the Quadro NVS 280 and...

DV authoring revolution.(Video)
April 1, 2004... Here's a trivia question: What digital media technology has gone from highly exclusive and price-prohibitive to consumer-level the fastest? Many could make a good argument for 3D OpenGL hardware, which through the mid- to late 1990s advanced at...

Building an empire: digital artists re-create ancient Rome for the epic miniseries Spartacus.(Broadcast)
April 1, 2004... ROME WASN'T BUILT IN A DAY It took approximately six months. At least, that's how long it took Stargate Digital to create a photorealistic 3D version of the ancient city used in a dramatic 35-second sweeping shot for the two-part miniseries...

Devilish effects: effects studios bring Hellboy's monster and heroes to the big screen.(Film)
April 1, 2004... Abe Sapien: Behind this door... ancient evil. Hellboy: Oh, well. Better let me go in and say, "Hi." In case you're not a fan of Mike Mignola's comic books, Hellboy was a Nazi experiment gone good; a red demon baby conjured up at the...

Crash course: full-motion video drives Crash Bandicoot to a new level.
April 1, 2004... AFTER LEAPING his way to video-game stardom through six successful action games, Crash Bandicoot--the popular spiky-haired marsupial--is expanding his range as a character, appearing for the first time ever in full-motion video (FMV) throughout...

Character recognition: game developers take the popular character Crash Bandicoot back to its early roots.(Gaming)
April 1, 2004... ONE OF computer gaming's most endearing characters, the mischievous mutated wombat Crash Bandicoot has starred in a number of titles running on all the major gaming platforms, including the original Sony PlayStation and, more recently,...

Grand opening: TV's hit series Las Vegas makes a powerful first impression with its state-of-the-art intro.(Video)
April 1, 2004... Creators of new prime-time television shows have just a short period--often only a few weeks--to win the loyalty of a substantial viewing audience or risk being replaced by the network. Recently, a number of shows followed the "franchise"...

Net savings: content creators adopt network-based storage to streamline work flow and collaboration.(Storage in the Studio--Part 1)
April 1, 2004... When it comes to saving their massive and ever-multiplying stores of digital assets, content creators can use any of the following techniques: * Direct-attached storage (DAS), in which disk subsystems are directly attached to workstations...

Affordable arrays: a new disk storage technology promises "good enough" performance at half the cost of conventional systems.(Storage in the Studio--Part 2)
April 1, 2004... Digital content professionals have unique requirements for data storage. They need extremely high capacity and as much speed as they can afford. Unfortunately, most studios operate under tight budgets when it comes to capital expenditures for...

Damming the flow: digital asset management tools help content creators contain the rising flood of graphics files.(Storage in the Studio--Part 3)
April 1, 2004... Digital asset management (DAM) is one of those technologies that can be defined in a variety of ways. Is it simply a method for organizing electronic files? Is it software that controls the flow of work? Is it a hardware-based system of servers...

Alias's expose yourself contest.(Portfolio)
April 1, 2004... When artists started dropping their pencils and paintbrushes in favor of digital tools, they opened themselves up to a new range of capabilities, which in turn, led to new artistic possibilities. But there was one caveat: They had to forsake...

Digital Juice Libraries: VideoTraxx and Editor's Toolkit 1 and 2 offer high quality and flexibility.
April 1, 2004... Stock film and video footage provides access to resources that often are rare, unique, and difficult to produce internally, but finding them can be a source of frustration. Searching for the necessary footage can be time-consuming, requiring...

Anark Studio 2.5: Anark's upgraded 3D authoring software adds power and functionality.
April 1, 2004... Having used Anark Studio 1.5 following its release in 2002, I was impressed by the ease with which I was able to create custom interactive graphics for the Web or a CD-ROM. Recently, I was afforded a sneak peak at Version 2.5, which will soon...

Wacom Cintiq 18SX: display and tablet combine in a powerful creative solution.
April 1, 2004... At work and in my personal life, much of my time is devoted to composing creative digital content. For years, I've incorporated a 12x12-inch Wacom Tablet Digitizer 2 (so old that it's no longer listed on the company's Web site) in my work....

A bevy of broadcasters.
April 1, 2004... Professionals attending the National Association of Broadcasters' 2004 conference and exhibition (NAB2004) will witness the latest and greatest solutions for digital content creation, including the product releases presented on these pages. For...

Artbox arrival.(Content Management)
April 1, 2004... [Linux] During the show, Proximity will introduce Artbox, its content management system for creative departments in broadcast television, postproduction, and corporate facilities. The new product, designed to increase efficiency and accuracy,...

