Computer Graphics World articles from October 2002

Computer Graphics World archives from October 2002

Getting personal. (editor's note).(computer systems for the graphics industry)(Editorial)
October 1, 2002... Ask any group of people you know to list the ways computers are changing, and chances are they would start by saying that systems are getting smaller, faster, and cheaper. After that, they might add that computers are becoming more ubiquitous...

A new look. (editor's note).(Computer Graphics World redesign)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... By now you may have noticed that Computer Graphics World has a new look, complete with a new cover layout and logo. But that's not all that's new about the magazine. We also have a sharper focus--spelled out in our updated tag line: "The...

Vermeer short nominated. (letters).(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2002... With regard to the article "Art Appreciation" on pg. 14 of the May 2002 issue of Computer Graphics World, I wanted to let you know that the film Vermeer: Master of Light, which was featured in the Electronic Theater at Siggraph, has received...

Effects ineffective. (letters).(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2002... I wanted to add my thoughts to the Star Wars effects survey you cited in "Far-Reaching Effects" on pg. 6 of the July 2002 issue. Readers chose Yoda as the best digital character "because he gains a greater range and subtlety of expression...

Adobe ships Photoshop 7.0. (image editing).(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
October 1, 2002... Adobe Systems' Photoshop is an industry-standard image editing tool with a user base that the company estimates to be "in the millions." Version 7.0 of Photoshop includes a major upgrade to the File Browser, an image organization tool that now...

ATI introduces Fire GL X1. (graphics cards).(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
October 1, 2002... The latest heavy hitter in the 3D graphics accelerator wars is the Fire GL X1 from ATI Technologies. The new card is based on ATI's Radeon 9700 Visual Processing Unit (VPU) and delivers fully programmable floating-point architecture in both...

Martian Hydrous Tools for water simulation. (effects).(from Martian Labs)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
October 1, 2002... Martian Labs, a two-year-old company that develops software for the 3D animation industry, has introduced Martian Hydrous Tools, a suite of ocean surface simulation programs for film and television production environments. Martian Hydrous Tools...

Softimage/XSI 3.0 adds crowd simulation. (animation).(Softimage CAD software)(Product Announcement)
October 1, 2002... Version 3.0 of Softimage|XSI adds performance and productivity enhancements for modeling, animation, simulation, rendering, and compositing to Softimage's flagship product, which it calls a "nonlinear production environment." The latest version...

Parhelia offers triple-screen viewing. (graphics cards).(Matarox Graphics graphics accelerator)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
October 1, 2002... Matrox's new Parhelia line of graphics accelerators is based on the company's 512-bit Parhelia-512 graphics processing unit (GPU), which includes 80 million transistors and 256-bit DDR memory that provides more than 20GB/S of memory bandwidth....

Devastating effects. (broadcast).(Riot creates tornado for Smallville TV show)
October 1, 2002... Powerful results can materialize by blending computer animation, visual effects, miniatures, matte paintings, and live action. Using this formula, digital artists at Riot (Los Angeles) conjured up a trio of tornadoes that devastates a stretch...

The right moves. (games).(House of Moves Motion Capture Studios provides digital motion files for Microsoft game)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... House of Moves Motion Capture Studios (HOM; Los Angeles) has provided more than 1000 digital motion files for Microsoft Game Studio's new fighting game Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus, created by John Tobias (Mortal Combat) and a team at Studio...

A cat tale. (broadcast).(Glassworks creates 3D commercial for cat food)
October 1, 2002... A team of digital artists from Glassworks, a London animation and effects house, was extremely finicky about creating the first in a series of 3D television commercials for Kitekat cat food, which is airing now in the UK. The 30-second...

A sharper catalog. (web graphics).(Spiegel online catalog)
October 1, 2002... Customers at Spiegel.com, the online channel of Spiegel Catalog, can now view key product attributes in fine detail, regardless of their Internet connection speed, thanks to RichFX's Examine Solutions technology. Through the Zoom feature, cyber...

Seeing isn't believing. (video).(MIT develops new facial animation technique)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... One of the highlights of the recent Siggraph conference was a demonstration of a provocative new technique for facial animation called Trainable Videorealistic Speech Animation. Developed by Tony Ezzat and a team at MIT's Center for Biological...

Graphics and video markets merge. (market outlook).(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... The lines between graphics and video continue to blur as technology such as real-time compositing and motion tracking become more widely available. The market for professional media creation products includes 3D professional tools as well as...

Focus with perspective. (displays).(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Xerox Parc researchers Patrick Baudisch and Nathan Good have designed a novel Focus Plus Context Screen, a large, low-res display with a high-res display embedded within. The hybrid projection technology allows the user to view details of...

NaturalMotion.(VMC Action)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
October 1, 2002... NaturalMotion (Oxford, UK) has announced VMC Action. the first product based on the company's Active Character Technology, which creates character movements based on artificial intelligence. VMC Action software is designed to enable 3D...

Softimage.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Softimage (Montreal, Quebec), a subsidiary of Avid Technology, has announced new tools for transporting data between Softimage and 3D applications including Alias|Wavefront's Maya, 2d3's boujou, Kaydara's FilmBox and MotionBuilder, and various...

