Search form

Category: Visual Effects

Film Headline News

Basterds Begins Filming In Germany

Quentin Tarantino's INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS began principal photography last week on location in Germany. The ensemble cast of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS includes Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Melanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Daniel Bruhl, Eli Roth, Samm Levine, B.J. Novak, Til Schweiger, Gedeon Burkhard, Paul Rust, Michael Bacall, Omar Doom, Sylvester Groth, Julie Dreyfus, Jacky Ido, August Diehl, Martin Wuttke, Richard Sammel, Christian Berkel, Sonke Mohring, Michael Fassbender, Mike Myers, Rod Taylor, Denis Menochet and Cloris Leachman.

Headline News

Kommitted Films Directs Spots For Windows Server Hyper-V

Nathan McGuinness of Kommitted Films directed two innovative :30 spots for Microsoft's Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V server with lead vfx by Asylum's Tim Davies. The spots demonstrate how Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V provides the most robust platform for server consolidation, enabling IT professionals to handle the most demanding and resource-intensive workloads.

Headline News

Digital-Tutors Adds Three Titles to 3ds Max Training Library

Digital-Tutors has added three 3ds Max training titles: INTRODUCTION TO RIGGING IN 3DS MAX, INTRODUCTION TO LIGHTING IN 3DS MAX, and AUTOMOTIVE MODELING IN 3DS MAX.

Designed for artists new to 3ds Max, the highly customizable and scalable 3D modeling, animation, and rendering solution, INTRODUCTION TO RIGGING IN 3DS MAX and INTRODUCTION TO LIGHTING IN 3DS MAX together contain five hours of project-driven training and provide essential methods to fully utilizing rigging and character setup tools and fundamental lighting techniques for adding greater realism.

Effects Headline News

Dan Smiczek Joins Ring of Fire

Dan Smiczek has joined Ring of Fire as Head of CGI/Visual Effects Supervisor. He will be working in collaboration with owners and partners Creative Director Jerry Spivack, Executive Producer John Myers and their producing team, overseeing and supervising 3D, animation and visual effects.

Headline News

Blue Room Hits The Slopes For truTV'S Ski Patrol

For truTV, which is set to launch the high-adrenaline, high-stakes series SKI PATROL, Blue Room designed and produced a show package that includes an open consisting of three parts -- a :20 concept sell, :25 episode tease, and :10 graphic open -- and bumpers, transitional elements, lower thirds, sponsorship billboards and mortises, and a promo bug.

SKI PATROL, which follows an elite group of patrollers whose special training makes them part mountain rescuers, part medical technicians, part cops and part good Samaritans, premieres Monday, October 20, at 8 p.m. (ET/PT)

Television Headline News

Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer Signs New Long-Term Agreement

Lionsgate Co-Chairman and CEO Jon Feltheimer has signed a new long-term agreement with Lionsgate extending his tenure until March 2014. His previous contract ended March 2011.

Separately, Michael Burns has also reached agreement to extend his contract as Vice Chairman until September 2011. Feltheimer and Burns now will have 25 years' combined experience at the helm of Lionsgate by the end of their respective contracts, reflecting exceptional long-term stability.

Wild Headline News

3DX To Premiere Call of the Wild 3-D

Singapore and 3DX Film and Entertainment Technology Festival will play host to the first screening of the live action CALL OF THE WILD in 3-D, directed by Richard Gabai and starring Christopher Lloyd. The film is a modern-day story incorporating elements of Jack London's classic short novel. Lloyd and Gabai will attend the film's premiere at the 3DX Festival, November 19-23, in Singapore.

Headline News

Spike TV Imagines Historic Warriors With CGI

Spike TV has given the green light to two new projects, including the CG DEADLIEST WARRIOR. Production will begin this fall.

With the series "Deadliest Warrior," Spike TV will settle once and for all the age-old bar bet of who is history's ultimate fighting machine. Each week, this original, action-packed yet historical narrative series will pit two of the most feared warriors civilization has ever known against one another. Who would come out the victor in a battle of Genghis Kahn's Mongol Barbarians versus Viking warriors or Roman gladiators against Japanese samurai?

Artists Headline News

E-on Software Announces Vue 7 Product Lineup

e-on software, makers of Vue, the solution for natural 3D environments, announces two new entries in the Vue product lineup, Vue 7 Complete and Vue 7 Pioneer.

"Our market research showed that, among independent users who were purchasing our professional solutions, many were doing so for a limited number of highly desirable features, such as, for instance, EcoSystem painting and wind effects. However, other production or workflow oriented features - that they were paying for - were of lesser interest to them", said Nicholas Phelps, president of e-on software.

Headline News

Brad Pitt, WB To Recreate The Odyssey

Warner Bros. and Brad Pitt are going to team with George Miller to adapt Homer's epic poem THE ODYSSEY to the big screen, per VARIETY.

WB had a hit four years ago with the Pitt-led TROY, based on the Greek poet's other epic poem, THE ILIAD, and hopes to translate the story to a futuristic setting in outer space.

WB has kept quiet so far, but the early hope is that Pitt will star and Miller with direct, with Pitt's Plan B producing. TROY featured Pitt as doomed hero Achilles and Wolfgang Petersen directing from David Benioff's adaptation.

