Google Earth As a Game Engine For Ship Simulation

Ships is significant because it is the first serious application that uses Google Earth as a game engine. In Ships, you take control of a selection of ships and drive them around the world

http://www.planetinaction.com/aboutships.php

"Star Trek: The Beginning" Teaser Trailer VFX Breakdown

"Star Trek: The Beginning" Teaser Trailer VFX Breakdown

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"Star Trek: The Beginning" Teaser Trailer - By Daniel Broadway



Visual Effects And Animation By Daniel Broadway
Editing By Christopher Spenceley

How the Visual Effects Were Created...
Daniel Broadway's Blog: "Star Trek: The Beginning" Teaser Trailer VFX Breakdown

The Ancient Book of Sex and Science

The Ancient Book of Sex and Science features artwork by Scott Morse, Lou Romano, Don Shank, and Nate Wragg. "In this highly-anticipated second volume of the Ancient Book series, indulge yourself as you explore the strange frontiers of both sex and science. From instruments of innovation and the Atomic Age to analysis of the mind, body, and seduction of the human form. this collection offers broad color, shapely design, supple lines, and evocative commentary."

You can now order the book for $19.95. Also, original pieces are still available to purchase if you have as much as $3,500 to blow.

I had the opportunity to attend the opening reception at Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra, CA and meet all 4 featured artists! Check my forum post to view photos of the event!

The gallery will remain open to visitors until May 28.

source: GalleryNucleus.com


More At:http://pixarplanet.com/blog/the-ancient-book-of-sex-and-science

Up Soundtrack: Cover Art/Track Listing Revealed

Amazon.com has just recently released the track listing for Up: The Soundtrack composed by Michael Giacchino. Each of the 26 tracks (53 minutes of music) are preview-able on the page and will be available for digital download on May 26th, no word yet on the physical soundtrack.

Warning: The titles of the songs, listed below, could be considered spoilerific, after the list I’ll be discussing some details you may or may not have caught in the names:

01. Up With Titles
02. We’re In the Club Now
03. Married Life
04. Carl Goes Up
05. 52 Chachki Pickup
06. Paradise Found
07. Walkin’ the House
08. Three Dog Dash
09. Kevin Beak’n
10. Canine Conundrum
11. The Nickel Tour
12. The Explorer Motel
13. Escape from Muntz Mountain
14. Giving Muntz the Bird
15. Stuff We Did
16. Memories Can Weigh You Down
17. The Small Mailman Returns
18. He’s Got the Bird
19. Seizing the Spirit of Adventure
20. It’s Just a House
21. The Ellie Badge
22. Up With End Credits
23. The Spirit of Adventure
24. Carl’s Maiden Voyage
25. Muntz’s Dark Reverie
26. Meet Kevin in the Jungle

Notes: Notice the track "Up With End Credits." Michael Giacchino is known to play around with the word "credits" in such tracks as "The Incredits" from The Incredibles and "End Creditouilles" from Ratatouille. Also notice Three Dog Dash, "dash" is another word Michael uses frequently in his soundtracks. Remember "100 Rat Dash" from Ratatouille and "100 Mile Dash" from The Incredibles. Don’t forget, "Memories Can Weight You Down", this is the first track titled revealed and I highly recommend you give this magnificent track a listen! Speaking of titles, many of them like "Escape from Muntz Mountain" and "Giving Muntz the Bird" are funny puns. Get it? Another thing I noticed is that some of the tracks (24-26) aren’t music, but sound effects! Last but not least, check out, "The Spirit of Adventure", a new song from the movie!

(Thanks, Elikrotupos)

Anything else you noticed on the soundtrack, will you be purchasing this gem?

Snazzy: Up on The Simpsons/Pizza Planet Truck in Real Life

Some snazzy Pixar related stuff floating around the internet:

Up Floats into Springfield: The Simpsons crew decided to add a little in-joke on Up in the season finale for their show. Many Pixar animators come from the Simpsons and vice-versa, so it was really cool of them to make that reference! You may remember last year, WALL•E made a cameo in another Simpsons episode. You can watch the clip here, wait ‘til the end for Carl’s house:




(via Stitch Kingdom)

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Pizza Planet Truck, For Real: Remember the Pizza Planet truck cameo in Cars? Take Five a Day is reporting you can own Todd the Pizza Planet truck now! I know a lot of people have been looking forward to this die-cast release as well, and it’s great to report to you it’s finally available in stores.

