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Category: Visual Effects

Motion Headline News

Ubisoft Installs Vicon MX40 System

Ubisoft Montreal has installed the 24-camera Vicon MX40 system. The leading game publisher is home to a new purpose-built motion capture studio equipped with a 4,500-square-foot stage designed primarily for full-body performance. Ubisoft Montreal decided to bring motion capture in-house to develop pipelines that tie directly into its game engines and game designs, and to eliminate the logistical costs of traveling to U.S. West Coast-based motion capture service bureaus.

Headline News

The Pixel Farm to Release PFTrack 3.5

The Pixel Farm announced that it will start shipping PFTrack 3.5 in March. Already one of the most advanced camera tracking and motion analysis products available, this latest version reaches new heights of operability, with many additional features including a more sophisticated camera solver, segmented shot solving, improved geometry tracking and extensive UI and workflow improvements.

Effects Headline News

Master Storytellers Hosts ILM’s War of the Worlds Team

Hollywoods Master Storytellers, the long-running film series, will host Industrial Light & Magics Best Visual Effects Academy Award nominees for WAR OF THE WORLDS on Thursday, Feb. 16, at 7:30 pm. WAR OF THE WORLDS will also be Hollywoods Master Storytellers first regular presentation at its new home, Manns Chinese Theatres Complex at Hollywood & Highland.

Awards Headline News

Rachel McAdams to Host Academy's Sci-Tech Awards

Actress Rachel McAdams will present the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Scientific and Technical Awards on Feb. 18, 2006, at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills.

McAdams, who stars in the romantic comedy, THE FAMILY STONE, made her film debut in PERFECT PIE, which was based on a work by Canadian playwright Judith Thompson. Her films include roles in MEAN GIRLS, THE NOTEBOOK, RED EYE and the 2005 summer hit, WEDDING CRASHERS.

Headline News

Weta Dives Into Water Horse

Walden Media, Beacon Pictures, Revolution Studios and Ecosse Films have teamed to produce a feature based on children's fantasy novel THE WATER HORSE, by British author Dick King-Smith. Weta Digital and Weta Workshop have been tapped to handle the visual effects.

Robert Nelson Jacobs will write the script and Jay Russell will direct. Production is set to start in May in New Zealand.

The book follows a lonely boy in Scotland who finds a mysterious egg from which hatches a "water horse" a mythical sea monster of Scottish legend.

Story Headline News

Shrek 2 & Spirit Director Goes Live Action With Thief of Always

SHREK 2 co-director Kelly Asbury has written and will direct the live-action screenplay adaptation of Clive Barker's THE THIEF OF ALWAYS for 20th Century Fox and Seraphim Films, according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.

Asbury and Barker met at an authors festival where Asbury was invited to discuss his nonfiction book DUMMY DAYS. Asbury and Barker struck up a conversation, which lead to Barker asking Asbury to write and direct the screen adaptation of his 1992 juvenile dark fantasy novel.

Autodesk Headline News

Autodesk Technology Highlight Super Bowl XL Ads

Many of the commercials airing during last night's Super Bowl XL were shaped with Autodesk's products, including software gained from its recent acquisition of Alias. Post-production facilities used Autodesk technology to realize ideas for Aleve, Bud Light, Gillette, Honda and many other Super Bowl commercials.

Headline News

Rendercore Supports Maxon Cinema 4D HAIR Module

Rendercore Inc., a worldwide leader in remote rendering solutions, announced the complete integration and support for the recently introduced HAIR module from Maxon.

This new module lets users quickly and easily add astonishingly realistic hair to objects. The hair can be styled using HAIR's extensive tool palette, and a custom 3D shader gives artists complete control over the appearance of the hair. HAIR is not only easy to use, it's very fast, offers excellent rendering quality and requires very little memory. An average configuration can easily render millions of hairs.

Visual Headline News

Ocean Visual FX Launches Studio

Visual effects and 3D animation studio Ocean Visual FX has been formed in Huntington Beach, California, to design and produce effects and animation for feature films, broadcast and corporate marketing, according to Robbie Robfogel, ceo/visual effects supervisor. LuzMary Robfogel is coo.

The studio has brought aboard 3D modeler and animator Brandon MacDougall and character animator Jeff Clifton.

Headline News

BFG GeForce 7800 GS AGP Graphics Cards Now Available

BFG Technologies Inc., a leading U.S.-based NVIDIA supplier of advanced 3D graphics cards and other PC enthusiast products, announced that their new BFG GeForce 7800 GS OC 256MB AGP graphics cards are immediately available through leading retailers and retailers.

Headline News

Captain Jack Sparrow to Join Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean Attraction

First the theme park attraction inspired the movie now the movie is inspiring the attraction.

Pirates of the Caribbean, the classic Disney theme park adventure brought to the big screen in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL, is adding new characters and features from the blockbuster entertainment franchise and debuting when the next adventure begins in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST.

Awards Headline News

Deadline Nears for VES Awards Online Voting

Members of the Visual Effects Society around the globe have until Feb. 10 to vote online for the 4th Annual VES Awards, to be held Feb. 15, 2006, at the Hollywood Paladium.

The online voting system was launched last year, and the new site went live at the end of January with the help of consultant and VFXWORLD contributor Marty Shindler. Some 1,350 members from 16 countries can screen nominated clips along with before-and-after sequences and written material.