Cycore.(Cult3D)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
October 1, 2002... Cycore (Uppsala, Sweden) has announced Version 5,3 of its cult3D product visualization engine, which now comes with automated stereoscopy capability.

DAZ Productions (Draper, UT), a developer of characters for the Poser 3D modeling package.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... DAZ Productions (Draper, UT), a developer of characters for the Poser 3D modeling package, has announced that it will acquire the facial animation product Mimic from LipSinc (Morrisville, NC), which has ceased developing software.

New tools, new tricks. (Games).
October 1, 2002... Artists working in the video game industry have seen many changes over the last few years. One of the most noticeable of these was the large-scale transition from 2D to 3D about six years ago. Fueling further change more recently are...

Digital broadcasters. (Broadcast).
October 1, 2002... The launch of Ananova, the virtual newsreader, in April 2000 marked a turning point in the public perception of digital characters. With a mix of trepidation and humor, the more perceptive TV newscasters started asking if they were going to be...

Heightened emotions: art enhances ardor in the award-winning short, "Passing Moments." (Short Film)(Cover Story).
October 1, 2002... When Don Phillips sat down to conceptualize and develop his senior thesis project at Ringling School of Art and Design, his goal was to create an animation that was good enough to show at animation festivals. With "Passing Moments" he...

A Napoleonic quest: digital artists re-create history for the miniseries Napoleon. (Broadcast).(and related article)
October 1, 2002... Digital artists at Hybride Technologies helped re-create the life and more important, the times of the French conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte for a $57 million, history-based television miniseries. The team generated CG armies and backgrounds, as...

Pocket pictures: mobile phones are the next new venue for 3D graphics.
October 1, 2002... In the days of old--15 or so years ago--you had to have high-powered, specialty hardware and software to run 3D graphics. Nowadays, 3D graphics on ordinary desktop machines are a matter of course, and even laptops can run high-end modeling and...

Grim reality: intelligent, lifelike warriors return to the bleak tournament-style arenas of the future in Unreal Tournament 2003. (Gaming).(Evaluation)
October 1, 2002... Little has changed in the lives of the enslaved humans depicted in the 1999 blockbuster PC game Unreal Tournament. In Epic Games/Digital Extremes' newly released Unreal Tournament 2003, players are once again fighting for their lives in the...

Reflections on a scene: effects artists use digital techniques to generate a period look. (Digital Video).(Road to Perdition motion picture uses Cinesite services, Cineon image-processing software)
October 1, 2002... TIMING WAS EVERYTHING when it came to creating the effects for Road to Perdition, a feature film set in Depression-era Chicago. The story line focuses on a hit man whose wife and youngest son are killed when his private and personal lives...

Real meets surreal. (Art Studio).(Kevin Soderlund's Jevin Studios)(Company Profile)
October 1, 2002... The creative works of digital artist Kevin Soderlund can be described as a unique meld of the surreal with real-world objects or environments. The result is a fusion that's interesting, thought-provoking, and entertaining. "My goal is to...

3ds max 5: discreet adds global illumination.(Evaluation)
October 1, 2002... Discreet's 3ds max has found a solid home in gaming, broadcast, and film production. It is strong in the areas of polygonal modeling, subdivision surfaces, and effects and character animation. Version 5 enhances these abilities with the...

Anark Studio 1.5: Anark streamlines its multimedia authoring tool.(Anark Studio 1.5)(Product Announcement)
October 1, 2002... Animation and interactivity on the Web are becoming increasingly popular. Graphic designers and Web masters are always pushing the boundaries of what can be downloaded or streamed without requiring a viewer with a dial-up connection to wait for...

PolyTrans enhanced. (Miscellaneous).(Okino Computer Graphics' PolyTrans 3D 4.0)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Win * Irix A 3D scene, CAD, and animation translation/viewing tool, Okino's PolyTrans converts entire scene files, including meshes with holes, trimmed NURBS, hierarchy, animation, pivot points, vertex normals, U/V tangent vectors, vertex...

Production management. (Miscellaneous).(Stolen Apple Productions' Gorilla movie-management software)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Win * Mac With Gorilla from Stolen Apple Productions, independent filmmakers can track all details involved in making a film, video, or commercial, from pre- to post-production. Features include complete cast and character management,...

3D hybrid renderer. (Modeling And Animation).(SiTex Graphics' Air animation software)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Win * Linux SiTex Graphics' AIR is a RenderMan-compatible renderer that combines scanline rendering, motion blur, depth of field, and raytracing techniques. Besides supporting a variety of geometric primitives, including polygon meshes, trimmed...

Online communication tool. (Web Development).(Muse Communications' Muse-Lite)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Win Muse-Lite is a 3D application that enables users to enhance how they interact with others online. For instance, according to the company, users can text-chat and interact in a 3D environment in real time, customize 3D media environments,...

Film vs. TV: an expert examines how digital content creation and production are changing film and television. (Back drop: a behind-the-scenes interview with a digital content professional).(Hybride Technologies' Pierre Raymond)(Interview)
October 1, 2002... Q Pierre, you were involved with the digital visual effects for the movie Spy Kids 2 as well as the television miniseries Napoleon. Did the two projects present different set of challenges? A The projects were drastically different. For Spy...