Web3D Project by Eyes, JAPAN

CG Channel has an interesting interview with Avatar’s motion capture producer James Knight. He talks about the motion capture pipeline used, their virtual camera, and also about the problems they encountered.

On Avatar, the motion capture volume was 72 by 32 feet, and we had 102 cameras capturing the data. We had a scaling volume off to the side where we would do range-of-motion work, and there were seven cameras for that, then 95 capturing the live motion-capture data.

Every morning, we’d ‘snap’ each actor in by recording them in the T-pose. Each one had different marker placements on their bodies, since they’re all different sizes and move differently.

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fxguide has an article with Blur studio about their creation of the main titles and with Method Studios and Digital Domain about their composites for director David Fincher’s latest film “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”.

“From a story perspective the goal was to illuminate the key moments of all three books as well as the most relevant personality traits of the two main characters,” explains Blur creative director Tim Miller. “But to do it so abstractly that it would take several viewings to really understand the visual metaphors. Conceptually it was supposed to feel like a dreamscape, a nightmare of Lisbeth’s (Rooney Mara), dark horrific, beautiful and covered in what David called ‘dream ooze’.”

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3D World has an interview with the CEO of iKinema about the concept behind the online browser-based motion retargeting and customising platform.

“3D World: How does WebAnimate differ to other software like MotionBuilder? And are features from other mocap packages going to be added?
Alexandre: WebAnimate is a much simpler application than MotionBuilder. Having said that, WebAnimate is a very powerful application as it includes our core IKinema solvers. The IKinema marker solver and the retargeting engine enable Webanimate to perform at similar and even greater levels than MotionBuilder, especially when we include our stretch-IK engine and streaming data in real-time from Vicon and Xsens. Furthermore, we are now adding the general rigging engine so WebAnimate can be used for key-framing animation. Key differences are that we support animation and retargeting on any creature, human and non-human. We are bringing our streaming interfaces from motion-capture systems and Kinect for real-time retargeting, but still we will not include any scripting features and SDK for integration of third party extensions. We would like the users of WebAnimate to end up being the small studios and individuals who need to quickly access a tool and test their ideas or on their work for small animation or game projects. MotionBuilder would be always the high-end tool; we would like to provide another tool for the rest of the community, and in this respect we do not see an overlap.

Being in the browser, we would like to extend the features and provide abilities for shared-screen use. This would make remote demonstration and collaboration work easily achievable.”

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12月17日に発売されたばかりのPlayStation Vita。torneで録画した番組を見れるのですが、それ以外にも自分でエンコードしたような映像もちゃんと再生できます。ただすべての映像がそのまま見られるわけではなく、ちょっとした設定やらコツやらが必要らしく、それについて分かりやすく纏めた物があったので紹介させてもらいます。

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fxguide has an interesting article with embedded videos about the destruction tools commonly used in VFX pipelines.

Extract from the article:
Destruction pipelines today are key aspects of any major visual effects pipeline. Many current pipelines are based on Rigid Body Simulations (RBS) or otherwise referred to as Rigid Body Dynamics (RBD), but a new solution – Finite Element Analysis (FEA) – is beginning to emerge. In this ‘Art Of’ article, we talk to some of the major visual effects studios – ILM, Imageworks, MPC, Double Negative and Framestore – about how they approach their destruction toolsets.

In VFX and CGI, RBS is most often relevant to the subdivision of objects due to collision or destruction, but unlike particles, which move only in three space and can be defined by a vector, rigid bodies occupy space and have geometrical properties, such as a center of mass, moments of inertia, and most importantly they can have six degrees of freedom (translation in all three axes plus rotation in three directions). Rigid bodies are also importantly defined as being non-deformable, as opposed to soft bodies, flesh sims, or deformable bodies. The one major exception to RBS is Finite Element Analysis (FEA). This is used by at least one major effects house – MPC – but until recently has been prohibitively expensive for all but real world engineering simulations in industries such as power plants and pipeline testing, for example.