To make it even better, check out this picture a reader sent the die-cast Cars fan blog. After a little Photoshop tweaking it looks just like a real-life version of the iconic truck!

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Do you know of anything Pixar related that isn’t exactly news but would be of interest to fans? Send it over to us and we might feature it in "Snazzy!"

24/7 3D printing company in Vancouver BC

http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=784803

"An online gaming fantasy world populated by mythical trolls, gnomes, warriors and warlocks has fuelled a 24-hour-a-day production plant in East Vancouver that literally cannot keep up with demand.

FigurePrints LLC makes 10-cm-high figurines of characters from the hugely popular World of Warcraft game at a 3,200-square-foot facility on Venables Street that opened less than a year ago."


"Iosch expects FigurePrints could easily expand to 25 employees and 10 printers in the near future. The company was founded by former Microsoft executive and FigurePrints majority owner Ed Fries, a World of Warcraft player who learned of the 3-D printing technology two years ago at a video-game convention in Los Angeles.

The technology combines computer software and special printers that can make three-dimensional objects with ultra-fine detail and full colour, using a powder substance that hardens into something like porcelain. "

New Virtual World Allows Children to Travel Safe and Freely

Exploring our planet - and beyond - in an exciting, positive and interactive way is the product of Wiglington and Wenks Worldwide Pte Ltd, a joint venture between John Bittleston & Eliza Quek and MediaFreaks Cartoon Pte Ltd (http://www.media-freaks.com).

The games and Virtual World transport players on a breathtaking tour not just of our world as it is today but also back through the past and forward into the future.

Based on John Bittleston’s four popular books, The Travels of Wiglington and Wenks, the new games challenge children’s knowledge and quick thinking while the Virtual World allows them to construct their own environment and explore what is ideal for the planet and fun for them. In this Age of Exploration, children are safely guided while being encouraged to extend their natural creative talents by transforming their dreams and aspirations into reality.

Anticipated to launch in 2010, the virtual world is currently in production.

Commenting on the joint venture, John Bittleston said “The aim of expanding children’s knowledge and enjoyment of the world is what prompted me to write the original books. The internet is the ideal medium for launching them into today’s modern media in a way that is exciting and challenging. With 187 books potentially still to go there is no shortage of wonderful treasures and thrilling adventures to look forward to.” Eliza Quek added “The highly novel way in which the MediaFreaks team has developed the games and graphics into a whole new playing experience will ensure the success of this lively development”.

Aldric Chang, Managing Director of MediaFreaks, pointed out that the innovative idea of discovering the world through living maps was what spurred the MediaFreaks team to devise games that help children to create their own version of how the world should be in future. “Cartoon characters have fired the imagination of children for a long time but it is only the advent of the internet that has transformed games from being simply time-passing to aiding discovery and invention,” he said.

"Wiglington and Wenks is now accepting subscribers for its Beta launch and will also be announcing contests in the near future to invite animators, artists and scriptwriters to join in the creative fun".

Visit http://www.wiglingtonandwenks.com for more information.

Cubicspace and TurboSquid Introduce rtre v2.1 to 3ds Max community.

Cubicspace Studios Ltd and TurboSquid have announced the immediate availability of rtre v2.1 as the latest update to the popular Autodesk Certified Animation Plug-in product. With this release, users can expect rendering speeds within the Realtime view to exceed 100+ million polygons per second, providing instant visual feedback on scene design in ways not previously possible through the normal 3ds Max viewports.

Beyond just performance improvements and fixes, rtre v2.1 also offers several powerful new capabilities that help artists create immersive, interactive presentations with greater ease, including new texture and published scene compression, a single-click feature to make the entire interactive world solid and ready for collisions, and new infinite ground plane controls.

Key Highlights of rtre v2.1 include:
Navigation
· A tailored environment gives users freedom within the Realtime view to walk, fly or orbit anywhere within their scenes. This includes variable gravity (to keep you firmly planted on the ground if you so desire) and adjustable movement speed to refine your audience’s experience.
· Users can now select any object to be a start point within the Realtime view and can choose to start their realtime scenes in any navigation mode (walk, fly or orbit).

Rendering
· Automatic irradiance lighting of all selected objects added to the embedded Realtime view inside of 3ds Max allows for quick setup and preview of scene with materials.
· Dynamic Realtime view offers customizable field-of-view, near and far clip planes and depth colored fog for advanced composition and layout to further augment your ideas and vision.

