ProUV for ZBrush - "Open Beta" has started

We're proud to announce that ProUV professional UV unwrapping plugin for ZBrush has been released in "Open Beta" phase. All artists are welcome to download and check out the plugin, which will be fully functional until 14.06.2009. User feedback can be left on our support forums.

ProUV features sculpting optimized automatic UV map creation, which significantly improves upon existing GUV and AUV built-in ZBrush unwrapping solutions. Improvements can be experienced in all texture related workflows, and to demonstrate it we have provided a few examples on the plug-in web page.

Features/benefits:

* overall much higher texture fidelity
* texture distortions minimized
* uniform (area-based) detail distribution
* fully automatic unwrapping
* real-time engine usage ready
* simple to use (one button click - job done, for the majority of objects)
* textures much easier to retouch / edit in photoshop

Availability:

The plug-in is currently available as an "Open Beta" version for Zbrush 3.1 (currently only Windows OS is supported), and the trial version can be freely downloaded from our web home-page at http: //speedy.rs/prouv. The trial is fully functional until 14.06.2009.

About the authors:

speedy.rs is a new 3D and 2D computer graphics technology based startup, which will be focusing on advanced texturing and animation plug-in development. Our team members have more then 15 years of experience in different graphics and related mathematics fields of expertise and are keen to use their knowledge to produce advanced technology based plug-ins.

Joint DCACM, DCSIGADA, DC_SIGGRAPH Meeting on Wednesday, June 10th

All,

DC_SIGGRAPH's next meeting will be a joint event with DC ACM and DC SIGADA with support from the Washington Academy of Sciences. RSVP to dc_siggraph@mail.com if you are planning to attend so I can get a head count from our chapter.

When: Wednesday, June 10th, 7:30pm to 9:00pm

Where: American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
2nd Floor Conference Room
1200 New York Avenue NW
(entrance is on 12th Street)

Near metro center

Speaker: William Glascoe with contributions by Dr. Nicholas Polys

Topic: Lifegraphs for Mobile Mirror Worlds: Linking Supply, Value, and Customer Chains


Have you wondered why record and bookkeeping has not been automated for all of us? From the moment a legal or natural person is known to be on the way to last data generating event of its corpse. This talk examines lifegraphing (not life logging) in the context of the proliferation of 3D Computer-Aided everything, the payment card industry's infrastructure, the electronic health records mandate, geographical information systems, and electronic data interchange standards. To fully understand the conceptualization of lifegraphs, a 100-yr story of a person born in the year 2000 is use to explain what lifegraphs are (aren't) and how they may change the chains between government, corporations and citizens who come live by them. William Glacoe will
conduct most of the talk, but a small presentation will also be provided by Dr. Nicholas Polys.


Speaker Bio:

William Glascoe is a Project Manager in the Logistics & Supply Chain Management subpractice of CSC's Federal Consulting Practice and an Air
Force Reserves' Lieutenant Colonel at the National Security Space Office. He recently won a CSC Leading Edge Forum Grant to investigate extensible 3D (X3D) for Enterprise Applications, which yielded the idea of lifegraphs as he defines them.


William is a certified Project Management Professional and recently returned from a year long assignment in Baghdad where he managed business planning projects for the DoD Task Force to Improve Business and Stability Operations in Iraq. He was a Software Risk Manager at the Office of Naval Research's Best Manufacturing Practices Center of Excellence in College Park, MD during 2007. Between 1996 and 1999, he was the Chief, Software Integration and Test in a classified System Program Office during his third Air Force active duty assignment. He is a certificate holder of the Air Force Institute of Technology's Software Professional Development Program.


William holds a BS Physics, Applied from the USAF Academy, MS Telecommunications, CU Boulder and a Certificate of Completion, International Space University (1999 Summer Session Program, Khorat, Thailand)


Special Guest:


Dr. Nicholas Polys heads the VT-ARC Visualization Group. He has developed interactive 3D graphic content and systems for over 9 years. His research interests lie at the heart of Human Computer Interaction: the intersection of visualization, virtual environments, and perception.