Original article

CG Channel has an interview with VFX supervisor Rob Nederhorst (Thor, Captain America, etc) and a preview video of his upcoming Gnomon Master class for compositing anf VFX.

“CGG: So what are those ‘little things’? VFX artists get to see a shot over and over again, but the audience only sees it once. How do you pick out the details that really matter?

RN: This is one of those things that just takes experience to realize. We all want the work to be perfect, but it rarely is. If you don’t notice something in the first two or three plays, in theory it won’t be noticed by an audience. But you never play it two or three times.

The other thing we do is always look at things in the context of the cut. That’s key. Sometimes the individual shots have issues that are just not apparent when viewed in the cut.”

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普段何気なく使っているPhotoShopですが、その元は意外と知られていないのではないでしょうか。写真屋と日本語になおされることも多いこのソフトの歴史は”文字通り”だったようです。

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Computer Graphics World has an online exclusive about creation of the shoe-shaped home in the spot for Canadian Real Estate Association.

“Blue Source wanted to build a house shaped like a shoe instead of an oversized shoe, so we set out to create a house that felt like it was really built that way and had evolved over time,” noted Rob Moggach, who acted as VFX supervisor and Flame artist on the spot. “Building the house with CG gave us the flexibility to build a photoreal house that could be art directed to meet changing creative needs and be incorporated into an undetermined selection of wide and medium shots. We worked closely with Blue Source’s production design team throughout the design and development to get the look exactly right.”

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fxguide has an interview with one of the speakers at SIGGRAPH Asia 2011: Bill Buxton about the relationship between computer graphics and interaction, etc.

“I think in the 80s, both the graphics side and the input side were equally represented at SIGGRAPH, and that’s changed over the years so that now it’s probably far more about the graphical side. So at SIGGRAPH Asia I’m going to talk about the relationship between the input side and the output side. I’m going to look at some of the historical things that happened from 1969 and even earlier.”

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様々な団体の調査を元に考察したところ、先進国でも日本の子供のインターネット普及率が低いとのこと。この調査ではさらに、かなりの低年齢層にまで携帯電話やタブレットの普及が始まっていることが示されており、アメリカではすでに「生まれた時からスマートフォンが身近にある」という新世代のデジタルネイティブが生まれつつあるようです。

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CG Channel has an interesting article about the production process of making VFX short ColourBleed.

“My recent film, ColourBleed, is a nine-minute live action short, set in a bleak Eastern European city. It follows the unfortunate fate of an idealistic young girl (newcomer Milla Karkkainen) who crosses paths with a scheming and enigmatic old woman (veteran British actress Anna Barry). As the twisted tale unfolds, an increasing number of visual effects are employed to bolster the story.”

ColourBleed | Trailer from Peter Szewczyk on Vimeo.

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国産の映像編集ソフト「EDIUS」のサイト内にあるＰＩＭＯＰＩＣ（The Perfect introductin of motion picture）は、映像クリエイターとして実際に仕事を始めている人や、これから映像コンテンツ制作を目指そうという人のための教科書コンテンツです。
経験豊富なプロの映像制作者が、映像制作の各段階に分けて必要な技術や機材の基礎知識から実践現場で活かされるコツまでを伝授します。無料なのに理論までしっかりと説明してくれるところもあり、映像編集をしようと思っている人から既にやっている人まで、これは知らなかったという知識がきっとあるはずです。

公式「PIMOPIC」

Computer Graphics World has an online exclusive interviewing the executive producers and compositing supervisor about the VFX work by Uncharted Territory in the feature film “Anonymous”.

“As executive producer and VFX supervisor of Anonymous, you and your team produced this project with a modest budget and achieved a high-end finish. How was this achieved?
Marc Weigert: For everything we do, we try to think outside the box. For me, that is the most interesting part about this job. Try to find a simpler, better, more efficient way. In our collaboration with Eyeon, a lot of work that is traditionally done in 3D, we moved into compositing. When you work in 3D programs, the feedback loop is fairly slow. So Eyeon developed tools in Fusion for us that would allow us to shift more work into the compositing space, and thus get instant, or near instant, feedback. For example, we used 3D volumetric fog inside Fusion. Particle systems for snow, breath, chimney smoke, and so on. All immediately visible and adjustable in the composite.”

