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Wednesday, September 15, 2010

NewTek Unveils LightWave 10: Rigging Revealed DVD


+ NewTek, a worldwide leader in 3D animation and video products, announced today it is currently in production with a new "LightWave™ 10: Rigging Revealed" DVD featuring renowned creature and character artist Lino Grande. Customers who purchase or upgrade to LightWave 10 before September 30, 2010 will receive the Rigging Revealed DVD and early adopter pricing of $495 for LightWave upgrades and $895 for full units of LightWave 10. LightWave 10 pricing will return to $695 for upgrades and $1495 for full unit pricing after September 30, 2010.
"The LightWave 10: Rigging Revealed" DVD is designed to help artists master the art of rigging in LightWave 10 with fast, flexible techniques for creating character animation similar to animation found in many feature film pipelines. In the DVD, artist Lino Grande discusses the LightWave rigging process—from beginning to end—and offers step-by-step instructions for the rigging of bones and joints, building skeletons, and rigging without weight maps—a feature unique to LightWave 3D®. Rigging without weight maps allows for character geometry changes after a rig has been created without experiencing the slow down often associated with repainting weight falloffs after each change. New features in LightWave 10 are also covered in the new DVD. Artists will learn how to use the new VPR (Viewport Renderer) and export animation, deformations and dynamic simulations to the native LightWave MDD point cache format to import into CORE. The DVD also covers using the new Autodesk® Geometry Cache tools to interchange data with other 3D applications. For more details about LightWave 10 and the "LightWave 10: Rigging Revealed" DVD, please visit www.newtek.com/lightwave.

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V-Ray RT GPU BETA and V-Ray 2.0



+ Chaos Group announced today that V-Ray RT running on GPU is now open for public Beta testing for all current V-Ray RT for 3ds Max users. V-Ray RT GPU is fully integrated within Autodesk 3ds Max and allows up to 30 times faster rendering and real time interaction with the virtual environment. This highly scalable rendering solution offers a number of new features like real time shading and lights set-up, distributed and cross platform rendering, progressive path tracing and many others. After the beta testing period, V-Ray RT GPU will become a part of V-Ray 2.0. Existing users of V-Ray RT can join the beta program of the new GPU based rendering tool and provide their valuable feedback. Users that do not currently own V-Ray RT can purchase it now and receive a special upgrade price to V-Ray 2.0. V-Ray RT GPU will become part of V-Ray 2.0 after the beta testing period. V-Ray 2.0 for 3ds Max will combine a V-Ray for 3ds Max production renderer, V-Ray RT on CPU and V-Ray RT on GPU. An important note is that the upcoming upgrade is per V-Ray 1.5 for 3ds Max license and not V-Ray RT license. Its official release date is planned for 6th of December 2010. Additional information on the upgrade and the pricing policy could be found on the Chaos Group website.

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3D Character Rendering Challenge 2010


+ e-on software, maker of the leading solutions for natural 3D environments, in partnership with DAZ 3D, a leading provider of character solutions along with 3D Artist Magazine and Cornucopia3D, are pleased to announce the “3D Character Rendering Challenge 2010”; giving both professional and casual artists the opportunity to showcase their 3D character creation and rendering skills, and a chance to win a copy of the soon-to-be-released Vue 9 Complete, Vue 9 Studio or Vue 9 Esprit along with many other prizes.Submissions start September 7, 2010 and end October 4, 2010. The winners of the competition will be announced on October 15, 2010. More information and submission guidelines are available at: www.e-onsoftware.com/competition

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AC3D 6.7 out now


+ Inivis Limited has announced the release of AC3D 6.7. Use AC3D™ to create 3D models for: games, virtual reality and flight simulation, scientific, medical and general data visualisation, rapid prototypes of 3D designs, high resolution 3D renderings, Google Earth, Second Life and much more. Collada is a powerful 3D file format that is becoming one of the primary 3D file interchange standards. Our AC3D engineers have spent lots of time fine-tuning the new AC3D Collada geometry importer. Our testing found that it supported Collada files better than some other commercial 3D software. Collada files are one of the primary formats used in Google’s 3D Warehouse. So now, AC3D users have access to a full library of objects including buildings, vehicles and much more. AC3D now comes with Improved Windows 7 and 64 bit compatibility.
>> Download Demo

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Monday, September 06, 2010

Anatomy of a Short Film


+ This week The Gnomon Workshop releases the third DVD title from filmmaker Aristomenis "Meni" Tsirbas. This DVD, Anatomy of a Short Film, marks the beginning of a series of DVDs intended to chronicle the creation of a short film. Meni reveals the secret recipe for getting a short film off the ground, through rough ideation, early character concept and storyboard. This is a rare glimpse into the mind and creative process of an acclaimed filmmaker, sure to provide inspiration for filmmakers of all kinds. In this DVD, director Aristomenis (Meni) Tsirbas begins a special series that chronicles the process of creating a short film from scratch. This first volume reveals the crucial initial steps for getting a short film off the ground. From early character studies to the creation of all the rough storyboards, Meni candidly explains his creative process throughout in a way seldom captured on video. Since most films never get past the early stages of development, Meni shows how to push through and complete this essential step, and in doing so give the project its best chance at reaching the finish line. This is a rare opportunity to see how an acclaimed short filmmaker gets his movies done.
>> More information

