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ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 4.4 - JULY 1999
Technology
Realviz S.A. Announces Matchmover. Realviz S.A. has announced the availability of its MatchMover software solution for animation and special effects professionals on Microsoft, Windows, NT and GI IRIX platforms. Using MatchMover, computer-generated 3D images can be easily integrated with video or film to create Simulated Reality. Using computed 3D coordinates and geometric constraints, MatchMover transforms original live-action footage into an accurate 3D space. The transformed 3D live-action space can be precisely matched to 3D animated scenes and new virtual 3D objects can be created or imported into the space to compose a scene. By capturing 3D points from this scene and exporting them to animation software, mattes can be accurately constructed for occlusions. Using MatchMover, virtual 3D objects can be easily inserted into live-action footage at the proper scale, position and orientation. In addition, MatchMover captures 3D coordinates of moving real objects from the original footage. Using these dynamic coordinates, computer-generated 3D objects can be attached and synchronized with moving real objects in the original live-action footage to create special effects. With its fast, accurate tracking features and robust editing features, MatchMover enables animation and special effects personnel to create image sequences of mixed live-action footage and computer-generated 3D animation. MatchMover can be installed for an initial investment of $200 for the Windows NT platform and $350 for the IRIX platform. Export keys can be purchased at $1,000 each or $5,000 in packages of ten - Full Use Licenses may also be purchased for $10,000. The Full Use License provides unlimited export of projects to animation software. MatchMover fits into current production and post-production software environments and workflows, as projects can be directly exported to commonly-used animation software including 3D Studio Max, SOFTIMAGE|3D, Maya and LightWave 3D.
Star Wars Gets Even More Digital. Two films are about to make history as the first widely released feature films available to moviegoers via digital projection. One is Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace; the other is the English romantic comedy, An Ideal Husband. Beginning June 18, and continuing for four weeks, a digital version of Oliver Parker's An Ideal Husband will play in New York City and Los Angeles. Check your papers for locations and times. For Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, CineComm Digital Cinema and Texas Instruments, two of the industry's leading forces in digital projection of motion pictures, will provide their digital projector technology to screen the film on two screens in the Los Angeles area and two screens in the New York area starting on Friday, June 18, 1999. In Los Angeles, the CineComm digital presentation will be held at Pacific's Winnetka Theater and the Texas Instruments presentation will be held at AMC's Burbank 14 Theater. In the New York area, CineComm's presentation will be at Loews' Route 4 Paramus, New Jersey, and Texas Instrument's presentation will be at Loews' Meadows 6 in Secaucus, New Jersey. Rick McCallum, producer of The Phantom Menace, states, "This is a milestone in cinematic history. Why? Because, for the first time ever, a filmmaker can be certain that the audience will see and hear the film in the way the filmmaker intended it to be seen and heard. Like the introduction of sound and color, these digital screenings represent the beginning of a new era in film presentation. Digital projection guarantees a perfect print with each and every screening for the full life of the film and for every copy that is made. All any filmmaker wants is to be able to show a film that is free of scratches and which has all the qualities of image brightness, focus and color that everyone has struggled and spent so much time and effort to create."
Alias|Wavefront Ships Maya 2. Alias|Wavefront, an SGI company, is shipping Maya 2 for Microsoft Windows NT and Silicon Graphics IRIX workstations. Maya 2 includes a number of feature enhancements, timesaving workflow improvements, and across-the-board performance optimizations for 3D animation and visual effects. New features include Wavefront IPR (Interactive Photorealistic Renderer), a rendering technology that allows users to edit lights, shaders, textures and visual effects in a final rendered image. New workflow improvements include support for polygons in Maya Artisan, Maya software's brush sculpting tool, and the addition of a new shader creation environment called Maya HyperShade. Other new features include a "pose-based" character interface and new skinning techniques to streamline production workflow in a way that is familiar to traditional animators. Maya Complete 2, available for Windows NT or IRIX, has a SRP of US$7,500 and includes modeling, rendering, animation, dynamics, Artisan, MEL (an embedded scripting language) and a well-documented API that provides an open interface for programming in Maya. Maya Unlimited 2, available on Windows NT or IRIX, has a SRP of US$16,000 and includes Maya Complete 2, Maya Live, Maya Fur, Maya Cloth, additional batch rendering capability and the new integrated Advanced Modeling functionality.
Adobe Announces Photoshop 5.5 And LE. Adobe has announced Adobe Photoshop 5.5 and Adobe Photoshop Limited Edition (LE) software. Photoshop LE offers tools for correcting and enhancing photos, compositing multiple images, creating original artwork with a variety of special effects, and outputting to desktop printers and common Web file formats. For graphics professionals, Adobe Photoshop 5.5 software provides additional precision and control, broader color mode support, and dynamic Web capabilities. The advanced Photoshop 5.5 features are supplemented by productivity enhancements such as the Actions palette for automated editing and the History palette for undoing multiple edits. Adobe Photoshop LE also features tight integration with the complete family of Adobe products including Adobe After Effects, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, and Adobe Premiere. Adobe Photoshop LE is expected to ship in July for an estimated street price of US$99 through retail outlets and the Web. In North America, customers who purchase and use Photoshop LE can upgrade to the full version of Adobe Photoshop 5.5 for an estimated price of US$499. Registered Adobe PhotoDeluxe users can upgrade to Adobe Photoshop LE for US$79 direct from Adobe. Adobe Photoshop 5.5 is expected to ship in July for an estimated street price of US$609.
Macromedia Ships Flash 4. Macromedia Inc. has announced the worldwide availability of Flash 4. Flash 4 includes support for high-fidelity MP3 streaming audio and commands for creating interactive sites. In addition, Flash 4 streamlines the development process with a revamped authoring environment optimized to help developers create bandwidth-efficient Web sites. MP3 streaming audio support in Flash 4 allows designers to create new Web audio applications, such as long-form animations with voiceovers and background music, while keeping files small enough for low-bandwidth delivery. Sites can now easily gather customer data from within Flash-based Web pages, and then pass that information to a Web server. Flash offers extensive control over how user-entered information is displayed. For example, Actions in Flash 4 enable draggable interface elements, conditional logic, and basic mathematics, simplifying the creation of Web shopping cart applications. Flash 4 is now available for Windows 95/98, Windows NT, and MacOS for an estimated street price of US$299 in North America. Current registered Flash users can upgrade to Flash 4 for US$129.
Interactive Learning Announces Attain Objects. Interactive Learning, a Division of Macromedia, Inc., has announced Attain Objects for Dreamweaver, an extension application for Dreamweaver which provides developers with a set of easy-to-use templates for creating Web-based learning and complex interactions that would otherwise be difficult and time consuming to build. The new release is compatible with Dreamweaver 2, Macromedia's software for professional Web site design. Attain Objects for Dreamweaver also extends support beyond Windows based PCs to the Macintosh platform, enabling developers and educators to design and create Web-based learning content on Mac systems. Special introductory pricing, good through Sept. 30, 1999, is US$199 list for Attain Objects for Dreamweaver, and US$499 list for the Attain Objects bundled with Dreamweaver 2.
Note: Readers may contact any Animation World Magazine contributor by sending an e-mail to editor@awn.com.
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