After his undergraduate research in Cognitive Science at Vassar College (1996), he jumped into the networked information space of the WWW developing audio, visual, and 3D assets and software. His doctoral work at Virginia Tech (2006) examined perceptual cues and layout behaviors for Information-Rich Virtual Environments for desktop to immersive platforms.


As a co-author of the international standard Extensible 3D (X3D) and Director of the Web3D Consortium, he is the author of numerous
peer-reviewed papers, tutorials, and workshops. Currently, Nicholas is a researcher for Virginia Tech Research Computing building information architectures and user interfaces for computational scientists.

Up Soars Above the Competition: Opening Weekend Box-Office Report

Up is definitely a critical success (150 review so far, still at 98%), but audiences are definitely loving it as well. Pixar’s sure-to-be mega hit has made it safe to claim that Pixar is at 10 for 10 status.

Estimates for Up‘s opening weekend are in and they’re astonishing! Pixar’s 10th film soared above the competition with an estimated cumulative gross of:

$68,200,000

That’s the 3rd largest opening weekend for a Pixar film or any animated release from Walt Disney Pictures. It’s right behind The Incredibles and Finding Nemo, impressive indeed! Here’s how the week played out: Friday brought in $21 mil., Saturday was the big one with $26 mil. and Sunday dropped (as usual) to $20 mil.

At this point it’s safe to say Up is a huge hit trumping the highly anticipated sequel Night at the Museum 2 on its second week, which dropped to $25 million. It’s also a step-up from last year’s WALL•E which opened at 63 million in the first 3 days.

One could speculate Up is on track for $250+ million considering some major factors. These include the expensive 3D aspect, opening in 3766 theatres, Pixar’s past box-office record and the relatively low competition for about a month (until Transformers 2 almost surely tramples on everything), to name a few.

Congratulations to the whole Disney/Pixar team for making this Pixar’s 10th hit!

Where will Up end… up after it’s run is over, tell us what you think?

(via Box Office Mojo)

Stuff We Did: Looking Back at Our Up Adventure

This is another continuation to the "Disney•Pixar Up + Partly Cloudy Now In Theatres!" post. Click on the links to see Upcoming Pixar’s articles from the past which pertain to the subject matter covered:

It’s been a great journey these past two years as we’ve been looking forward to Up’s release, originally set for June 12th, 2009 but then changed to the current date, May 29th.

Remember when you first heard the title of Pixar’s secretive 2009 project? When you found out Pete Docter was back directing, were you extremely excited? I know I was! But what was Up? It could mean ANYTHING! Could it be a movie about birds, the air, or maybe, just maybe a story about an old man who takes to the sky in a flying house for the ultimate adventure?

Then we got this, Original description from TIME: “Pete Docter and co-director Bob Peterson are preparing this “coming-of-old-age story” about a seventysomething guy who lives in a house that “looks like your grand-parents’ house smelled.” He befriends a clueless young Wilderness Ranger and gets into lots of alter kocker altercations. Says Pixar: “Our hero travels the globe, fights beasts and villains and eats dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon.”

Remember the first image (above) released? What was the first thought that came through your mind. Then, when the next piece of concept art was put up at WDW did your perception of the movie change?

As you ponder on the questions above, I’ll leave you with the first Up teaser, from then on we really discovered the essense of Up:



And what an adventure it was!

Boris FX Announces New Boris Continuum Unit: 3D Objects

Marlborough MA (June 1 , 2009) - Boris FX, the leading developer of integrated effects technology for video and film, announced that a new Boris Continuum Unit, 3D Objects, is now available.