Interactivity & Publishing
· Customize the dimensions, title bar and sizing options of published executable files from rtre v2.1 to deliver a complete experience for your clients that doesn’t feel generic or forced.
· Setup and testing of custom skin interfaces directly within the 3ds Max Realtime viewport greatly reduces the time needed to publish out an .EXE file ready for consumption by your clients.
· Intuitive helper objects allow users to build robust Realtime interactivity without needing to know anything about programming. Being able to have animation triggered by clicking on an object or colliding with it in the Realtime view lets users provide a much richer and complete experience for their intended audience.

Other stuff
· Enhanced support for native 3ds Max materials and map types (including advanced Normal Mapping) gives users a full palette of material creation tools to make the textures applied to their objects robust and convincing.
· Full XRef scene and object support within the Realtime view.
· Heads-up-Display in Realtime view lets you quickly monitor your hardware and scene performance.


Related links:
TurboSquid
Cubicspace
free trial

SIGGRAPH Emerging Technologies set to show breakthroughs in Haptics, Robotics and Gaming

SIGGRAPH 2009's Emerging Technologies presents innovative technologies and applications in many fields including alternative displays, robotics, input interfaces, gaming, audio, haptics/VR, and experimental sensory experiences.

Presented in a combination of curated demonstrations and juried interactive installations, a minimum of 29 of the more than 100 international juried submissions were selected and will be on display and available for interaction with attendees in New Orleans this summer.

"These installations showcase how technology and computer graphics might soon be enhancing the average person's everyday work and life," stated Manabu Sakurai, SIGGRAPH 2009 Emerging Technologies Chair. "From helping those with physical challenges to improving the entertainment experience, Emerging Technologies offer a unique look into the future at how complex technologies can have a major impact."

Sound Scope Headphones : Masatoshi Hamanaka, SeungHee Lee - University of Tsukuba
The Sound Scope Headphones let users control an audio mixer through natural movements, and thus enable a musical novice to separately listen to each musical instrument independently during a group concert.

The UnMousePad - The Future of Touch Sensing : Ilya Rosenberg, Ken Perlin, Charles Hendee, Alexander Grau, Nadim Awad, Adrian Secord, Merve Keles - New York University; Christian Miller - University of Texas - Austin; Julien Beguin - Gotham Wave Games
The UnMousePad is based on a flexible and inexpensive sensor technology called IFSR that enables the acquisition of high quality multi-touch pressure images. The core advantage of this revolutionary sensor technology is that by interpolating pressure, it allows tracking at high resolutions, using a fairly coarse grid of electrodes.

HeadSPIN: A One-to-Many 3D Video Teleconferencing System : Andrew Jones, Magnus Lang, Graham Fyffe, Xueming Yu, Jay Busch - University of Southern California, Institute for Creative Technologies; Ian McDowall- Fakespace Labs; Mark Bolas - University of Southern California, Institute for Creative Technologies & School of Cinematic Arts; Paul Debevec - University of Southern California, Institute for Creative Technologies
This installation presents a 3D teleconferencing system that enables true eye contact between a three-dimensionally transmitted subject and multiple participants in an audience. The system is able to reproduce the effects of gaze, attention, and eye contact not available in traditional teleconferencing systems.

Graphical Instruction for a Garment Folding Robot : Yuta Sugiura - Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University/ JST, ERATO, Tokyo; Takeo Igarashi - The University of Tokyo / JST, ERATO, Tokyo; Hiroki Takahashi - Waseda University / JST, ERATO, Tokyo; Tabare Akim Gowon - Harvard University /JST, ERATO, Tokyo; Charith Lasantha Fernando, Maki Sugimoto, Masahiko Inami - Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University/ JST, ERATO, Tokyo
This project proposes the use of an interactive graphical editor to give instructions to robots for folding garments in a household environment. This editor allows the user to specify instructions by performing simple editing operations (clicking and dragging) in order to teach the robot how to uniquely fold clothes.

Pull-Navi : Yuichiro Kojima, Yuki Hashimoto, Shogo Fukushima, Hiroyuki Kajimoto - The University of Electro-Communications. While many tactile navigation systems have used hands or arms, we developed a novel, intuitive, instinctive and energy-efficient walk navigation interface that "pulls the ears" and confirmed that users were inevitably tempted to move in the pulled direction without experiencing pain or force. The device simply is worn on the ears and leads or lightly pulls the user in a desired direction.

