Pixel Vienna

So I found about another CG Conference. I think the more the better. Here is PIXEL VIENNA, apparently taking place in Wien :)
www.pixelvienna.com

PIXEL 7 from PixelVienna on Vimeo.

Splash 2014 - rigging of dog for Vampire Academy

Czech:
Splash se blizi, pro me uz to bude po 4. co tam budu mluvit o rigovani. Pekne to utika! Letos to bude o rig setupu psa pro film Vampire Academy - reknu neco o modelu, kontrolnim rigu a hlavne deformacnim rigu kde se podivame na svaly a deformaci modelu a face setup. Bude toho na jednu hodinu az az! :)

English:
I will be again on this year`s czech CG biggest event Splash. This time talking about how full cg dog was rigged for Vampire Academy. There will be a lot to show during one hour. If you want to see some techniques how animals get rigged for live action movie and you can make it to Prague, make sure you register for Splash 2014.

DOOM 4 reveal at Quakecon

It has been some time. Here is a must-post news for someone like me who is ultimate ID Software fan. So finally at this Quakecon we will see a glimpse, maybe more from long awaited sequel to ID`s flagship title - DOOM4!!
Here is more information:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/06/10/doom-4-e3-quakecon-2014/

Btw. listen to the sound at 0:59 - for those who remember original doom door opening sound... ;)

Splash 2013 video

One of the best SPLASH conferences so far. Nice look back video cut with track from my favourite NIN.

UK film tax credit update

Based on recent announcement UK government continues to support the film and VFX productions in UK with further enhancing tax credit for lower as well as high budget productions from april 2014. There is also support for digital content Research & Development through Technology Strategy Board and education in the same sector via Skill Investment Fund.

Variety
http://variety.com/2013/film/news/u-k-government-ups-tax-credit-for-bigger-budget-pix-1200921539/

UK goverment website
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/autumn-statement-5-december-2013

* image courtesy Thor The Dark World, visual effects by Double Negative

VFX Soldier steps out from anonymity

FXGuide.com made an exclusive interview with Daniel Lay who is apparently the guy behind the VFX Soldier blog famous for its critisism of film tax breaks and also for posting other stories and happenings from the darker side of visual effects industry.
http://www.fxguide.com/fxpodcasts/fxpodcast-267-i-am-vfx-soldier/

Barack Obama at DreamWorks mocap stage

As part of US president`s visit to DreamWorks Animation studios he also saw motion capture performance. The animation was part of the work in progress on the upcoming sequel to How to train your Dragon movie.
Quite a surprise for me as so far I was only aware of using virtual camera in these animated movies (used in Monsters Vs Aliens as one of the first). Probably this is to get the basic animation blocking done and more natural motion performance, which then can get refined or animated over the top. Nice to see DWA not being shy of mocap ;) I think it has become a valid animation technique today, and animators see this is not taking away their jobs but they use it as another input.

Barack Obama visiting DreamWorks

Barack Obama`s speach at DreamWorks addressing animation and entertainment industry in US.

Pictures from Splash 2013

So Splash 2013 CG conference ended, it was super exciting as always and here are few pictures from my Procedural Rigging panel

Maya command

this is a nice command to fit your view on objects in scene, found during work on Splash Rigging panel

import maya.cmds as mc
mc.viewFit()

DNEG Open Day

This is a special event by DNEG to introduce their facility to students who are about to graduate. Part of the tour is a chance to apply for entry level position.

Star Wars production set to UK

BBC informs of what is amazing news for UK or rather London based VFX industry.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22491025

Shooting locations where confirmed to take place in studios around London. Leavesden, Shepperton, Pinewood and others are on the list.
This pretty much makes ILM setting up their new facility in London a certain thing. But it seems that maybe even more jobs will be created for live action shoot and practical effects. This is great for many UK based proffesionals who used to work on Harry Potter series before.
What is also a question, if Disney or ILM will outsource work to other vendors as well. A movie like Star Wars can have at least 1500 visual effects shots, many of them being also very challenging. This might not be with all other projects going at ILM fitting the capacity and could end up at other vendors as well...

