Computer Graphics World articles from March 2007

Computer Graphics World archives from March 2007

Creative advertising?(Editorial)
March 1, 2007... Every year the Super Bowl features the ultimate showdown of football's best, at least in theory. This year, the matchup resulted in a less-than-exciting game. Some have expressed similar feelings about the other major event that occurred on the...

Corel introduces Painter X.(image processing software)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Corel unveiled Corel Painter X, delivering what the company calls the next-generation art studio by further blurring the line between traditional and digital art. The offering introduces increased performance, new composition tools, and the...

Eos Systems upgrades PhotoModeler to version 6.(image processing software)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... After three years of development, Eos Systems, maker of PhotoModeler, released PhotoModeler 6. The new version offers many new capabilities as well as overall enhancements to speed, usability, and visualization. The PC-based PhotoModeler...

D2 adds new features to Nuke.(D2 Software Inc. launched image processing software)(Nuke 4.6)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Integrated Truelight color management, optical flow retiming, and support for Intel-based Mac systems highlight the latest version of the Nuke high-end compositor. Like previous versions, Nuke 4.6 includes technologies developed to solve...

NEC extends MultiSync 90 Series line.(NEC Display Solutions of America launched Liquid crystal display)(NEC MultiSync LCD2490WUXi)(NEC MultiSync LCD2690WUXi)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... NEC Display Solutions of America announced the extension of its 90 Series with the NEC MultiSync LCD2690WUXi (25.5-inch VIS), touted as the first 26-inch widescreen desktop monitor in the market, and LCD2490WUXi (24.1-inch VIS) wide-screen...

Multi-platform Poser Figure artist shipping.(E-frontier America Inc.)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Poser Figure Artist from E frontier, a virtual studio providing highly realistic human models to help artists create human figure art for canvas, sculpture, or digital artwork, is now available as a hybrid (it works on both Macintosh and...

Blackmagic rolls out intensity.(Blackmagic Design launched ultra low-cost video cards)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Blackmagic Design has released Intensity, an ultra low-cost HDMI capture and playback card that allows users to capture high-quality, uncompressed video direct from the HDMI connection on HDV cameras. Intensity is a very small HDMI capture...

A look at global Mobile Media spending.(Mobile Media 2006: The Future of Personal Media Distribution)
March 1, 2007... Media for mobile devices will generate $98.6 billion worldwide by 2011, according to Acacia Research Group's latest market study "Mobile Media 2006: The Future of Personal Media Distribution." That figure is larger than 2006 worldwide...

The growth of 3D on TV.
March 1, 2007... If there's one thing that's true in today's media and entertainment industry, it's that 3D is everywhere. In the video game market, 3D environments immerse garners into the fantasy world of play through titles such as Gears of War and Halo 3,...

About face: eyetronics scans MLB players, while Sony and 2K Sports use the data to create the faces for their new baseball games.(Scanning/Gaming)(Sony Computer Entertainment America and 2K Sports contracts with Major League Baseball Players Association)
March 1, 2007... In the 1970s, people were served up their first big taste of sports-based video gaming when Atari released Pong, a table-tennis title in which players moved a bar up and down to keep a ball (a dot) from crossing a goal line. Although primitive,...

The art of war: an army of VFX studios surrounded bluescreen actors with CG backgrounds and created other effects for the film 300.
March 1, 2007... In 480 BC, King Leonides led 300 Spartans on a suicide mission against Persian King Xerxes's massive armies. The resulting legendary Battle of Thermopylae has inspired soldiers, writers, poets, filmmakers, and one graphic novelist, Frank...

Cool commercials: this year's Super Bowl spots covered the field of animation, with the goal of scoring big with viewers.
March 1, 2007... The Super Bowl is the annual showcase of the best the NFL has to offer that season. But during TV time-outs, another game is played: the ad game. During Super Bowl XLI last month, advertisers reportedly paid more than $2.6 million for a...

Brave new world: Adobe drives Photoshop into new markets.(Adobe Systems Inc.)
March 1, 2007... It won't come as news to hear that Adobe's Photoshop is used in just about every application that makes use of the pixel. Photoshop is a constant across digital content creation disciplines--filmmaking, game development, DVD creation, print...

Portfolio: Supinfocom * part 2.(digital arts school's educational programs for computer graphics)
March 1, 2007... In last month's Portfolio, we highlighted some senior animation projects from the 2006 graduating class at Supinfocom, a digital arts school in Valenciennes, France. In all, there are approximately 50 students who are accepted into the...

Improved add-ons.(Next Limit Technologies has released updated Maxwell Render plug-in software)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Win*Mac Next Limit Technologies has released updated Maxwell Render plug-ins for Autodesk's 3ds Max and Maya, Maxon's Cinema4D, Graphisoft's Archicad, and Google's SketchUp. The Maxwell Render plug-in for 3ds Max is improved by a material...

Eyeon on the Web.(Eyeon Software has launched VFXPedia.com)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Win*Linux Eyeon Software has launched VFXPedia.com, a new online resource designed for compositors who use Fusion to produce visual effects. Fusion artists and compositors gain access to technical information--such as scripts, tips, examples,...

Oscar winners.(Happy Feet and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest wins awards for best visual effects)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... By now, the big Oscar news--that Happy Feet danced its way to Oscar gold in the Animated Feature category and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest slayed the competition for best Visual Effects--is old news. But prior to the Oscars, some...

Technical achievement awards.
March 1, 2007... To Joshua Pines and Chris Kutcka of Technicolor Digital Intermediates for the design and development of the TDI process for creating archival separations from digital image data. (The TDI process is based on the production of digital separation...

Scientific and engineering.(Scientific and Engineering Awards 2006)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... To Phillip J. Feiner, Jim Houston, Denis Leconte, and Chris Bushman of Pacific Title and Art Studio for the design and development of the Rosetta process for creating digital YCM archival masters for digital film restoration. (With elements...

Conduit upgrade.(dvGarage's compositing plug-in software, Mac Conduit 1.5)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Mac Conduit Version 1.5, the newest version of dvGarage's nodal compositing plug-in, is available for use with Apple's Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 and Motion 2. Version 1.5 uses Apple's FXPlugin technology and takes advantage of the system GPU, rather...

Engineering with ESI.(ESI Group)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Win ESI Group, a developer of digital simulation software based on the physics of materials, has introduced the Visual Environment platform. Available for Windows 64-bit operating systems, Visual Environment is a suite of software programs...

More power on the Mac.(Imagineer Systems launched Monet and Mokey VFX tools)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... The latest versions of Imagineer Systems' Monet and Mokey VFX tools support Intel-based Macs. The newest Monet and Mokey editions running on Intel-based Macs offer greater performance than previous versions. Monet is a tracking and compositing...

Imaginary effects: Klasky Csupo's Gabor Csupo finds his place in a live-action world sparkled with fanciful 3D characters.(Interview)
March 1, 2007... The critically acclaimed film Bridge to Terabithia is director Gabor Csupo's first foray into live-action films, though not his first project aimed at children. As chairman and co-founder of Klasky Csupo, an award-winning animation company,...