Headline News

NVIDIA Introduces New Accelerator For Adobe Creative Suite 4

NVIDIA has introduced its new accelerator for Adobe Creative Suite 4 software, the NVIDIA Quadro CX. This new GPU provides creative professionals with a faster, better, more reliable way to maximize their creativity. Quadro CX was architected to deliver the best performance for the new GPU-optimized features of Adobe Creative Suite 4.

"Adobe is at the forefront of the Visual Computing Revolution," said Dan Vivoli, exec VP of marketing at NVDIA. "CS4's GPU features are sending shockwaves through the creative industry."

Headline News

3Dconnexion 3D Mice Now Supported by XSI 7

3Dconnexion's line of 3D mice is now supported by the latest version of SOFTIMAGE|XSI 7, the professional 3D animation software for creating 3D content for games, film and television.

3Dconnexion 3D mice enable 3D design professionals to navigate smoothly within the SOFTIMAGE|XSI 3D environment for precise 3D modeling, animation and rendering. In addition, buttons on the 3D mice can be programmed to launch frequently used SOFTIMAGE|XSI commands so there's no need to stop mid-workflow to select keyboard commands.

Series Headline News

Battlestar Returns January 16

On Friday, January 16, 2009 at 10 p.m. ET/PT, Sci Fi's critically acclaimed drama series BATTLESTAR GALACTICA will return with the remaining episodes of its fourth and final season. The 10-week run will culminate with the series finale on March 20.

Picking up from last June's jarring cliffhanger -- the Colonial fleet and their new Cylon allies led by Admiral Adama and the Galactica crew discover Earth to find it a barren nuclear wasteland -- the finale season promises to be rife with drama, action and revelation.

Dell Headline News

Dell PrecisionM6400 Covet Is Released

Workstation vendor Dell launched its Dell PrecisionM6400 Covet Thursday. A highly anticipated model joining the Dell Precision M6400 mobile workstation launched last month, the M6400 Covet is housed in a one-of-a-kind Vibrant Orange chassis and comes standard with edge-to-edge glass RGB LED display.

Star Headline News

J.J. Abrams Talks Star Trek With EW

After 10 often dismal movies, STAR TREK had turned into a pop culture punchline. Even people who'd built their entire careers around TREK could see the writing on the wall. "STAR TREK," says Leonard Nimoy, "had run its course."

But director J.J. Abrams believes he can make the franchise cool again. This week's issue of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY has the inside scoop on Abrams' surprising, idealistic odyssey, which could become next summer's multiplex juggernaut.

Software Headline News

Okino New Partner In AGI's STK Software

After 10 years of collaborative activity, AGI Affiliated Product Partner Okino Computer Graphics announced that a secondary, complementary data conversion pipeline in Okino's PolyTrans|CAD (using the COLLADA format) gives STK users the ability to evaluate the new COLLADA model import (beta) capability of AGI's STK software. For over ten years Okino has been a primary provider of cost effective and robust 3D data translation software to STK users around the globe.

Creative Headline News

Buster Design Rocks The Fall 2008 TV Season

Buster, a conceptual design studio that specializes in motion graphics for the advertising and broadcasting industries, has just completed three new TV projects for the fall 2008 season. Buster is a division of Stun Creative.

Buster's latest projects were the show opens for MTV and HP's ENGINE ROOM, LOCATOR for WE TV, and EASY MONEY for The CW. To view these projects, see: BusterDesign.tv.

ENGINE ROOM

Headline News

Autodesk Releases Stereoscopic Filmmaking Whitepaper

Autodesk released a Stereoscopic Filmmaking Whitepaper delivering a comprehensive understanding of the state of the industry and its current barriers. The whitepaper provides valuable knowledge for anyone curious about the future of stereoscopic 3-D (S3D) and highlights current industry challenges from technical production complexities to studio considerations and theatrical acceptance.

The whitepaper is available for download here.

Film Headline News

Writer Hired For Fourth Bourne Film

Universal has hired George Nolfi to write a script for a fourth installment of its BOURNE IDENTITY series, per VARIETY.

The new film will be an original story, whereas the previous three were based on the Robert Ludlum novels. Universal had intended to stop at three films starring Matt Damon, but the third grossed more than $227 million domestically and $215 million overseas. Damon and director Paul Greengrass were attached in February for a fourth installment.

Headline News

Artbeats' Abstract Dimensions Backgrounds Step Forward

Background clips don't have to be boring. The release of ABSTRACT DIMENSIONS, Artbeats' versatile new footage collection, proves that with 25 new backgrounds spanning a creative cornucopia of geometric shapes, subtle flowing designs and wildly colored warping 'effects.'

Headline News

Digital Musings From the Editor:

It's quite a diverse week on VFXWORLD: Tara Bennett tells how Mat Beck & co. at Entity FX raised the bar on the second season of TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES. I delve a bit more deeply into the convergence roadmap behind Ubisoft's acquisition of Hybride. And Alain Bielik talks to Everett Burrell about the vfx challenges of turning MAX PAYNE (opening Friday from Fox) from a videogame into a feature.

Bill DesowitzEditor

Pages