Computer Graphics World articles from October 2006

Computer Graphics World archives from October 2006

A taste of independence.(animated movies)(Editorial)
October 1, 2006... It's been just over a decade now since Pixar introduced us to the colorful world of CG features, giving us Toy Stow, and with it, a taste for the visually compelling medium of CGI. Before we could ooh and ah over the technological leaps that...

RealViz Makes a Move with Movimento.(PRODUCTS: MOTION CAPTURE)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... Image-processing developer RealViz rolled out its latest software product, Movimento, a video-based motion-capture solution powered by SMART, the company's automatic 3D tracking engine. An affordable, accurate, and flexible motion-capture...

3D Animation is a Craft.(PRODUCTS: PLUG-INS)
October 1, 2006... Craft Animations, which offers various plug-ins for Autodesk's 3ds Max and Viz for fast, realistic 3D animations in real time, recently announced versions of these Craft Director Tools for use with Maya. With the plug-ins, users can create...

Darwin evolves 3D characters.(Darwin Dimensions introduced Evolver and Evolver Pro)
October 1, 2006... Darwin Dimensions rolled out its Evolver family of software products that enable users to quickly and automatically create unique 3D character models for use in games, film, television, multimedia, education, manufacturing, and corporate...

NaturalMotion gives the industry a shot of morpheme.(PRODUCTS: ANIMATION ENGINE)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... NaturalMotion, developers of the Euphoria and Endorphin Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS) technologies, rolled out Morpheme, a new animation engine for next-generation game development. Featuring a flexible and unique 3D authoring tool chain,...

NewTek shines with LightWave 9.(PRODUCTS: MODELING--ANIMATION)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... NewTek recently announced the availability of LightWave 3D Version 9, with improved core strengths in its overall power and speed. The release represents the first in a series of major rewrites and restructuring of LightWave 3D's core with...

Autodesk hits a double with new versions of Maya, max.(Maya 8.0 and 3ds Max 9.0)
October 1, 2006... Autodesk has unveiled new versions of its modeling, animation, and rendering software--Maya 8 and 3ds Max 9--both designed to help digital content creators in the games, film and television, and design visualization industries achieve their...

Lines of communication.(USER FOCUS: 2D ANIMATION)(Microsoft Corp.'s advertisement was created by McCann-Erickson Inc.)
October 1, 2006... The look of the Microsoft "Realizing Potential" commercial campaign may be simplistic--bold white-line animated drawings augmenting a live-action scene. But, the execution of the most recent series was rather complex, requiring a collaborative...

Character splash system.(DreamWorks L.L.C. and Aardman Animations movie "Flushed Away")
October 1, 2006... Effects involving water are generally regarded as some of the most difficult to achieve. The DreamWorks/Aardman animated feature film Flushed Away (see "Flushed with Success," pg. 22) contains a wide variety of water effects, each of which...

Power are you hungry? For real power users whose future relies on advanced application, data sets, and models that require complex calculations, is there such a thing as enough processing power?
October 1, 2006... Who are today's power users? From an engineer designing a next-generation airplane to a geoscientist performing an oil reservoir simulation or a game designer animating the latest video game characters, power users are performing vastly...

Flushed with success: DreamWorks and Aardman create plasticine puppets in CG and turn them loose in a wild and watery digital world.(Aardman Animations and DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc.'s movie "Flushed Away")(computer graphics)
October 1, 2006... Sometimes the simplest things are the most difficult. Take, for example, Roddy, Rita, Toad, and Le Frog, the stars of Flushed Away, the latest feature film from Aardman Animation and DreamWorks Animation. These characters might look as if...

Digi-documentary: CG provides a novel setting and an important storytelling device for an historical investigation.("The Exodus Decoded" documentary movie uses computer graphics)
October 1, 2006... FOR CENTURIES, THE TOPIC OF RELIGION VERSUS SCIENCE HAS SPURRED HEATED DEBATE, AND ONE THAT CONTINUES TODAY. THE TYPICAL VIEW, IN ITS RAW FORM, IS THAT SCIENCE AND RELIGION ARF MUTUALLY EXLCUSIVE CONCEPTS, AS SCIENCF IS BASED ON TANGIBLE...

Painting a picture: everyone's Hero owes its painterly look to a consistent vision and old-fashioned attention to detail.(Indie Film)
October 1, 2006... Out of left field, so to speak, at SIGGRAPH this past summer, came Everyone's Hero, a full-length CG film that caught many people's attention with its unique look--described by nearly everyone as "Norman Rockwell-esque." The film, about a boy...

