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

Autodesk is seeking submissions for its Best of the Best Animation Show Reel 2009

Expose Yourself

Looking to show off your best assets? Be part of the Autodesk 2009 Best of the Best Animation Show Reel!

Submit your recent video game cinematic, short film, feature film, commercial, broadcast, music video, or episodic projects created using any of the following Autodesk software: Autodesk® Maya®, Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk® Softimage®, Autodesk® Toxik™, Autodesk® MotionBuilder®, and Autodesk® Mudbox™ software.

More exposure! More great opportunities!

This year, we are particularly interested in HD material. Of course, video submissions in other formats are still most welcome.

The Animation Best of the Best Show Reel will be showcased at SIGGRAPH from August 4-6, 2009, in New Orleans. It will be featured in our booth and on the exhibition floor.

We are also interested in receiving high-resolution images – up to 300 dpi – for inclusion in our marketing material leading up to and surrounding the show.

The deadline for imagery submission and video content is Friday, June 12, 2009.

Come visit us at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Hall G, Booth #2201.

It will be featured in our booth and on the exhibition floor and streamed live from our community site, the AREA.

Submission Process
Obtain complete details about how to submit your work, including useful information such as our address, contact information, and procedures to follow for submission.

Don’t be late!

The deadline for submitting video content and imagery is Friday, June 12, 2009.

The latest reveal in the upcoming 401 release has an interesting video by Rich Hurrey:

Direct link - http://content.luxology.com/modo/40...401Overview.mov

Also more at the reveal section at the luxology site: http://www.luxology.com/modo/401.animation.part.4/ - Scroll down.

Rich has pushed 4.01 and rigged a character as a "full featured rig".

AN IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS IS NOT the final toolset for Character Animation in MODO, its only the pre beginning. THEIR ISNT ANY SKINNING / BONES IN MODO YET. It appears Rich used Vertex Map Deformers on many edge loops on the Bumper Character instead, along with the current 401 additions of IK.

Your thoughts?

Rich talks about this here and more at the recent MODCAST ( near 1hr15mins long ):
http://www.luxology.com/modcast/audio.aspx?id=79

DigitalXModels.com - New Collections Available

May 18, 2009- DigitalXModels.com announces the immediate availability of 3 new model collections- Medical, Gym Equipment 1, and Gym Equipment 2. Each collection is priced at $99. The addition of these 3 collections brings the total collections available to 20, and more are on the way.

We have also added a few more free models to our already existing collection of free models.

Visit the website at www.digitalxmodels.com

Vray RT for 3dsMax

Official release announcement.

Chaos Software is pleased to announce the official release of V-Ray RT for 3dsMax. The first interactive renderer of this kind for 3dsMax will be available for immediate purchase on June 1st, 2009.

Created with the busy and rigorous 3D artist in mind, this topnotch raytracing technology allows immediate interaction between the user and the virtual environment. V-Ray RT follows the user’s actions while working on the scene and automatically and progressively generates a photorealistic preview of the scene. Designed to improve and fasten the artist’s work on the Texturing and Lightening stage V-Ray RT fully supports: Interactivity, Animation, Illumination, Global illumination, Shading effects, Texturing, Camera effects, Color mapping, and Distributed rendering.

On June 1st 2009 V-Ray RT will be on the market through our resellers’ network around the world. The official suggested end user price:

European Union: EUR499
World-wide: USD599

For a limited time only, during the V-Ray RT promotion stage, all users will be able to experience the speed and interactivity of our new product on the special price of:

European Union: EUR249
World-wide: USD299

In order to explore the rendering opportunities of V-Ray RT you must have installed V-Ray 1.50.SP3 or a later version.

Click here to read the full information on V-Ray RT.

On The Green Carpet: Up Hollywood Premiere

The Up Hollywood Premiere was held earlier today at Disney’s El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California.

Up "insider" on Twitter, @gossUP_girl tweeted through the whole experience. We’ve compiled a guided tour of the festivities based on these updates; please click on the links to view relevant pictures.

First and foremost, Hollywood Boulevard had to be cleared for decorations (such as this "foating" Up house) and the green carpet! Yes… green!! Before the screening jugglers, stilt walkers, and other performers were seen doing their thing among Carl, Russell and Dug, even the Aflac/Up NASCAR was there!

Don’t forget the VIPs and stars! Guests at the event included the marvelous crew of Up (seen here crossing the street to get to the premiere) including Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Jonas Rivera, Michael Giacchino and John Lasseter! The group was presented with this awesome Up house made of chocolate! More Pixarians were there, but unfortunately no pictures of them are available at the moment.