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fxguide has an interview with Disney’s stereographer regarding the 3D conversion of The Lion King, recently re-released in cinemasa. Below is an extract regarding the method used for conversion.

“After that I would watch the film and basically chart out what I felt the emotional content was. I tried to quantify what the peak point of action was and make that a ’10′, and what were the quieter moments with expositional dialogue or that just were a breather in between action or big emotional beats, and these would be a ’1′.

Then I created these depth mark-ups, which was really the most intense part. For the shots that are 10s, like Scar having his final encounter in the showdown in Simba, or the big emotional moments when Simba sees his father in the sky – for those moments what you want to do is give them the most stereoscopic depth as you can, while keeping it comfortable for the audience. In the quieter moments, I give it the least amount that will still make the shot look good. I want all the shots to have an aesthetically pleasing quality and feel like nothing’s cardboard in them.”

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Studio Tendril has released the making of their ad for Bell’s new IP-based television service.

Concept art and in-progress shots are shared, and also a compositing breakdown of the various layers and passes used to create the final look of one robot shot.

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LPI-Japanはこれまで、Linuxを基礎から学ぶことができる電子教科書をweb上で公開してきました。同社の「Linux標準教科書」は公開開始から18万ダウンロードを数え、その使用実績から教材として高い評価を得ています。

8月16日、同社はLinux標準教科書のAndroidアプリ版を無償配布すると発表しました。

今後はLinuxサーバ構築の知識を学べる「Linuxサーバー構築標準教科書」や仮想化技術など発展的内容を含む「高信頼システム構築標準教科書」のAndroidアプリを公開予定とのことです。ちなみにどちらも同社のwebページから簡単なアンケートに答えるだけで無償ダウンロードが可能です。

Linux標準教科書

In the present state a 3D printer is used for industrial purposes and is used for materials like plastic and metals. It aids in bulk production of goods with uniformity among them. This eases production processes and brings about consistency in the goods produced. If this technology is developed for everyday household use it is sure to have some impact on the economy.

Procurement and possession of goods will no longer be difficult as it will be easy to produce replicas. This might also lead to many goods seeing a dip in value.

These are all ifs and buts that are being considered about a situation that may be faced some five years from now. Till then there might be a lot more changes taking place in the economy and technology side that may add new dimensions to this debate. Until then, the 3D printer is definitely a product being greatly awaited.

Source

Computer Graphics World has an online exclusive on Cinesite’s recreationg of 18th century London in 3D for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
“Cinesite, one of the world’s leading film visual effects houses, has completed more than 300 stereoscopic visual effects shots for Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. For their first full stereo 3D project, Cinesite were tasked with creating large-scale photorealistic 3D environments for a dramatic carriage chase through London.”
“Starting inside St James’ Palace and progressing through three different exterior London environments, the carriage chase sequence was shot against three large bluescreens on location in Greenwich and comprises more than 200 back-to-back shots. Cinesite created complex 3D environments including full CG street builds with detailed period buildings, as well as set and background extensions. Atmospheric smoke, smog and fog were added to create an old London feel, and extras, shot in stereo against a bluescreen, were seamlessly composited to enhance the busy London street.”
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セキュリティアプリ「Big Brother Camera Security」の開発者であるDaniel Amitay氏はアプリに使用されるパスコードからiPhoneで最もよく設定されているパスコードを調べ、公表しました。公表された情報によると、もっともよく使われるパスコードは「1234」ということで、単純でクラックされやすいパスコードをそのまま使用している人が多いことが分かります。少々面倒ですが、パスコードは8桁のものを使用するなど、できることからセキュリティの向上を図りたいですね。

Most Common iPhone Passcodes

3D World has an article about Cinesite’s range of shots for X-Men: First Class.
Cinesite worked on a range of shots including a retro version of the Cerebro Room, Azazel’s fight sequences, a military parade in Red Square, and Washington DC, devastated by nuclear war.
Source