Taken from the article comments: "Powerful, the tax break incentive is..."  :)

Josh Carrey from REEL FX to teach rigging at Anomalia

Based on announcement from Anomalia, czech animation summer school, rigging guru from Texas, Josh Carrey will be leading their rigging course this year! Great opportunity if you will be around and want to learn from a senior specialist in this field:


ANOMALIA 2013 Advanced Cartoon Rigging with Josh Carey [REEL FX] from ANOMALIA on Vimeo.

Ftrack 1.5 announced

Ftrack - the cloud based pipeline system for shots production and asset management has announced upcoming release 1.5. Lots of cool new features!
http://blog.ftrack.com/

Prime Focus Harlem Shake

...and as a part of a continous effort of building the Prime Focus star shining image, here is Prime Focus Harlem Shake! Enjoy :)

Rigging in Total Recall presentation

There will be online presentation on 7th february streamed by Escape Studios about Rigging Synth robots for Total Recall and integrating these robots into shots. I will moderate this from our Prime Focus office and if you are interested make sure you register here on Escape Studios website.

Fabric Engine platform

Today I was at the presentation of Fabric Engine 3d Creation Platform and I was really impressed. So here are couple of notes:

It is a development and TD environment project which has its own 3d application GUI (so you can run something that creates window with perspective view and buttons which look like Maya or XSI). That application has its node editor and it is node network architecture. Quite similar to Houdini. The main difference is that this provides access for developpers to absolute core of the system. Also it is OS independent and its purpose is to provide platform to process and visualize 3d data for visual effects productions. This is focused on those productions who have their R'n'D staff and TDs. These really can benefit from such advanced tool and they actually spend lot of time writing such custom tools. But here is a system which provides very good base and a lot of ready-to-use code dedicated to this purpose.
The platform allows for example implement custom real time rendering engine with easy to change parameters, supporting multi-threading and both CPU and GPU operations. One of its main focuses is to be competitive in scalability and performance and the architecture is built for that.
Another example is deformers, which can be implemented and then interfaced into Maya, XSI or other applications or it can be performed inside Fabric Engine 3d application. It actually can take FBX, Alembic or OBJ geometry, process it and export back to the same format.
What is also good to notice is that most of the developpers of this software are originally from Autodesk, originally developping Softimage XSI. Here is the team background.


Creation Platform CAPI Deformer in Softimage from Fabric Engine on Vimeo.

new creature studio founded

A group of film industry veterans have recently founded new studio called Creature Art and Mechanics at Marin County, California. Three of the founders are creature TDs known in 3d animation community for sharing their rigging experience from production through learning DVDs, online and CG conferences like Siggraph. Andrea Maiolo and Tim Naylor have worked in ILM on such movies as Star Wars, Hulk and Pirates of Carribean and with Chad Vernon have all experience with Maya custom tools and plugin development for high-end creature production.
From their press release the facility is planning to "...offer a "Creature Shop" that will hand-off characters and creatures to a studio or its vendors, and support the production of that asset through to final compositing, if necessary."

CG Student Awards

There is a new website for a computer graphics competition, CG Student Awards. Anyone recently studying university or course with a demoreel showing his best work can enter a competition with a chance to win an internship at one of the high-end visual effects studios or a license of professional CGI software like Houdini or ZBrush. Every competitor will get 1 month subscription for Digital Tutors and Slash Media magazine.


Here is an interview with one of the Studio Internship Prize winners from 2010 who had a chance to work at Double Negative on John Carter visual effects postproduction. Read about Elliot Stammer`s unique experience which was a great way for him to enter the industry.

UK extends film tax breaks

Good news for UK film and visual effects as well! Film tax breaks have been extended until 2015. Read more at Reuters news.

And as addition related to this subject, here is annual 200th podcast from Vfx Guide being made recently. Managers of London top film post-production houses are being interviewed about recent state of the industry, with some looking back in its history. It`s aptly called "London Calling" :)