The cast of Up talked to the press and were happy to be attending. Ed Asner, Jordan Nagai, Delroy Lindo, Elie & Pete Docter and the rest of the voice talent were happy to celebrate the occasion. Of course, Pixar’s good luck charm, John Ratzenberger, was there too! Other special guests included Jeff Garlin, Patton Oswalt, Jon Voight, Justin Chambers, Melissa Joan Hart, Blink 182, Barbara Eden, Tia Carrere, Mimi Rogers and Eve Plumb among others.

It seems the premiere was a huge success! Look out for possible extended coverage in the next few days.

Designing Up/Inside and Out

Playing with shapes, studying overweight dogs, visiting the zoo, those are just some of the diverse activities that describe production research on Up!

The New York Times is running an article, Designing Up, featuring director Pete Docter and production designer Ricky Nierva discussing the film’s "simplexity." The team talk about each of the main characters and some facts on how the Up team came UP with them. For example, Carl and Ellie’s design center on squares and circles, in fact, pictures of the couple together feature a square frame and a circle matte. Russell was designed to be simple, but with simplicity comes complexity, at least when CG is involved. His clothing was challenging in particular because of the many overlapping layers. Don’t forget Dug and Kevin, for these two odd animals the team researched all sorts of creatures. From the rare, iridescent Himalayan Monal to an overweight Labrador/Golden Retriever mutt.

You can read the article here. Don’t forget to play the interactive feature, "Inside and Out", that compliments the piece. The feature includes recordings of Docter and Nierva talking about the characters; illustrated with concept art and fully rendered stills! Speaking of art, we’ll be reviewing The Art of Up soon.

Katakune’s Journey

We have a released a free e-book on our journey in creating the award winning animated preschooler series Katakune from scratch. This was first published in the Go Motion Animation Magazine in February 2009.

In it we talk about how the concept was conceived, how we went about raising funds, what USP (unique selling points we devised), our production techniques and more.

We hope that by sharing this e-book we would be able to inspire budding creators and studios to create their own cartoon properties.

Katakune’s Journey

(right click and save)

The Way of the Weird; a look into how Autodesk's Softwares were used in the pipeline of Monsters vs. Aliens

DreamWorks Animation SKG uses Autodesk Maya and Autodesk Lustre software to author and produce in stereoscopic 3D for the animation film Monsters vs. Aliens.

Monsters vs. Aliens ™ & © 2009 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.

Paragraphs:

Summary
Challenge One: Creating in Three Dimensions
Challenge Two: Lighting in Three Dimensions
Solution One: Autodesk Maya
Solution Two: Autodesk Lustre
The Result


Summary

It’s still the same old story. Boy meets girl, girl gets hit by toxic meteorite, instantly grows to 49 feet and 11 inches tall, meets weird monsters, and saves world from alien invasion. Well, that’s the story behind Monsters vs. Aliens anyway, the latest animated film from DreamWorks Animation SKG. Monsters vs. Aliens is the first DreamWorks film to be completely authored and produced in stereoscopic 3D, and it will certainly not be the last. DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg has already let it be known that all future DreamWorks films will be made this way. To hear Stereoscopic Supervisor Phil Captain 3D McNally (we know…but that is the full name on his California driver’s license) and Production Designer David James tell it, it means Autodesk® Maya® and Autodesk® Lustre® software will have prominent roles in the DreamWorks production pipeline.

Challenge One: Creating in Three Dimensions

"Authoring in 3D is entirely different from creating 3D in post," says McNally matter-of-factly. "When Jeffrey Katzenberg made it clear that 3D authoring would be a top priority for DreamWorks' future projects, we knew we had to figure out which tools we’d need for future projects."

To determine their future tools, the DreamWorks Animation team looked to their not-too-distant past. A particularly action-packed sequence from the Academy Award®-nominated Kung Fu Panda (2008) was unearthed and reauthored using stereoscopic 3D. Says McNally, "We literally had to go back to the drawing board and reinvent how it would have looked if it had been authored in 3D. We then made comparisons between the two versions in order to plan our approach to Monsters vs. Aliens. We also knew that, to create this way in 3D, it was absolutely essential that our artists be able to see exactly how things should look in 3D space. The only place we can do that is inside Maya."

A challenge more specific to Monsters vs. Aliens, however, came with the multitude of tricky characters that would need to be fully authored in 3D.

