NVIDIA announced that Rhythm & Hues Studios has standardized its digital production pipeline on NVIDIA Quadro FX products. More than 500 digital content creation workstations in this leading-edge facility have already been equipped with NVIDIA Quadro FX boards, allowing some of Hollywood’s best digital artists to make the most of their 3D effects, animation and rendering applications.

It was truly serendipitous when VFXWORLD was given the opportunity to publish Kim Libreri’s “12 Predictions on the Future of VFX” this week. Not only does his insightful column fit in perfectly with this month’s topic concerning industry trends, but also it just so happens that the veteran visual effects supervisor and founder of ESC Ent. has now joined ILM. Great timing!

Double Negative's work on FINDING NEVERLAND, which recently won The National Board of Review’s best film prize, involved previs (Jesper Kjolsrud), on-set supervision (Hal Couzens), impossible camera moves, “magic-moment” enhancements and a host of invisible effects such as crowd replication and the removal of modern anachronisms and safety rigs.

Platinum Studios and Top Cow Prods. Inc. announced a deal in which Dimension Films has acquired the exclusive rights to develop Top Cow’s THE DARKNESS as a live-action feature film. THE DARKNESS is the first film deal between Platinum and Top Cow, following Platinum’s acquisition of the film and television rights to Top Cow’s comic book library this past July.

Softimage Co. and the National Animation and Design Centre (NAD Centre) launched NAD Centre Internet Academy (NADIA), the first realtime, interactive learning program for SOFTIMAGE|XSI digital content creation software. NADIA allows 3D artists to access professional instruction for SOFTIMAGE|XSI software directly from a desktop PC connected to the Internet. Participants can choose from a series of 18 modular courses supplemented by an extensive library of material and scenes.

Leading game developer Ubisoft has purchased several licenses of Alias MotionBuilder 6 Pro. With more than 45 animators already trained on the software, Alias MotionBuilder 6 will be an integral component of Ubisoft’s production pipeline for animating characters in several of its upcoming games.

Just in time for the holidays, The Gnomon Workshop has produced 14 more instructive DVDs for release on Dec. 15. These new Digital Library titles, from artists Kevin Hudson, Matt Hartle, Ethan Summers and Sean Mills, give you a multi-layered look at modeling, Paint Effects and mental ray.

In addition, The Gnomon Workshop introduces the industry's first ZBrush titles. Artists Meats Meier and Zack Petroc take you from the fundamentals of this powerful application, through pipeline, sculpting and workflow Maya.

Jean-Michel Cousteau, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and 3D Ent. announced the upcoming release of SHARKS 3D, a film that brings the viewer face to face with a multitude of the world's great shark species, including the Great White, Whale Shark and Hammerhead. Audiences will experience them as they truly are in their natural habitat: not wicked man-eating creatures, but wild, fascinating and highly endangered animals.

Leading motion capture studio House of Moves, a division of Vicon Motion Systems, has hired Scott Gagain (SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW) as exec producer.

For those who just can’t have enough MATRIX and don’t mind double dipping, Warner Home Video has assembled THE ULTIMATE MATRIX COLLECTION ($79.92), which streets Dec. 7, 2004.

Walt Disney Pictures has tapped uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer to oversee G-FORCE, a live-action/CGI family film that features talking animals. Visual effects supervisor Hoyt Yeatman (THE ROCK, KANGAROO JACK) will make his directing debut on the film, which was been in development at Yeatman’s Whamaphram Prods. Disney Jason Reed will oversee the film for the studio with Whamaphram's David James serving as exec producer. Ed Kashiba will also work in a producing role on the film.

Universal Pictures has hired Chris Columbus to direct and produce the feature adaptation of Marvel Comics’ SUB-MARINER. Marvel Studios chairman-ceo Avi Arad and former Universal production president-turned-producer Kevin Misher will produce along with Columbus’ 1492 Prods. The film’s screenwriter David Self will serve as exec producer. Universal Pictures vice chair of worldwide production Mary Parent and vp of production Damien Saccani will shepherd the flick for the studio.

Jacob Davich has been hired for the role of the young bully in Robert Rodriguez’s THE ADVENTURES OF SHARK BOY AND LAVA GIRL IN 3-D. Dimension is set to release the film in June 2005. Davich, who makes his feature debut as the young Howard Hughes in Martin Scorsese's THE AVIATOR, will play Minus, who terrorizes 10-year-old, Max, who has a pair of imaginary superhero friends. The cast also includes George Lopez, David Arquette, Kristin Davis and newcomers Taylor Dooley, Taylor Lautner and Cayden Boyd. Rodriguez will write and direct via his Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Texas.

Visual effects supervisor and ESC Ent. founder Kim Libreri has joined Industrial Light & Magic as the company prepares to move next year into its new Presidio facility in San Francisco and “goes through a major shift in the way the facility structures productions and support ranks on its film projects.”

3Dconnexion, a Logitech company, has announced that visitors to CGI Festival 2004 will be able to test-drive its award-winning line of 3D motion controllers as part of a free, no-obligation 21-day evaluation.

CGI Festival 2004 reconvenes at the Business Design Centre in London from Dec. 7 to 8 after commencing last month in Leeds.

Craft Animations, the inventors of the Hyper-realistic Physics Engine (HYPE), has released Craft HeliCam v1.30, the first tool of the commercial plug-in suite, Craft Camera Tools (CCTs), for Maya.

CCTs, previously released for 3ds max, is used by animators to control and record camera movements directly in the viewport, in realtime, with a joystick. CCTs offers animators freedom from the unnatural robotic perfection of spline curves. CCTs move cameras with a natural human imperfection, offering HYPE Freedom and timesavings.

We concluded our focus last month on 3D environments and digital acting with Ellen Wolff’s “Flying The Virtual Skies in THE AVIATOR” and Isaac Kerlow’s “Creative Human Character Animation: THE INCREDIBLES vs.

Kim Libreri, former vfx supervisor at ESC Ent., played a key role in the inception and development of Iridas’ FrameCycler Digital Daily System and SpeedGrade, the new non-destructive color grading and film finishing application. Both products were used extensively in the two MATRIX sequels as well as CATWOMAN.

Tom Hanks will play famed symbologist Robert Langdon in Columbia Pictures’ upcoming film adaptation based on Dan Brown’s best-selling thriller THE DA VINCI CODE, slated for release May 19, 2006. Ron Howard will direct from a script by Akiva Goldsman, who previously collaborated on Oscar-winner A BEAUTIFUL MIND. Brian Grazer and John Calley will produce. Presumably vfx, with lots of potential for virtual environments, would be handled by Sony Pictures Imageworks.