AWN Headline News

Tigar Hare Studios has completed a :60 3D-animated theatrical trailer for Microsofts PROJECT GOTHAM RACING III Xbox 360 game. The HDRI photoreal trailer dramatically exemplifies the games slogan, Life Begins at 170, as it introduces three high-end race cars from the game, the Ferrari F430, the Lamborghini Murcielago and the Saleen S7, as they streak in furious competition through the streets of Gotham.

Iridas, an industry leader in uncompressed playback technologies announced the release of Service Pack 2 for FrameCycler 3.5. This update introduces a key component of the new Iridias color pipeline. With SP2, FrameCycler playback applications now allow users to view sequences with SpeedGrade .look files applied. Color graded playback is thus now possible from every workstation or screening room at any point in the filmmaking process.

WAR OF THE WORLDS opened Wednesday and VFXWORLD will provide full coverage next week after readers have had a chance to view and digest it. Working on just a 12-week schedule and experimenting with a new pipeline, ILM has achieved very impressive visual effects and character animation, which blend in seamlessly with the gritty, post-9/11 look that Spielberg was after. Coupled with the very promising trailer from KING KONG that began airing this week, the craft of invisible vfx is certainly on the rise.

Vicon iQ 2.0, the newest version of Vicons motion-capture pipeline software, has been released. Vicon iQ provides an intuitive interface with all of the tools needed to manage, automate, capture and process an entire production. With Version 2.0, Vicon iQ offers a complete realtime environment for setup, calibration and capture with Vicon's ultra high-resolution Vicon MX systems. Vicon iQ 2.0 also takes full advantage of the unique grayscale power of Vicon MX cameras, with all-new processing algorithms to deliver the best accuracy, quality and processing times.

Sony Pictures Imageworks officially announced the establishment of the Imageworks Professional Academic Excellence (IPAX) program, created to educate faculty and structure curricula at the countrys leading academic institutions in an effort to develop future talent who will contribute to the overall growth of the visual effects industry.

SIGGRAPH 2005 Panels program offers insights into the current state of computer graphics and interactive techniques.

SIGGRAPH 2005, the 32nd International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, will take place July 31-Aug. 4 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

yU + co charted the incredible story of the lovable VW Bugs life in the main title sequence for the new Disney film, HERBIE: FULLY LOADED. In an execution brimming with style and wit, the studios design and production team used fanciful newspaper clippings, scenes from previous Herbie films and other cleverly concocted media to retrace the anthropomorphic VWs storied rise and fall.