"If you want a character to look really good in 3D, to not appear as cardboard cutouts or overstretched freaks, you need to give them just enough room to maneuver without overwhelming the viewers’ senses," McNally explains. "With 3D lenses that are perhaps 35 millimeters long, you often run into situations where you need a great deal of depth to make the characters look round and realistic. That depth can become very uncomfortable to the normal human eye."

If this all sounds like a lot of work to make sure audiences receive every conceivable angle of a brilliant cockroach, a blue blob, a missing link, an immense insect, and a freakishly tall woman, bear with us. You’ll soon see that stereoscopic 3D (S3D) isn’t just for sight gags anymore. Authoring for S3D is making the medium evolve into a fully fledged storytelling tool—and when S3D serves the story, it will be generally accepted by audiences. And in this business, when something is accepted, it’s expected.

Monsters vs. Aliens ™ & © 2009 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.

Challenge Two: Lighting in Three Dimensions

The challenges of 3D authoring are slightly different for DreamWorks Production Designer David James than they are for McNally, but no less daunting. Don’t forget that this is, in many ways anyway, a new way of working.

"It’s like camera, action, lights!" says James succinctly. "In our production pipeline, we effectively shoot the movie before we light it. We do lots of set planning and other preparations to ensure we have a good idea of where we’re going, but the lighting process is an amazingly involved creative, technical, and iterative process, requiring a great many lighting teams to get the job done."

"Our lighting teams really have to act as high-end compositors, technical directors, and digital lighters when all is said and done," James continues. "With so many different people working, there are frequently shot-to-shot lighting disparities. Fortunately, we have Autodesk Lustre, which helps us look at the entire lighting, color correction, and the S3D transitions holistically, and then make radical and significant changes in real time. It is, without a doubt, the best tool that I have ever had access to."

Monsters vs. Aliens ™ & © 2009 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.

Solution One: Autodesk Maya

As much as they like their Autodesk tools, however, McNally and James have both taken a decidedly hands-on approach to getting precisely what they need out of Maya and Lustre, respectively.

Says McNally, "We’ve developed tools in Autodesk Maya to measure distances in a scene and then translate those distances into pixel separation, which is how the stereo effect is created in the theater. We use a multirig system, where we’re able to treat the primary character in a shot individually, giving it the full stereo effect for realistic volume and look, but dialing back the stereo on other peripheral characters."

"So, we set up one stereo rig for our main characters, another for more peripheral characters and elements, and maybe even a third rig for foreground elements, and composite it all together into a scene that is both realistic and manageable to the human eye," McNally continues. "Again, to set all of that up, we need to be able to see exactly what we are doing in 3D space. Compare it to driving a car—you need to be able to see outside the car windows as you’re doing it. This is information we need to know before we render. The only place we can do that is inside the 3D viewer in Autodesk Maya. We can manipulate on-the-fly and animate elements as well as we go along."

More specifically, the radically differing size of the soon-to-be-beloved characters in Monsters vs. Aliens meant many of the challenges facing McNally’s team involved relative perspectives.

"The main challenge on the film has been one of scale," says McNally. "Our main character is a 49-foot-11-inch woman, Ginormica, and another is a 350-foot insect. When you consider that the rest of the characters are pretty much normal size, you can see that composing over-the-shoulder shots with such immense characters will be a challenge. In the end, however, 3D added a nice dimension to those shots. There’s a scene between Ginormica and her normal-size boyfriend, for example, that gave us the opportunity to really use the stereoscopic technique to move her back into the screen, while having the boyfriend more out in the personal space of the theater. That scene is a perfect example of how 3D can really amplify whatever is going on in a scene."

Solution Two: Autodesk Lustre

Separating out elements for special attention is also very important for James and his production design team. With large lighting teams, iterative processes, and often daunting schedules, it is all but inevitable that there will be a wide variety of lighting treatments to both characters and scenes. The teal-blue, viscous character of B.O.B. (short for Bicarbonate Ostylezene Benzoate), for example, is described by James as essentially "a collection of the physics of light" holding seven or eight completely separate rendering qualities and layers within his jiggly recesses.

"With the four channels available in Autodesk Lustre, we can isolate characters, backgrounds, matte paintings, and visual effects," says James. "We can easily add shadows, perform color correction, and add visual depth or the perception of atmosphere. It’s not just pulling a key off of luminance or a color; we can actually work entirely within a matte. We can work with an entire sequence of an animation, all at once and in real time, going shot by shot through the sequence to adjust inconsistencies in the backgrounds and characters. In Lustre, the inconsistencies can be corrected almost as quickly as I notice them. That is incredibly valuable, especially in stereoscopic work."

