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Monday, January 17, 2011

Animals & Creatures: Animation Mentor's Master Class


+ AnimationMentor.com (Animation Mentor), the state-of-the-art online school for character animation founded by animators, for animators, today announces Animals & Creatures: Master Class, an advanced course on animating quadrupeds, flying animals, and fantasy creatures in a realistic animation style. In addition, the course covers how to effectively integrate animation with live-action footage, introducing new visual effects skills and bringing a new dimension to Animation Mentor's core curriculum. Animals & Creatures: Master Class is for animators who are passionate about telling a different kind of story -- one still based on performance and solid mechanics, but with the addition of a heightened sense of reality and range of characters.
Taught over two 12-week classes (24 weeks total), students in the course animate three new advanced character rigs provided by Animation Mentor. In the first class, students learn how to animate four-legged animals and fantasy creatures; in the second class, students focus on animating flying and fantasy creatures as well as integrating their animation into live-action photography. In addition to live mentoring from top visual effects professionals, students in the course have access to a rich curriculum of video lectures. In these lectures, leading visual effects character animators share tricks of the trade by creating original animated scenes using the new Animation Mentor characters, discussing animation theory, and breaking down shots from feature films. Instructors demonstrate how students can apply these theories and workflow tips to their own work using current industry best practices. Enrollment for Animals & Creatures: Master Class is now open for alumni of Animation Mentor's character animation program. The program will begin accepting new applications from professional animators and non-alumni on April 11, 2011. To learn more about Animals & Creatures: Master Class, please - Click Here

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Pixel Magic and cebas Enter Long-Term Relationship for 2D to 3D Stereo Motion Picture Conversion


+ Technology from Victoria software company cebas will power conversion of “Harry Potter” and other blockbusters.The software company cebas Visual Technology Inc. and the well known visual effects house Pixel Magic have agreed to develop advanced software and workflows that are already being used for converting “Harry Potter” to 3D Stereo. The technology was successfully pioneered for the major studio epic “The Chronicles of Narnia – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”. Based on an intense cooperation with Pixel Magic, cebas created new algorithms and software to significantly simplify and accelerate 2D to 3D Stereo image conversion. The Pixel Magic proprietary, streamlined workflow, along with the development from cebas, enabled a timely delivery of high quality stereoscopic sequences for the most recent “Narnia” picture..."When Head of R&D at Pixel Magic, Rifaat Dagher, approached us to come up with a more efficient and productive solution for 2D to 3D Stereo conversion, our team of German engineers was thrown into the cold water at first,” cebas CEO Edwin Braun said. “But after a considerable amount of development and real world scenario testing with Pixel Magic, we came up with a highly optimized, unique solution. We think this will give Pixel Magic a competitive edge in stereo conversion for years to come,” he added. Pixel Magic VFX Supervisor and lead stereographer Ray McIntyre noted: "This latest picture marks a milestone for us. Our partnership with cebas allows us to develop software that further streamlines our pipeline, decreasing the number of man days needed to complete stereo conversion work.”..Pixel Magic General Manager Scalice added: “Our client, Twentieth Century Fox, was very happy with the results in ‘Narnia’. The cebas tools were instrumental in delivering our stereoscopic 3D conversion in a timely and cost effective manner."

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Artbeats Adds New Dimension with 3D Footage Offerings


+ Answering the growing demand for 3D elements for television and film, Artbeats, a leader in the production of high quality stock footage, announces the immediate availability of their rapidly growing Stereoscopic 3D (S3D) stock footage library. The initial offerings include a variety of nature shots, plus the first S3D aerial stock footage available to the royalty-free market. New 3D content will be added monthly, including pyrotechnic, city scene, establishment, winter scene and additional aerial collections. Artbeats' S3D stock footage is offered as Quicktime movie files with formats that include HD stereo pairs (both sides squeezed horizontally into a single HD frame), separate HD Right and Left views and 4K versions (when shot on RED). Available via the company's website, Artbeats provides helpful metadata specific to each S3D clip including the positive parallax percentage, interocular separation measurements, and the maximum display size, which is the largest suggested screen size on which to display a clip. Artbeats also offers a helpful S3D Video Guide, and a free downloadable full HD resolution Stereoscopic 3D clip to help editors gain a feel for the high quality and ease of use that Artbeats footage is known for. For additional information about Artbeats' S3D footage, and to download the free clip, please visit www.artbeats.com/S3D.

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Introduction to Maxon BodyPaint 3D


+ The Gnomon Workshop announces the final training DVD of 2010. The much anticipated title Introduction to Maxon BodyPaint 3D with Eric Miller is packed with over 8 hours of lecture material, guaranteed to get you up and running with one of the best 3D painting applications on the market today. With over five years of experience using and training others how to use the BodyPaint 3D toolset, Eric has tailored lectures for users of all experience levels, starting with the fundamental UI and navigation lectures, to the more advanced setup and paint processes. Maxon Bodypaint 3D has become the standard 3D painting tool used in the film and game texture pipelines. Renowned for its stability and performance, Bodypaint excels in the arena of integration with 3rd party 3D and 2D applications like Autodesk Maya and Adobe Photoshop. Bodypaint's extensive toolset including a powerful projection painting engine has made it the tool of choice for painting textures on a 3D surface. Containing over 8 hours of lecture, this DVD covers everything you need to get started with Bodypaint. Beginning with the fundamentals of navigation, UI, and document setup, the topics progress to more advanced setup and workflow related lectures. The lectures will also address painting modes, like surface and projection painting, along with effective methods to create and utilize custom brushes in BodyPaint.
>> Introduction to Maxon BodyPaint 3D

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