Computer Graphics World articles from May 2006

Computer Graphics World archives from May 2006

The race is on.(National Association of Broadcasters show)(Editorial)
May 1, 2006... It's a safe assumption that a number of NAB attendees and exhibitors, in town for the show, lost a dollar or two at the Las Vegas gaming tables. After all, the odds favor the house. But, there were many NAB vendors that made what can be...

Autodesk paints a full picture.(PRODUCTS: POSTPRODUCTION)(Autodesk Toxik 2007)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Autodesk revealed its latest media and entertainment technology, designed to help broadcasters, postproduction facilities, and film and broadcast production companies realize their creative ideas. Autodesk's NAB2006 show theme was "Creating the...

Thinking outside the Boxx for high performance.(PRODUCTS: WORKSTATION)(Boxx Technologies Inc. introduced Boxx Apexx 8)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Boxx Technologies, developer and manufacturer of high-performance workstations and render nodes, is now shipping its Boxx Apexx 8, a personal workstation specifically designed to maximize productivity of professional VFX content creators. With...

Avid intros interplay, media composer systems.(PRODUCTS: MANAGEMENT)(National Association of Broadcasters show)(Avid Interplay)
May 1, 2006... Avid made two notable announcements at the NAB show. First, the company introduced Avid Interplay, a nonlinear work flow engine for managing assets, and second, it debuted a Media Composer product facility with work flow intelligence features....

Eovia dazzles Daz.(NEWS: ACQUISITION)(DAZ Productions acquired Eovia)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Daz Productions, developer of professional 3D models and software, last month acquired Eovia, developer and publisher of 3D animation, modeling, and rendering solutions. Daz has taken ownership of Eovia and all the technology rights to Carrara,...

Aiming high.(SPOTLIGHT: AIM Awards)(National Association of Broadcasters)(Award for Innovation in Media)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... A number of offerings specific to the digital content creation industry received an NAB Award for Innovation in Media (AIM). The awards are presented to companies whose products garnered the most votes by show attendees for exhibiting technical...

NewTek intros TriCaster Pro with component video.(PRODUCTS: VIDEO)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Video and 3D animation product manufacturer NewTek rolled out TriCaster Pro, a new, enhanced version of its portable, live-presentation system based on the Intel dual-core Pentium D processor. TriCaster Pro allows users to mix multiple live...

NAB showgoers sweet on Autodesk's Maya.(PRODUCTS: 3D MODELING)(National Association of Broadcasters)(Maya 7.0)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Autodesk Media and Entertainment presented a host of the industry's leading high-end postproduction and 3D modeling and animation tools under its unified branding. Last year at the show, the company announced its new naming scheme for the...

Adobe enhances its production studio.(PRODUCTS: PRODUCTION)(Adobe Production Studio Premium )(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Adobe brings further power and efficiency to film, video, DVD, and Web work flows through its new Adobe Production Studio Premium software for creating stand-alone video or audio elements, or enhancing composites on those elements. Part of...

Apple puts shine on final cut studio.(PRODUCTS: PRODUCTION)(Final Cut Studio from Apple Computer Inc.)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Apple presented its Final Cut Studio, a full-HD video production suite that features Final Cut Pro 5, a major upgrade to the editing software for DV, SD, HD, and film. Final Cut Studio also includes state-of-the-art tools that complement Final...

Hedge fun: viewing the situation from their perspective, displaced animals clash with suburbanites in Over the Hedge.(Film)(Cover story)
May 1, 2006... One hundred and eleven years after the Lumiere brothers first introduced the world to the art of motion pictures, filmgoers have grown accustom to a cinematic language forged in celluloid. The chemistry of film stock, properties of lenses, and...

Oh, Rats! Charlex sets a film-noir mood for its 3D animated short.(.. CG short)("One Rat Short" of Charlex)
May 1, 2006... "One Rat Short," a 10-minute animated film, focuses on extremes-repulsion and love, dark and light, realism and fantasy. It's the first 3D animated short created by Charlex, a New York-based digital design and postproduction studio, and it won...

A walk on The Wild side: Disney creates a unique world and richly textured CG characters for The Wild.(.. CG Animation)
May 1, 2006... At first glance, the Wild, the latest full-length CG film from Walt Disney Pictures, looks like just another addition to the burgeoning herd of animated movies featuring wisecracking animals. And, superficially at least, its plot bears an...

Half the battle: part effects-laden battle scenes, part intense drama combine to make Battlestar Galactica an out-of-this-world experience.(Broadcast)
May 1, 2006... The expanse of outer space has always held great fascination, and there is no doubt that television and film stimulate our imagination of distant galaxies and alien races. Transcending time and space, many shows and movies have become classics...

Luxology Modo art.(Portfolio)(Modo 201)
May 1, 2006... Since the unique 3D modeling software Modo was released in September 2004, digital content creators have been using the software to create a range of images, many of which can be considered CG works of art. According to Brad Peebler, president...