Hollywood's dark side: DI gives The Black Dahlia its strong film-noir look.(video postproduction)(digital imaging)
October 1, 2006... The gruesome 1947 murder of fledgling actress Elizabeth Short--dubbed the Black Dahlia by the press after her death (due to her propensity for wearing black clothing and a play on the then-current film title The Blue Dahlia)--showed the darker...

Sensual CG: robots illustrate their 'feelings" through fluid movements.(Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. Lexus Div.'s advertisement)(computer graphics)
October 1, 2006... More and more, television and movie viewers have to ask themselves, is it real or is it CG playing out on the screen? In a recent set of TV commercials for carmaker Lexus, it is quite obvious from the presentation that most, if not all, of...

Portfolio.
October 1, 2006... One of the highlights of the annual ACM SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition is the art gallery, which features juried selections of digital works from artists around the world. At SIGGRAPH 2006, volunteers curated a spectacular art gallery...

Making connections.(COMPOSITING)
October 1, 2006... Win * Linux Eyeon Software announced Eyeon Connection, a new virtual file system technology that speeds workflow and management by allowing Fusion machines to directly access Autodesk's Stone file system over a LAN, giving users the...

Suite upgrade.(VIDEO EDITING)
October 1, 2006... Win Sony Media Software announced the immediate availability of the Vegas+DVD Production Suite, a significant upgrade to its award-winning professional video, audio, and DVD production software solution. The suite includes Vegas 7 and DVD...

Colorful wares.(MOTION GRAPHICS)
October 1, 2006... Win * Mac Boris FX, developer of integrated effects technology for video and film, demonstrated new versions of its Boris Blue, Boris Red, and Boris Continuum Complete. The company added new performance enhancements and features to its...

A hot intro.(POSTPRODUCTION)
October 1, 2006... Win * Mac The Foundry debuted Tinderbox 4, a major new product release for After Effects. Tinderbox 4 is a new collection of 18 visual effects filters featuring new plug-ins such as Colorist, for automatic color correction and balancing;...

Showing intensity.(VIDEO CARDS)
October 1, 2006... Win * Mac Blackmagic Design rolled out Intensity, an ultra-low-cost HDMI capture playback card that allows, for the first time, low-cost consumer cameras with HDMI video connections to move beyond the quality limits of HDV compressed video...

Card rollout.(VIDEO CARDS)
October 1, 2006... Win * Mac * Linux Bluefish444 announced a new series of multi-channel SD SDI uncompressed video cards supporting Windows XP, Windows 2000 Pro, Linux, and Mac operating systems. In all, five new SD SDI video cards are available: the SD Dual...

IBC show sees record attendance.(IBC 2006)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... IBC 2006, held last month in Amsterdam, welcomed more people than ever before, wire delegate figures for this year's event passing 2005's mark, at 44,808. Commenting on the attendance, IBC director of marketing and business development Michael...

ShapeHand solution.(MOTION CAPTURE)
October 1, 2006... Measurand, a developer of portable motion-capture systems, has introduced its ShapeHand wireless hand motion-capture solution for animators. Portable and lightweight, ShapeHand features flexible ribbon sensors capable of attaching to virtually...

More memory.(STORAGE)
October 1, 2006... Avid has announced the availability of its latest Unity shared-storage solutions, which provide twice the capacity of Avid Unity LANshare and MediaNetwork systems, and three times the storage space of the company's Unity ISIS. Unity LANshare...

Inivis introduction.(3D GRAPHICS)
October 1, 2006... Win * Mac * Linux Inivis, Ltd., celebrating its 10-year anniversary, has unveiled Version 6 of its AC3D graphics software. Version 6 is a subdivision-surface modeler with integrated polygon control. Features new to the latest edition are a...

Software suite.(COMPOSITING)
October 1, 2006... Win * Mac Compositing software developer WalkerFX has announced the WalkerFX 2.2 suite of visual effects and motion graphics plug-ins for Adobe After Effects. WalkerFX provides compositing professionals with channel handling, keying and...

Compositing 101: an industry veteran looks at the tools and techniques required for this digital process, and highlights lessons learned.(Gray Marshall of Gray Matter FX)(Interview)
October 1, 2006... In 1997, Gray Marshall teamed up with visual effects executive producer Margaux Mackay and formed Gray Matter FX, a company with a reputation for its high standard of effects work and project selection. Since its inception, Gray Matter FX has...