Computer Graphics World articles from December 2002

Computer Graphics World archives from December 2002

Who needs Web 3D? (editor's note).(Industry Overview)(Column)
December 1, 2002... Pop singer Cyndi Lauper was right: Money changes everything. This has certainly been true in the computer graphics industry, most notably in the realm of 3D content creation for the Web. In the past year, as the sagging economy slowed the...

3Dlabs introduces Wildcat 4. (Products: graphics cards).(graphics board)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... The Wildcat line has represented the high end of the high end among graphics boards for some time now. The Wildcats' generous amounts of texture memory and other specialized attributes make them the boards of choice for many 3D graphics...

Modeling, animation, and compositing from RadTime. (Products: animation).(RadTime's 3dFilm 2002)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... 3dFilm 2002 is a sub-$1000 integrated compositing and animation package from RadTime that allows users to create and import 3D models and composite them with 2D video elements. 3dFilm is optimized for OpenGL and Pentium 4 performance so that...

Volumetric clouds for WCS 6. (Products: effects).(3D Nature's World Construction Set 6.0)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... World Construction Set (WCS) is a well-established photorealistic terrain visualization and rendering package that is used by both artists and scientists. WCS images and animations can be seen in documentary films, television broadcasts,...

Cinema 4D adds advanced modules. (Products: animation).(Maxon Computer's Cinema 4D 8.0)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Maxon Computer's modeling and animation program Cinema 4D has been upgraded with new modeling tools, workflow enhancements, advanced controls, and an improved timeline. Release 8 of the software includes HyperNURBS subdivision surfaces and...

Formac's LCD for image editing. (Products: displays).(Formac Electronic's Gallery 2010 flat-panel display)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Formac Electronic's gallery 2010 flat-panel display is based on new LCD technology from Fujitsu that is designed to provide better viewing angle, brightness, contrast ratio, and pixel response time than that of most other monitors in the 2010's...

Whale of a Tale. (User focus: film).(Big Idea Productions' Jonah--A VeggieTales Movie)
December 1, 2002... Big Idea Productions--which in the past nine years has established itself as a major player in the video market with its VeggieTales movies for children--has recently planted itself in the 3D feature-film arena with its first big-screen...

Making faces. (User focus: web).(personalized Budweiser ads)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Have you ever dreamed of one day starring in a national commercial? If so, this "budding" opportunity's for you. For a limited time, Anheuser-Busch is enabling consumers to create 3D virtual characters based on their own likenesses for use in...

Fluid dynamics. (Technology: video).(Stanford research yields new digital effects technique)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... To improve digital effects shots of fluids in motion, researchers at Stanford have developed a new technique that model how the surface of a liquid interacts with air. The new "particle level set method" combines an implicit representation of...

Virtual exhibits. (Technology: displays).(Fraunhofer Centers for Research in Computer Graphics-led consortium develops augmented-reality display)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... A novel augmented-reality display that may be ideal for interactive museum exhibits is being developed by a consortium led by the Fraunhofer Centers for Research in Computer Graphics and initiated by Oliver Bimber (now at Bauhaus University)....

3D Web browser penetration grows. (market outlook).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... At the end of 2002, penetration fro 3D Web browsers will reach over 44 percent of all Web-enabled PCs. This figure is up from a penetration level of 32 percent in 2001. Macromedia's Shockwave continues to lead the market, accounting for...

Panoram Technologies (Sun Valley, CA), a maker of displays for visualization environments, and 3D Perception (Asker, Norway), a projector manufacturer, have settled a patent infringement suit.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Panoram Technologies (Sun Valley, CA), a maker of displays for visualization environments, and 3D Perception (Asker, Norway), a projector manufacturer, have settled a patent infringement suit over an edge-blending technology that allows...

5D.(ceases operations)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... 5D (London, UK), a developer of image-processing products for the film and video visual effects industry, ceased operations this fall. 5D had manufactured products such as 5D Colossus, a software-based digital film grading and finishing...

