SIGGRAPH Dailies!

The Studio

Also returning to SIGGRAPH this year, bigger and better than ever is The Studio, once known as the 'Gorilla Studio.' The Studio, the Art Gallery – which features haptics devices this year – and Emerging Technologies, are all in one large open space. “We got the chairs of these three hand-on areas together to create an integrated experience,” Masson says. “They are all doing fantastic things.”

ILM's Elements for The Last Airbender

or The Last Airbender, director M. Night Shyamalan turned to Industrial Light & Magic to create dynamic fighting scenes featuring elemental manipulation, as well as complex creatures and environments for the film. VFX supe Pablo Helman and associate VFX supervisor Craig Hammack take us through some of ILM's main technical challenges. 

Creating 3D fire and other earthly elements

In the world of Airbender, each nation controls an element - Water, Air, Earth and Fire - under the supervision of the Avatar. When the Fire Nation seeks world domination, Young Avatar Aang, who can control all four elements, is charged with restoring the peace. Fire, in particular, was one of the elements ILM tackled early on, drawing on its previous work for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. "What we found in that movie," noted visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman, "was that the fire looked great, but it was only projected onto 3D cards. ForAirbender we needed a real 3D volume fire. The fire events are coming towards camera and the camera was also moving around so much that we would need to be going through the volume itself." 

CGWorkshops: Jon Rush and Rob Chang!

COURSE OVERVIEW

This workshop is an updated version of Jon’s previous Modern Game Character Creation workshop. Updates include; full figure massing, hair sculpting, streamlined baking process, introduction and instruction with Topogun (students get a 20% discount per license), and an introduction to the Marmoset real-time viewing app. Jon will take you under the hood of the 'character art hot rod' and guide you through the 'ins & outs' of successfully creating video game characters within a studio mind-set. Through this intense eight-week class, students will learn by doing! Not only will you learn the successive phases of character creation based on a simulated game studio pipeline, you will also have your own unique creation to show off as part of your folio.

OptiTrack's Insight VCS brings an 'Avatar' virtual camera to any studio.

Optical Virtual Camera System brings live-action camera Work for CG filmmaking at a lower price, compatible with all Optical Motion Capture Systems.

James Cameron revolutionized digital cinematography with his innovative control of the virtual camera using motion capture. This 'Virtual Verite' technology is now being offered for a fraction of the cost, with OptiTrack's Insight VCS.