Artbeats in a heartbeat.(Stock Options)
April 1, 2004... During NAB2004, Artbeats will debut more than 40 new high-definition and standard-definition collections of stock footage. Artbeats' royalty-free offerings are well suited to broadcast, film, commercial, desktop video, game development, and...

Canopus contributions.(Video)
April 1, 2004... [Win] Canopus will unveil a new HD nonlinear editing system and upgraded versions of its MediaEdge and Imaginate software solutions. Canopus's real-time NLE, a combination of an HD-SDI card and Edius Professional video editing software, enables...

Around Bauhaus.(Video)
April 1, 2004... [Win-Mac] Bauhaus Software will present Mirage 1.2, the latest edition of its real-time video paint, animation, and effects software during NAB. Mirage 1.2 can be used with projects of virtually any resolution, whether Web video, film, or HDTV....

Events.(Calendar)
April 1, 2004... APRIL 23-25 DIGit: A Digital Media Exposition, held in Narrowsburg, NY. Contact 845-252-7576, www.ArtsAllianceSite.org. MAY 3-6 3D Festival 2004, held in Copenhagen, Denmark. Contact www.3dfestival.com. 12-14 ...

Lots from Leitch.(Video)
April 1, 2004... Leitch Technology will demonstrate an Integrated Content Environment, defined by the company as a streamlined work flow for the production, processing, transmission, management, and storage of content. Among Leitch's high-definition products on...

Biblical proportions.(Book Corner)
April 1, 2004... Wiley Publishers has released Adobe Premiere Pro Bible by Adele Droblas and Seth Greenberg. Whether an expert or beginner, or outputting to the Web or DVD, readers of Adobe Premiere Pro Bible benefit from tutorials, tips, and tricks for quickly...

Fundamental finding.(Book Corner)
April 1, 2004... Visual Design Fundamentals: A Digital Approach from Charles River Media is authored by Alan Hashimoto, an associate professor in the graphic design and computer art field. Comprising more than 300 pages with color photos, diagrams, and...

Boxx breakthroughs.(Video)
April 1, 2004... Boxx Technologies will introduce two new workstations that meet the high-capacity storage needs of the digital content, broadcast, and video markets. For those working with such digital media as SD and HD video, the latest Boxx devices...

Twenty years of innovation: Alias[R] Marks Anniversary Celebrations with Product Launches, New Strategic Alliances and Significant Growth of Conductors Program.(Alias[R]: corporate overview)(Advertisement)
April 1, 2004... AS THE world's leading innovator of 3D graphics technology, Alias develops award-winning solutions for the film, video, game development, interactive media, automotive, industrial design and visualization markets. This past year was...

Alienware professional systems.(Company Profiles)(Advertisement)
April 1, 2004... SETTING THE HIGH-PERFORMANCE STANDARD Alienware[R] Corporation manufactures high-performance desktops, notebooks, and professional workstations* Founded on a motto of "build it as if it were your own," Alienware is dedicated to providing...

Discreet[R]: the beautiful image drives us.(Company Profiles)(Advertisement)
April 1, 2004... Introducing Discreet--the world's leading provider of high-fidelity creative tools for high-value production. Focusing on innovative technologies that enable artists to quickly hone and realize their vision, Discreet is a company dedicated to...

Discover the beauty of a monarch: custom systems and quality components for enthusiasts and professionals since 1991.(Company Profiles)(Advertisement)
April 1, 2004... Quality Monarch custom PC systems adhere to ISO 9000 standards, and are assembled and tested through one of the most detail-oriented and rigorous procedures in the industry. All systems ship with the newest OS updates and patches...

NewTek.(Company Profiles)(Advertisement)
April 1, 2004... The Vision NewTek, founded in 1985, set out with a mission to make it possible for anyone to realize the dream of creating broadcast television and film. The NewTek team, a group of frustrated filmmakers, has a passion for creating the...

Rack Saver[R]: leader in high-density servers! The most computing power in the smallest footprint possible.(Company Profile)(Advertisement)
April 1, 2004... RackSaver[R] Incorporated is the leading provider of high-density blade server clusters, rack-optimized servers and high performance technical workstations. Our mission is to provide the industry's fastest standards based computing solutions...

The Last Samurai: Australia's Rising Sun Pictures (RSP) uses SOFTIMAGEIXSI to revisit old Japan in Edward Zwick's The Last Samurai.(Company Profile)
April 1, 2004... For a film like Edward Zwick's The Last Samurai to look realistic, it would have to look bloody. Put simply, the world of swords, arrows, throwing stars and lethal darts is a most messy one. Striving for an unparalleled level of realistic gore...