Headline News

Harry Potter 5 Commences Production

Principal photography will commence Feb. 6, 2006, at Leavesden Studios on HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, the fifth film adaptation of J.K. Rowling's beloved HARRY POTTER novel series.

Directed by award winning British filmmaker David Yates (THE GIRL IN THE CAFÉ, SEX TRAFFIC, STATE OF PLAY), THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX is produced by series producer David Heyman and David Barron, from a screenplay by Michael Goldenberg (WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, PETER PAN, CONTACT).

Headline News

Walt Disney & Walden Media Begin Pre-Production on Prince Caspian

Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media, in collaboration with Academy Award-nominated director Andrew Adamson, have begun pre-production on THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN, the follow-up to the international blockbuster, THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE.

Series Headline News

New Line Television to Produce Blade TV Series for Spike TV

Spike TV has greenlit a television series based on Marvel superhero BLADE for the network's first original scripted series to premiere in June 2006. The network has ordered 11 hour-long episodes, in addition to the previously announced two-hour kickoff episode, to be produced by New Line Television, set to commence production in Vancouver this spring.

Headline News

Donner’s Superman II Cut Bound for DVD

As part of Warner Home Videos aggressive catalog title launch in 2006 more than 200 movies will be released for the first time or reissued in special editions in standard and hi-def formats look for a 14-disc SUPERMAN: ULTIMATE COLLECTORS EDITION box set late in the year. Along with all four of the original movies will be a SUPERMAN II: SPECIAL EDITION with the DONNER CUT. Editor Michael Thaw is reassembling director Richard Donners original cut (he shot both SUPERMAN and SUPERMAN II simultaneously and was replaced by Richard Lester near the end of the shoot).

Awards Headline News

ILM Receives VFX Oscar Noms for War of the Worlds and Narnia

Despite the surprising omission of STAR WARS: EPISODE III REVENGE OF THE SITH, Industrial Light & Magic received two of the three nominations in the Best Visual Effects category yesterday for the 78th Annual Academy Awards.

ILM was nominated for its contributions to WAR OF THE WORLDS and THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. To date, ILM has received 35 Oscar nominations since its founding in 1975, an industry record for visual effects companies. For its work, ILM has received 13 Academy Awards.

Star Headline News

Fanboys Found for Star Wars-Themed Comedy

By Rick DeMott | Wednesday, February 1, 2006 at 12:00am

Kristen Bell (VERONICA MARS), Jay Baruchel (MILLION DOLLAR BABY), Chris Marquette (JUST FRIENDS) and Sam Huntington (SUPERMAN RETURNS) are in final talks to join the cast of FANBOYS, which follows a group of STAR WARS geeks, who attempt their dying friends wish of screening the yet-unreleased STAR WARS: EPISODE I THE PHANTOM MENACE at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch, according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. Dan Fogler (forthcoming SCHOOL OF SCOUNDRELS) has already been cast as a hot-headed pizza boy.

Headline News

10,000 B.C. Travels from Sony to Warner Bros.

In turnaround, Warner Bros. Pictures has snatched up Roland Emmerich's big-budget 10,000 B.C. from Sony, reports VARIETY. Emmerich will start lensing the prehistoric adventure in late April in South Africa with an eye on a summer 2007 release.

The turnaround comes less than five months after Emmerich and producing partner Michael Wimer initiated the project at Columbia Pictures through their Centropolis company.

Games Headline News

fmx/06 Announces Program

fmx/06, the 11th International Conference on Animation, Effects, Realtime and Content, will take place May 3-6, 2006, in Stuttgart, Germany.

Topics include the latest animated movies and vfx features, the convergence of games and movies, new fields of work for animators, the latest use of realtime graphics and current trends from the Far East. There is also new cooperation with the Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film, with overlapping programs, in addition to the festival award ceremony coinciding with the opening of fmx/06 on the evening of May 2.

Digital Headline News

NAB2006 Digital Summit to Focus on Real World Applications

NAB and partners ETC-USC (the Entertainment Technology Center at University of Southern California) and SMPTE (the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) announced that immediate and near future applications will be the focus of the Digital Cinema Summit at NAB2006. Set for April 22 and 23 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Summit will feature case studies, expert tutorials, keynotes and panels that examine practical issues arising from the production, postproduction, distribution and presentation of digital cinema.

Studio Headline News

Friday the 13th Prequel Fast Tracked

New Line has put a FRIDAY THE 13TH prequel on the fast track, reports VARIETY. The studio has greenlit the script development of a story that would chronicle the origins of hockey-mask wearing killer Jason Voorhees. The studio hopes to have the 10th film in the franchise ready for a Friday, Oct. 13, 2006, opening.

Exec Headline News

CBS Greenlights Ultra Comic Pilot

CBS has greenlit a pilot for a new live-action TV program based on the comicbook, ULTRA, reports VARIETY. JOAN OF ARCADIA creator Barbara Hall will exec produce the pilot. CBS Paramount Network TV is producing the show.

The comic is a spoof of celebrity magazines and follows a female superhero who must balance saving the world, advancing her career as super model, Pearl Penalosa, and developing a love life.

David Engel and David Alpert are co-exec producers on the project.

Headline News

Robin Williams Has A Night at the Museum

Robin Williams has joined the star-studded cast of 20th Century Foxs NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM, according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. The funny man will play Theodore Roosevelt opposite Ben Stiller, Carla Gugino, Kim Raver, Mickey Rooney, Dick Van Dyke and Bill Cobbs.

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