VICON, developer of Academy Award-winning motion capture systems and part of the Oxford Metrics Group, announced TWISTED MURDER as the winner of its international VICON Film Festival. The film was created by Paulo de Almada, an animation artist from Los Angeles, California. He was awarded the cash prize of $10,000 after the judges voted unanimously in support of his outstanding entry.
The winning entries can be viewed at www.vicon.com/filmfestival/
In this spot for Guinness and iiBBDO, Motion Theory directors Jesus de Francisco and Mark Kudsi move the fast-paced and aggressive field sport of hurling from the playing field to a stylized cube, adding a whole new dimension to the action.
The spot, filmed on stage in London with some of the sport's up-and-comers, highlights the intense athleticism of the sport, in an innovative event sponsored by Guinness. At key moments in the action, time almost stops, and the action emanates another visual layer before exploding back into full-speed motion.
Vicon, developer of Academy Award-winning motion capture systems and part of the Oxford Metrics Group, is currently accepting submissions for the Vicon Film Festival online at www.vicon.com/filmfestival/.
With a grand prize of $10,000, the international competition aims to find the most creative and entertaining use of a series of motion capture sequences in an animated short. The competition is open to original short films (between two and five minutes long) using motion capture data made available for download from the Vicon Film Festival website.
Performance capture technology is here to stay. More and more studios are creating digital characters for their stories. This panel is designed to address advances in motion capture technologies that are currently in use producing various types of animation. How different are all of these systems? The panelists will creatively enlighten us with real solutions and insights into the companies who provide the technology and know-how to capture "human performances."
Moderator:Demian Gordon -- Chair of Motion Capture Society
Panelists:
Suite Imagery has released three new royalty free animation volumes in the Nature's Motion series. The new volumes, Nature's Motion 5, 6 and 7, each contain 20 new animations in full HD resolution. These animations serve as professional looping motion backgrounds useful in all levels of video and multimedia production.
Nature's Motion 5 is a collection of 20 animated cloud animations. The volume has a nice variety of color, clouds, and mood making it useful in many applications.
Alain Bielik gets the jump on The Incredible Hulk by speaking with Rhythm & Hues.
The Visual Effects Society (VES) has published the first ever set of VES guidelines for titles in the visual effects industry. The list has been vetted by VES members and ratified by the VES Board of Directors. Major studios have reviewed the list as well and are encouraged to utilize it.
There is a new social networking site for stop motion animators by creator Marc Spess, author of the book SECRETS OF CLAY ANIMATION REVEALED.
After years of getting involved with various online communities related to the art, Spess realized that stop motion on the Internet is extremely fragmented. This is a major road block for serious stop motion film makers when it comes to self promotion. While stop motion is seeing rapid growth on the Internet, many aspiring animators don't have a central place to meet and share their work.
Hasbro, Inc. announced that Bennett Schneir, most recently VP of Creative Affairs for ImageMovers Digital, is joining Hasbro in the newly-created position of SVP and Managing Director, Motion Pictures.
Virtual filmmaking is energizing the industry and leading to a more creative climate for directors and other filmmakers, according to Robert C. Powers (Avatar, Tintin).
Doctors and physiotherapists can now make a more accurate diagnosis of patients with injuries or posture problems following a link between award-winning motion capture company, Animazoo, and software specialists aXtion.
The link will enable medical professionals to make faster, more in-depth diagnoses based on scientific data and analysis recorded using motion capture. aXtion worked with TNO, a knowledge and research organization, to independently test motion capture systems before embarking on the project.
RE:Vision Effects announces the availability of ReelSmart Motion Blur (RSMB) v.3.3, OpenFX (OFX) version.
ReelSmart Motion Blur applies more natural-looking motion blur to a video sequence by automatically tracking every pixel. RE:Vision Effects' tracking technology is at the heart of ReelSmart Motion Blur, so there is no handwork involved.
Users can add as little or as much blurring as is needed, and can even remove motion blur.
International Duplication Centre , a New York City-based digital post-production and new media facility, has acquired Phoenix Productions.
A new fully integrated production, creative motion branding and post-production division, Air Station, will be headed by Chris Phoenix.