Touchable Holography : Takayuki Hoshi, Masafumi Takahashi, Kei Nakatsuma, Hiroyuki Shinoda - The University of Tokyo
Mid-air displays are attracting a lot of attention as promising technologies in the field of digital signage and home TV, and many types of holographic displays are proposed and developed. Although we can "see" the projected images as if they are really floating in front of us, we cannot "touch" them because they are nothing but light. The objective here is adding tactile feedback to the hovering image in 3D free space.

Virtualization Gate : Benjamin Petit, Thomas Dupeux, - INRIA; Jean-Denis Lesage - Grenoble Universities; Herve Mathieu - INRIA; Edmond Boyer - Grenoble Universities; Bruno Raffin ˆ INRIA; Francois Faure - Grenoble Universities; Clement Menier, Florian Geffray - 4D View Solutions; Laurence Boissieux, Michael Adam, Florent Falipou - INRIA; Richard Broadbridge - 4D View
Solutions Virtualization Gate uses a multi-camera acquisition space coupled with the wearing of a head mounted display to immerse users in a virtual world. Your full body will be virtualized to enforce your presence in the ever-expanding world of social networking and allow intuitive interactions with virtual objects.

Related links:
SIGGRAPH 2009
Emerging Technologies

Wudai Ninja Mod aurora's Avatar Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Colorado Posts: 928 Tickets Now On Sale For The First Annual London Supermeet

Los Angeles, CA/Boston, MA (May 18, 2009) - Final Cut Studio users and digital filmmakers from around the world will gather together for the First Annual London FCPUG “SuperMeet” to be held Wednesday, 25 June 2009 at the The Great Hall at the Kensington Conference and Event Centre in London, England. Doors open at 4:30pm (16:30) with an FCP Showcase; Presentations begin at 7PM (19:00) and continue until 11:30PM (23:30). This SuperMeet promises to be the single largest gathering of Final Cut Pro users, Gurus and digital filmmakers in the UK during 2009. Tickets are now on sale online for only £10.50 each and this event promises to sell out.

“This will be our first SuperMeet in London,” said Michael Horton, SuperMeet co-producer and head of the Los Angeles Final Cut Pro User Group (Lafcpug). “For the last eight years these events have played to sold out crowds at NAB in Las Vegas and Macworld in San Francisco and IBC in Amsterdam. It just seemed time to bring the SuperMeet experience to London.”

SuperMeets provide the postproduction and broadcast community an opportunity to not only learn about the latest HD technology trends, but to connect with each other to discuss experiences and opportunities within the industry in a social setting that is both educational and fun.

“The FCP Showcase is a big part of these SuperMeets. Unlike giant trade shows, SuperMeet attendees always get a chance to get up close and personal and hands on with FCP Showcase vendors in an intimate setting,” added Daniel Berube, SuperMeet co-producer and head of the Boston Final Cut Pro User Group (Bosfcpug). “This is especially important for our industry in today’s tough economic climate where networking and staying connected and on top of current HD editing workflow solutions is more important than ever.”

Final SuperMeet agenda is “supersecret” will be announced approximately three weeks before the event.

“We can tell you this,” said Michael Horton. “We will have user-driven demos of new products, tips and tricks for the Final Cut Studio User, show and tells from local UK filmmakers and much more.”

Rounding out the evening will be the always raucous “World Famous Raffle” with over £30,000.00 worth of prizes to be handed out to several lucky winners. In addition, the first 500 attendees through the door will receive a collectible “SuperDVD” filled with over 4GBs of Final Cut Studio resources including the new edition of the “SuperMag” Magazine with over 171 pages of feature articles and tutorials devoted to the FCS and digital filmmaker. Food (snacks) and drinks will be available throughout the evening.

Tickets are now on sale online for the earlybird price of £10.50 each (after 1, June 2009 price will be £15.00). It is expected this SuperMeet will sell out as historically every SuperMeet sells out.

To purchase tickets online and for complete daily updates on the SuperMeet including driving and transportation directions and instructions and a current list of raffle prizes, visit the London SuperMeet web pages at: www.fcpugnetwork.org and www.lafcpug.org/UK_2009

About the Final Cut Pro User Group Network
The Final Cut Pro User Group Network is a worldwide community of Final Cut Pro and Digital Video User Groups officially recognized by Apple. The FCPUg Network’s mission is to build connections between Final Cut Pro users, filmmakers and professionals who wish to lead the digital filmmaking revolution. The FCPUG Network provides both advocacy and education about Digital Video on the Macintosh and membership opportunities for learning and growth in Digital Storytelling.

About the SuperMeets