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MPC created over 60 photorealistic CG creatures for Cadbury's


+ MPC created a full cast of over 60 photorealistic CG creatures for Cadbury's latest commercial ‘Spots V Stripes’. Fallon and A Glass and A Half Full Productions have produced Cadbury’s latest commercial ‘Spots V Stripes’, an underwater adventure eagerly anticipating the ‘big game’ of 2012. Nick Gordon directed the spot through Academy Films and Augusto Sola was the Creative Director. MPC created a full cast of over 60 photorealistic CG creatures and provided extensive environment work. As an official sponsor of the Olympics 2012, Cadbury’s is already building up for the event and has created their own big game, sub-aquatic style. MPC was involved during pre-production including pre-vis and concept work to develop the right look for the creatures and the environment. It was clear from an early stage that VFX would play an essential role in the success of the ad; all the animals had to be fully CG and most of the environments had to be created or enhanced in post. MPC’s Jake Mengers led the team as VFX Creative Director with Stefan Gerstheimer as 3D Supervisor and Michael Gregory as 2D Supervisor.
The Director wanted to create a photorealistic look for the creatures but their livery had to be adapted to fit with the teams; stripes and spots. MPC’s main challenge was modelling, animating and texturing 14 different types of animals including turtles, devil rays, octopuses, sailfish, ducks, crabs and mantis shrimps. All the assets were modelled in Maya, painted in ZBrush, textured using Body Paint and rendered with Mental Ray. The live action plates for the environments were captured in the Red Sea during a 5-day shoot. Many of the underwater environments were rebuilt entirely using a combination of 3d elements and live-action projections. Reference material gathered during the shoot helped the 2D team recreate the environment matching detritus, caustic light and the light rays in 3D, combined with volumetric shadows for added realism. A lighting setup was designed to mimic the underwater conditions in a render efficient way. 'To composite the creatures into the live action plates we looked at a lot of real reference we had shot and also lots of underwater stock footage - explains 2D Supervisor Michael Gregory. With the help of some wonderfully lit cg and some irridescence passes we were able to seamlessly composite them back into the plate. Paying particular attention to the depth cueing of the shot and adding light rays, subtle flares and detritus helped us bring all the shots to life.' The balloons were rendered with 4 different textures including barnacle, lichen and moss passes then integrated with 3d bubbles and exploding cloudy fluid simulated in Maya. The crescendo to the commercial is a slow motion exit shot with a Tufted Duck being chased by the Sailfish and Devil Ray. The duck was feathered using Maya Fur and rendered using Mental Ray. All of the slo-motion water elements were created with bespoke Bokeh and Real Flow water.
>> www.moving-picture.com
>> Watch da Spot video

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Chicago Motion Graphics Festival 2010


+ The Chicago Motion Graphics Festival provides five days of educational, entertainment and networking events featuring artists such as: Herzog & de Meuron, Lucas Arts, N.A.S.A. w/ Tom Waits and Kanye West, Basement Jaxx, Warp Records, Ninja Tune, Royksopp, The Crystal Method, Puma, The Flashbulb, Carl Burgess, The Mill, Dvein, Pleix, Psyop, Max Hattler and many more. MGFest begins on Wednesday, September 15th at 5pm with "Meetup Massive", a networking flashmob at 1023 South State Street, including over seven different Chicago user groups and collectives dedicated to art and creativity. Later that night, MGFest premiers a Screening Series at Columbia College's Ferguson Center featuring the best of international call for entry submissions as well as selections from Stash's DVD Magazine and Lumen Eclipse's video art exhibits in Boston's Harvard Square. Curated from international talent, the screenings set the tone for MGFest's focus of showcasing innovative local and global artists.
Thursday night, premiering at the Chicago Cultural Center Theater, MGFest presents the MATCH^ showcasing 7 music groups paired with 7 visual acts who'll combine motion, sound and code-based art to ignite a synesthetic performance explosion. Each Audio+Video pair has 7 days to complete a custom-created, 20 minute, audio-visual show to be performed at MATCH^. On Friday night, attend the Super-String-Social to make connections with some of Chicago's most innovative local artists and creative professionals while checking out the gear that makes it all happen. The Super-String-Social will take place at Leviathan, a new and growing entity within the experimental design community led by storytellers, 3D animators, painters, filmmakers and software developers. Educational workshops and hands-on intensives take place during the day Wednesday through Sunday. Imagination College Courses include: Maxon's Cinema 4D with Mograph, Programming-based Animation with Adobe Flash ActionScript, plus two special "in the studio" Sound Design Intensives with celebrity sound designers, Benn Jordan (The Flashbulb) and Richard Devine. MGFest concludes on Sunday, September 19th at Rodan, Chicago's original video bar, with a video installation art showcase set to the contemporary electronic music curated by Living Sundays. The Motion Graphics Festival is the premier creative conference for motion design, visual effects, sound design and interface technology - presenting a wide array of events including: art showcases, workshops, studio tours, theater screenings, industry mixers, and audio visual showcases.
Full Event Information + Registration >> www.MGFest.com/#chicago

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