Takin' it to the streets. (Viewpoint Film).(Mill Valley Film Festival speakers address impact of digital video on independent filmmakers)(Panel Discussion)
December 1, 2002... During the past couple of years, George Lucas has been preaching and demonstrating the advantages of digital cinema, exhibitors at the National Association of Broadcasters convention have made the switch from all analog to mostly digital...

Video, anyone? (viewpoint DV).(Serious Magic's Visual Communicator presentation graphics software)(Software Review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 1, 2002... Mark Randall has been walking on the cutting edge of video technology for the better part of 20 years. After starting out with NewTek, the company that ushered in the desktop video revolution with Video Toaster, Randall left in 1994 to become...

Virtual makeover: Lara Croft, gaming's popular heroine, gets a new look and some brand-new moves. (Gaming).(Core Design's Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 1, 2002... The statistics alone speak volumes: 30 million game copies sold, six releases to date, and one summer blockbuster film, with another to be released next year. There's only one computer-game franchise with the power to captivate so many players:...

World of Emotion: special effects artists create a planet with personality in the new film version of the science-fiction classic Solaris. (Fil.(Rhythm and Hues, Cinesite, Richard Bailey create effects for Steven Soderbergh's Solaris)
December 1, 2002... SCI-FI Special The teaming of science fiction and digital special effects was a match made in the heavens. Just as effects technology has made it possible to boldly show ever more fantastic visions, so has the originality of the genre...

Space * shots: artists create CG effects that reflect the director's style and vision for a new science-fiction series. (Broadcast).(Zoic Studios' work on Fox Television's Firefly series)
December 1, 2002... For the artists at Zoic Studios, realism is the top priority when it comes to creating digital effects for broadcast and film projects. But to these folks, realism means more than creating photo-realistic 3D models and seamless greenscreen...

Computer Graphics World's 2002 Innovation Awards: representing innovation in visual computing. (Innovation Awards).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Our Ninth Annual Innovation Awards feature 13 hardware and software products that represent a wider range of product categories than in previous years. These products play an important role not only in the creation of state-of-the-art 3D...

Softimage/XSI 3.0. (Innovation Awards).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... With Softimage|XSI 3.0, digital content creators can generate and work interactively with large data sets, including complex crowds. The software's new integrated crowd simulation tools enable users to build highly sophisticated, multi-object...

Maya Unlimited 4.5. (Innovation Awards).(from Alias/Wavefront)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... New in Alias|Wavefront's Maya Unlimited 4.5 is a fully integrated method for creating accurate fluid effects, traditionally one of the most difficult tasks in computer graphics. Maya Unlimited's Fluid Effects technology enables users to more...

NGrain. (Innovation Awards).(i3Dimensions' NGrain 3D graphics software)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... i3Dimensions' NGrain technology allows complex 3D data, including volumetric models, to be manipulated and modified on common computing platforms with no graphics hardware acceleration. i3Dimensions' proprietary technology makes it possible for...

Mokey 2. (Innovation Awards).(from Imagineer Systems)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Imagineer Systems' software tool can separate and remove foreground elements from video or film clips without using traditional keying techniques or hand painting. After deleting an unwanted element from a clip, it can automatically re-paint...

FaceStation 1.5. (Innovation Awards).(from Eyematic )(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... This software from Eyematic makes use of the company's computer vision technology, allowing digital artist to "drive" the facial animation of their 3D characters in real time using their own expressions. By deriving facial animation data...

face2face. (Innovation Awards).(face2face Animation System)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... The face2face Animation System--which incorporates advances in computer vision, visual speech recognition, facial animation, and MPEG-4 technologies developed at Bell Labs--automatically converts facial motion from consumer-quality digital...