Carrara 5 Pro: Eovia reinvents the 3D app into a sophisticated suite of tools.
May 1, 2006... When Eovia began shipping Carrara 5 Pro, Carrara 4 users around the world cheered. Little they did know what was in store. Soon, loyal Carrara users would discover that more than just another upgrade, Carrara 5 Pro had been reinvented into a...

Pixel farm grows new tool versions.(TRACKING)(PFTrack 3.0)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... [Win * Mac * Linux] The Pixel Farm showed off PFTrack V.3.0, a camera-tracking solution that allows shots to be broken down into different motion types and solved in a single pass. Version 3.0 is now available and includes 30 new features since...

Imagineer produces Monet V2, Mokey V4.(TRACKING)
May 1, 2006... [Win * Mac * Linux] Imagineer Systems, developer of Mokey, Monet, and Mofex visual effects tools, announced the immediate availability of Monet V2, for tracking and compositing commercial, film, and corporate video and postproduction work such...

Boris FX sees Red and Blue.(VISUAL EFFECTS)
May 1, 2006... [Win * Mac] Boris FX, the developer of integrated effects technology for video and film, demonstrated a number of new releases, including Boris Blue Version 1.0 and Boris Red Version 4.0. Designed for editors, Red integrates with more than 20...

RE:Flex gets HDR support.(VISUAL EFFECTS)
May 1, 2006... [Win * Mac] RE:Vision Effects' RE:Flex 3.1 now contains morphing and warping for Adobe's After Effects. The software uses both open and closed splines for its free-form interface rather than a mesh-based solution. RE:Flex is also easy to learn;...

GenArts shows off Sapphire.(VISUAL EFFECTS)
May 1, 2006... [Win * Mac] GenArts has rolled out the Sapphire Plug-ins Version 2 for Avid editing systems. With 46 new effects and an array of new features, Sapphire 2 includes a variety of enhancements, including single-click application of effects to a...

Re:Vision puts product on the map.(VISUAL EFFECTS)
May 1, 2006... [Win * Mac] RE:Vision Effects announced RE: Map, a kit of mapping and distortion tools comprising a set of four plug-ins. The first, RE:Map UV, takes a UV map and renders an image using this mapping, allowing users to easily clean up the...

Maxon makes MoGraph moves.(MOTION GRAPHICS)
May 1, 2006... [Win * Mac] Maxon unveiled MoGraph, a new module for its flagship 3D animation tool Cinema 4D, allowing motion-graphics artists to create 3D effects using simple primitives, logos, and text. With MoGraph, users can create broadcast graphics,...

RealViz makes a scene with Stitcher 5.1.(PANORAMA)
May 1, 2006... [Win * Mac] Image processing software developer RealViz has unveiled Version 5.1 of its panorama software. Used by professional photographers, architects, multimedia, and 3D artists, the software enables the creation of wide-angle panoramas for...

Pixel Farm cleans up with PFClean 1.5.(POSTPRODUCTION)
May 1, 2006... [Win * Mac * Linux] The Pixel Farm is now shipping PFClean 1.5, its image cleanup system, which supports QuickTime import and export, greatly increasing the flexibility of the system. Users of QuickTime formats--the standard acquisition and...

Artbeats hits high note with new collections.(STOCK FOOTAGE)
May 1, 2006... Powerful electrical charges, giant Tesla coils, Jacob's Ladders, electric arcs, and lightning bolts are some of the dramatic effects found in five new collections that Artbeats recently debuted. Produced in partnership with kVA Effects,...

Blackmagic conjures up Windows x64 support.(CAPTURE CARDS)
May 1, 2006... [Win] Win Blackmagic Design announced 64-bit driver support with its software Version 5.5 for the DeckLink family of uncompressed video products, the first to take advantage of the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, featuring 128GB of RAM and...

Celco unleashes its Fury 4K.(FILM RECORDERS)
May 1, 2006... [Linux * Irix] Celco revealed that its new Fury 4K and Firestorm 2X film recorders will be powered by Linux-based operating software. Film recorders shipping in the third quarter and beyond will have Linux software and PC hardware as part of...

Nokia rolls out the N93.(MOBILE)
May 1, 2006... Nokia introduced the Nokia N93, a mobile device for spontaneous video recording. Offering digital camcorder, telephony, and rich Internet communication functionalities, the Nokia N93 features a 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics,...

Zaxel's Lossless Compression zips.(VIDEO)
May 1, 2006... Zaxel Systems, a developer of digital video compression systems, has integrated its Zaxel Lossless Compression (ZLC) into the AJA OEM dual-link high-definition (HD) and serial digital interface (SDI) I/O card, which enables customers to...

Mission: possible: ILM creates a virtual Shanghai, a complex helicopter chase scene, and other 'invisible' effects.(Tom Cruise)(Interview)
May 1, 2006... Although the start of the summer movie season is still a few weeks away, Paramount Pictures began its rollout early with Mission: Impossible III, an action-packed thriller starring Tom Cruise as undercover operative Ethan Hunt. Complementing...