The new Boris Continuum 3D Objects Unit includes the following filters from Boris Continuum Complete 6:

BCC Extruded Text - OpenGL-accelerated 3D text generator with built-in 3D shatters and a warp deformer. This filter uses AE masks for defining custom bevels, extrusions, and text on a path. The resulting 3D object adheres to AE's native camera and light controls. Multiple 3D materials can be created from AE layers or external image files featuring texture and bump maps as well as reflections. Each material can be individually saved as a preset and applied to the front, back, bevel, or extrusion surface of the text object. The text object can be further deformed and animated with a number of innovative deformers such as Bend, Taper, Twist, Shatter, Ripple, Pulse, or Curl.

BCC Type-On Text - 3D extruded text can be animated in true 3D space in a type-on or type-off fashion with each letter precisely interacting with the rest of the text in 3D. All 3D properties of the BCC Extruded Text filter are available in the Type-On effect.

BCC Extruded EPS - provides an easy way to import and extrude Adobe Illustrator layered vector logos and graphics. The filter includes full integration with Adobe After Effects' 3D camera and lighting system and incorporates the same 3D material presets and free-form deformation properties of other 3D Objects filters. The filter is capable of tracking an EPS file using a Watch Folder, making the EPS file "live" should it be edited in Illustrator. A handy "Keep EPS Color" feature lets operators preserve the original fill colors for each element as a diffuse color option of the material.

BCC Extruded Spline - based on AE masks or built-in primitives such as a medallion or heart. Create 3D extruded objects fully-modeled with bevels and spline-based extrusion profiles.

BCC Layer Deformer - warp any 2D layer in 3D space with built-in 3D shatters and bend deformers. Create 3D shapes such as fully or partially wrapped spheres and cylinders with multiple layers mapped onto the surfaces. Animate true 3D shapes with AE's native camera and lights.


Boris Continuum 3D Objects supports Adobe After Effects, Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, and Apple Final Cut Express. The 3D Objects Unit is the latest addition to previously-released Boris Continuum Units: Chroma Key, Pan and Zoom, UpRez, Motion Key, Lens Flare, Film Look, Glitters, Optical Stabilizer, and Light Rays.

Pricing and Availability
Boris Continuum 3D Objects is immediately available through the Boris FX worldwide reseller channel and direct from the Boris FX web site at www.borisfx.com for an MSRP of $399 USD. Customers who purchase the Boris Continuum 3D Objects Unit or anyv other Boris Continuum Unit may credit the price of the Unit towards the full Boris Continuum Complete plug-in suite. For more information, please visit www.borisfx.com.

From The Hoop & Glowfrog at 3ds London this Wednesday

3ds Max London Users Group Meeting
This Wednesday 3rd June

Upstairs at The Black Horse Pub in Central London
6 Rathbone Place, London W1T 1HL

18:30 Doors Open
19:00 Intro and Announcements. Following times approx.
19:15 Show and Tell. Bring some work along!

19:30 Nigel Hunt is the director of Glowfrog Studios, a London-based boutique production studio. They have successfully been using 3ds Max for over ten years, producing high quality CGI, animations and film for real estate, television and advertising clients. Nigel will be talking about the studio and describing some of their recent work.

20:00 Remi Dessinges, Guillaume Fesquet and Anthony Arnoux made the superb short From The Hoop, their graduation movie from Supinfocom Arles. It made the front page here on cgtalk, they'll be showing us how they did it!

20:30 Wrap up.

All welcome, come along for a drink, Simon

Pixar.com Partly Updates!

Pixar.com, notorious for rarely making changes, has finally updated!

This time it features the latest Pixar mini-productions, Partly Cloudyand BURN•E in the Short Films section. Both pages profile the short itself and the production of each projects, as usual, including some concept art.

The front page of Pixar.com (no changes to the design) has also gotten two new buttons. Replacing the WALL•E website link is a picture of Dug that links to Up’s official site. Peck from "Cloudy" is also on the home page, clicking on him takes you to the afformentioned film’s page.

Strangely, The Theater section of the site (in the Shorts section) has added the new shorts, but clicking on them just takes you back to their main pages.

Let’s hope later in the year we’ll get a Dug’s Special Mission page sooner than the BURN•E one!

Speaking of site updates, don’t forget to check out the brand new site for the Toy Story series!