Ever walk over the subway grates and thought, “Wow, there’s a lot of wasted energy here that could be harnessed for the good of all mankind.”
No?
Well I have… kinda…. sorta… not really.
Joshua Allen Harris seems to have found a very clever way to use this unused pressure.
Vestax’s new USB DJ controller uses Serato’s “ITCH” for some pretty impressive results. It also looks like an updated VCI-300MKII model has been released. I must get my hands on one… at least to try.
These two videos show the making of Psyop’s “Milk” advertisement, generated using Softimage’s “ICE”. Here’s a link for the full add.
Making of ‘Milk’ – Lighting the Waves from Florian Witzel on Vimeo.
Making of ‘Milk’ – Rigging the Waves from Florian Witzel on Vimeo.
It’s been awhile since I last wrote anything about voxels, and I’m cooking up another update. In the meantime, I just had to share this beauty of a vid.
Did my bi-yearly check on Blender to see if a simplified customizable interface has been implemented yet. Looks like another open source movie is also in the works. This one’s called Durian… like the funky/stinky pod fruit**? No associate intended, I hope.
Blender has some training DVDs coming that look presented, assuming as much work was put into the DVDs as was put into this trailer. Venom’s Lab – Training DVD Teaser from Pablo Vazquez on Vimeo.
** I’ve had the durian fruit a few times. It STINKS… but tastes amazing.
A classically animated short created by Michael Dudok De Wit. Simple yet beautiful. Powerful use of the music to tell the story. If you like this short and can handle seeing something a little more simple, Father & Daughter is also worth checking out.
Thanks to Des Duggan for getting me to check this out.
District 9 was a significant film for me for a few different reasons.
The film was directed by Neill Blomkamp, a Vancouver Film School graduate who is a VFX veteran from The Embassy, who directed the popular Citroen commercial.
Long story short, Neill was supposed to direct the Halo film, but that was put on hold (indefinitely?) and so Peter Jackson assisted Neill in turning his short film, “Alive in Jorberg“. into a feature film. District 9 was green lit with a budget of $30 million.
On September 29th I attended a Siggraph talk with Image Engine, where spoke on the making of District 9. Image Engine was one of a handful of studios in Vancouver that worked on the film. While Image Engine focused on the creation of the “prawn” characters, The Embassy was working on the large robot and little critters. Goldtooth Creative worked on some of the 3D user interfaces shots and WETA, since they were busy with Avatar, was only able to contribute to a few shot elements, including the mothership.
The original intention was to use prosthetic suits for the alien prawns w/ CG face overlays. Peter Muyzers recommended that Image Engine be allowed to create the creatures entirely in 3D. In the end, about 300 alien shots were created by Image Engine. The aliens were acted out by a grey suited actor and then replaced by a CG double, which was created in Maya. It was noted that the grey suit provided a great reference for lighting. Nuke was heavily used in the production as allowed for much of the CG lighting to be adjusted in real-time.
People at Goldtooth and Image Engine both noted how the use of the “Red One” camera sometimes produced warping of the frame during fast camera moves. This was often difficult for the tracking software and forced them to fully recreate the scenes in 3D in order to do touchups. The warping effect was referred to as the “rolling shutter“.
The 300 alien shots felt like a lot more. This and many of the other tricks, including filtering footage through VHS recorders, were testiment to Neill’s efficient use of FX. He understood that 3D is expensive and when some shots were pushed through the pipe, he was quoted saying that the cost was “a snowmobile or 2“. Like Fight Club, Neill used used FX to help tell a story, not a story to show off pretty effects. The crew at Image Engine expressed how much of a benefit it was to have someone directing that spoke their language.
I hope to see more movies like this and nearly everyone who’s seen it agrees. Would Neill be able to produce double the quality with 60 million? Anybody ready for a District 10? We’ll see.
FXGuide has a very detailed breakdown that includes before/after shots organized by studio.
Does dangling the carrot really help motivation? NO.
[thx Dan Lyle]
Although I do update my “Recent Thoughts” (forwards from my identi & twitter feeds), I shouldn’t let me think that can be considered “keeping my website updated”. Because it’s not.
I just ran across this video at odforce.net. A VERY slick road generator. Now what CAN’T this program do.