Character studio 4.0. (Innovation Awards).(Discreet's animation software for 3ds max)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... The latest version of Discreet's popular animation extension for 3ds max offers an animation analyzer, quaternion function curves, and a non-linear animation mixer. The analyzer provides precise corrections for discontinuities of the animation...

Visual communicator. (Innovation Awards).(Serious Magic's video production software)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Serious Magic's video production system does for video what PowerPoint did for computer graphics: make it a communication tool that is affordable and usable by virtually anyone. The user types in a script and then cuts and inserts pre-created...

Wildcat VP family. (Innovation Awards).(3Dlabs' Wildcat VP970, VP760)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... 3Dlabs' Wildcat VP chip incorporates more than 200 32-bit processors into a single processor--or Visual Processing Unit (VPU)--for more than 200Gflops and 1.2 TeraOps of power. The programmable VPU is the foundation for 3Dlabs' Wildcat VP...

Video Toaster 2. (Innovation Awards).(from NewTek)
December 1, 2002... NewTek's second-generation Video Toaster for Windows 2000 is a production and post-production environment that can process uncompressed video in real time. The system handles a gamut of tasks, including non-linear editing, live keying, Internet...

Vicon iQ. (Innovation Awards).(Vicon Motion Systems)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... One of the biggest drawbacks of mocap systems is that they require manual intervention when data loss occurs--such as while tracking complex character interactions in real time. Vicon Motion Systems' Vicon iQ overcomes that obstacle by...

GY-DV300 Streamcorder. (Innovation Awards).(JVC)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... The Web-integration features of JVC's new GY-DV300 Streamcorder places this mini-DV video camera in a category by itself. Through its MPEG-4 adapter, the camera can stream video to a LAN or the Web so the output can be viewed on a remote...

Messiah:animate 3.0. (Innovation Awards).(PmG Worldwide)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Version 3.0 of messiah:animate marks a departure from plug-in status to standalone tool for pmG Worldwide's character animation reelect. Not only can the software now run on its own, but it is pipeline-capable with Alias|Wavefront's Maya,...

Frederick Wessler art studio.
December 1, 2002... The digital images created by professional artist Frederick Wessler are often mistaken for photographs. That's because the subject matter of his 3D artwork tends to be "traditionally" realistic, with a meticulous attention to detail and...

Brazil rendering system: Splutterfish's 3ds max renderer. (Rendering).(Software Review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 1, 2002... Brazil r/s has been in development for a few years now, and anyone who uses Discreet's 3ds max regularly has probably downloaded a few of the public betas that Splutterfish has made available. Those early betas offered many 3ds max users their...

Extreme power binds FIRE GL X1 and The Lord of the Rings. (Advertisement).(Massive Software, ATI's graphics board)
December 1, 2002... The latest workstation release from ATI, FIRE GL X1, provides new levels of real-time cinematic rendering and animation for digital content creators. Rendering out a digital army isn't what it used to be. Visual effects artists have been...

Digital video: effects for Avid editors. (Software).(Boris Continuum Complete AVX)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Targeted at Avid editors and scheduled to ship Q3, Boris Continuum Complete AVX provides a range of compositing, image processing, keying, color, distortion, and temporal effects. Features include a native AVX interface to minimize the learning...

Modeling and animation: animation suite. (Software).(Reallusion Crazy Talk, Effect 3D, It's Me)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... [Win] From Reallusion comes a trio of easy-to-use animation products. The first, CrazyTalk ($39.95), is a digital photo speech and animation program that uses proprietary facial animation technology to enable users to import and then animate...

Lara's theme: how do you improve one of the most popular game characters ever developed? Very carefully, says one of her creators. (Back drop: a behind-the-scenes interview with a digital content professional).(Adrian Smith of Core Design)(Interview)
December 1, 2002... Adrian Smith is co-founder of Core Design, developer of the Tomb Raider series of computer games, including the newest iteration, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, scheduled for release in February 2003. (See "Virtual Makeover," pg. 14.) ...