Phoenix Productions has specialized in consulting for magazine publishing companies expanding their brands to the web through video and rich media programming and advertising.
Vicon, the developer of Academy Award-winning motion capture systems, today announced that Brian Rausch has joined the company as Vice President of Production for Vicon and Vicon House of Moves.
Rausch comes on board from Sony Computer Entertainment of America, where he most recently served as Senior Manager of the Visual Arts Services Group.
Rausch has more than 10 years of production experience, with a heavy specialization in motion capture and animation.
Leading computer vision and markerless mocap system innovator Organic Motion has announced the opening of the industry's only full-body markerless motion capture studio for European markets. The company's first international service center and demo site, Studio 7, is in London and is owned and operated by production company Atticus Finch.
Vicon's low-cost motion capture system, FK Extreme, has been gaining momentum with continually growing system sales to both entertainment and educational facilities worldwide. FK Extreme was first introduced at last year's Game Developer's Conference.
Motion Theory has hired Angie Jones as animation supervisor. With more than 14 years of experience in creature and character animation for blockbuster films, TV, commercials and videogames, Jones is charged with strengthening the studio's animation department, pushing the ideals of how computer animated characters look and move and overseeing animation teams for all 3D and 2D project work.
fxphd.com is offering 30 courses in the new January08 term (with classes beginning Jan. 14), including 11 new courses.
fxphd continues its production stream with courses on RED camera workflow and digital photography for vfx. They also have a new focus on motion graphics design this term, with three new mograph-centric courses. But they haven't abandoned their vfx/post roots and have new courses in Maya, Flame 2008 and Shake.
Highlights include:
The Foundry launched its Furnace 4 plug-ins for eyeon Software's Fusion. The recently released toolset is brand new to Fusion artists, giving them access to a host of advanced image processing tools designed to enhance workflow and boost productivity in digital visual effects post-production.
With The Foundry's Furnace 4 for Fusion now shipping, Fusion artists will, for the first time, be able to gain access to a broad range of The Foundry's sophisticated motion estimation technology.
The Best in the SW: Flash Animation & Motion Graphics Conference and Festival brings Flash animators, motion-graphic artists, and broadcast designers together for a full week of nonstop animation, visual effects, motion graphics, and inspiration. The Conference includes the annual Best in the SW: Flash Animation & Motion Graphics Awards, a ceremony that celebrates the Best of Flash animation, broadcast design and motion graphics.
Keynote presentations include: Design Made to Move, Motion Graphics and VFX in Hollywood and 2007 Panel of Pros: How did they do that?
In the latest excerpt of Poser 7 Revealed, Kelly L. Murdock shows how to load and save expressions in the Library.
Fine art illustrations created by Tyrus Wong during the production of BAMBI (1942) will be highlighted along with dozens of other films from the late 1940s through early 1990s in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' new exhibition, "The Art of the Motion Picture Illustrator: William B. Major, Harold Michelson and Tyrus Wong," opening on Sept. 28, in the Academy's Grand Lobby Gallery in Beverly Hills. Admission is free.
Organic Motion Inc. launched the commercial availability of the first turnkey markerless motion capture system for the entertainment and life sciences industries, as well as a customized offering for use with the general public. Organic Motion's new line of products --STAGE, BioSTAGE and OpenSTAGE --all harness the company's core computer vision technology, enabling computers to cognitively "see" people's complex movements and generate highly accurate 3D tracking data in realtime, all without body suits or tracking devices.
Vicon announced Blade, a new motion capture processing software system based on the systems development and experience of Vicon and Vicon House of Moves. Blade, designed to work with Vicon's Academy Award-winning realtime motion capture systems, provides a single unified toolset that supports the growing demands of full performance capture, on-set visualization and makes capturing and processing motion capture data for the 3D animation pipeline simpler and more direct.
Performance capture studio Mova and Gentle Giant Studios are unveiling a unique 3D Zoetrope that uses persistence of motion to bring to life a series of 3D models of an actor's face captured live by Mova's Contour Reality Capture System in booth #1229 at SIGGRAPH 2007 in San Diego this week.