James also uses Lustre to remove stereoscopic "ghosting," an issue that occurs with stereoscopically deep shots employing a great deal of contrast, and where the individual left and right viewpoints leak light into each other. Using Lustre, a supplementary matte can be inserted behind the areas where the ghosting is most pronounced.

Monsters vs. Aliens ™ & © 2009 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.

The Result

Now that Monsters vs. Aliens has released, you might expect "Captain 3D" McNally and "Dr. Color" James to be putting away their tights and capes for a bit, but alas, there is no rest for the talented, even in a challenging economy. Katzenberg announced that all the company’s animated films will be authored in 3D going forward, which means plenty more work for people like McNally and James. DreamWorks Animation SKG is already at work on How to Train Your Dragon and Shrek Goes Fourth, both of which will draw all of us closer still to a much deeper experience at our local theaters. And no matter what happens along the way, Autodesk Maya and Autodesk Lustre software will be there to help out.

2DArtist Magazine May 2009 Issue - Available Now!

The May 2009 issue of 2DArtist Magazine is now available - click the image for more information or visit 2DArtist Magazine to find out what's in this month's magazine, and to view the Lite version for free!



Welcome to our issue of beauties and beasts. Within the pages of this month’s magazine, you’re going to stumble across the devilishly handsome and the beastliest beauties, as we have packed 2DArtist with stunning content across the board, with contributions from Don Seegmiller, Kekai Kotaki, Nykolai Aleksander and many, many more. And to illustrate the theme of “beauties and beasts” for us quite perfectly this month, we have our first artist interview with 2D artist veteran, Don Seegmiller (p.7), whose portfolio demonstrates a range of stunning realistic character portraits, to weird and wonderful cartoon illustrations. We’ve also interviewed cover artist, ArenaNet concept art lead Kekai Kotaki (p.23), who continues the theme exceptionally with his inspiring character concepts that will, quite simply, blow your mind. So there you go: 28 pages of stunning art by two of the industry’s greats – enjoy!

This May issue also presents the penultimate parts of not one, but two of our fantastic tutorial series: Vehicle Painting by Dwayne Vance and Hoi Mun Tham, and Space Painting by Chee Ming Wong. But do not fret, for we’re on the case and we have lined up for you some real treats for July. And because I’m not really one to keep a secrets (oops), I’ll let you in on what’s to come … First up, we have a series that we’re all really excited about here at 2DArtist: Dynamic Characters – Enhancing your Character Concepts. We have some great names working on this series already, with more to come! And for all those budding artists out there who follow 2DArtist but have not quite got the hang of painting in Photoshop just yet, we’ll be bringing you a Beginners Guide to Digital Painting in Photoshop in July, with another top artist signed up to teach you all they know and how to get started. So no excuses! I think we’ll even find some twitching Wacom tablets in the office here once the series kicks off, as we can’t wait to learn some tips from this pro. But back to this issue, we are of course sad to see the last but one of two of our series, but what great chapters they are! Chee Ming Wong is mining the asteroid fields (p.95), whilst Dwayne Vance is driving his sleek, futuristic vehicle into the desert sands in the final rendering of his awesome car concept (p.75). Not only this, but we have the talents of Nick Oroc and Nathaniel West in the Speed Painting tutorial section this month, where they both fight out the theme, “The sleepy village never saw the horror approaching” (p.85). And, as an extra special treat for you all, we have a bonus article from Nykolai Aleksander where she discusses the anatomy of a painting, using a new painting created especially for this article to demonstrate, so do check that out and get yourself inspired (p.109)!

What else? Well, we’re talking centaurs and cyclopses in the Stylised Challenge section; our centaur entries blew us away – one of the best challenges yet (p.61)! Follow those beasts with another two stunning beauties in our Making Of section, by Sara Biddle (p.119) and Dmitry Grebenkov (p.125) – one a realistic character portrait, the other a stylised beauty. And wrap up this month’s ever-so-chocker issue by checking out Ivan Kashubo’s sketchbook on p.39, and discovering some real treats from Loic Zimmermann and Cynthia Sheppard (plus more) in the Gallery.

Enjoy! -- The 3DTotal.com and 2DArtistmag.com Team