SIGGRAPH 2010 Cheat Sheet

SIGGRAPH promises production sessions, best CG short films, technology, and, of course, product demos galore.

The exhibition floor opens Tuesday morning and runs through Thursday afternoon. Look for announcements from all the major vendors in the days leading up to the show, and get hands-on experience at the show.

As Masson says. You have to go to get the hands-on, face to face experience. If you are short on coins, you can buy a one-day basic pass for only US$45 or a one-day computer animation festival pass for $50. Check the cheat sheet to pick your day/s. Meanwhile, here’s the rest of the 'damage.'

NVIDIA helped ILM create epic battle scenes in 'The Last Airbender'

Paramount Pictures' latest film, 'The Last Airbender,' features extraordinary battle visual effects created by Industrial Light & Magic, with the help of NVIDIA Quadro pro graphics technology.

'The Last Airbender', released on July 2, features dramatic sequences in which characters are empowered to harness the four ancient elements of fire, air, water and earth and manipulate them as weapons in battle. Giant fireballs, tendrils of water, walls of earth and overwhelming air blasts are a few of the digital simulations created by ILM as part of the film's 485 visual-effects shots resulting in over an hour of screen time.

Di-O-Matic uncovers next-generation 3D facial animation solution, Maskarad.

Automatic markerless facial performance capture software for Windows

Teaser

Intro to Maskarad

Whether you're creating games, or producing animation for TV or film, Maskarad lets you easily create expressive, realistic facial animations from video. In fact, Maskarad automatically converts the details and nuances of an actor’s video to animation data ready to be used in your favorite 3D package to easily animate your own character rig.

ZBrush 4 announced for Windows And Mac OSX

Z4 on 8-9-10


ZBrush 4
Windows and Mac
LAUNCH DATE 8-9-10 


Also included:
Updated versions of all major plugins, and GoZBrush support
for Modo, Cinema 4D, 3DSMax and Maya for Windows and Mac systems.

Real 3D or Fake 3D

Many film studios are trying to cash in on moviegoers' craving for 3D films. However, many studios are "faking it" by converting 2D films into 3D post-production. Worse, the studios are not being upfront in their advertising, with some people feeling ripped-off after paying extra fees for the "3D Experience."

SIGGRAPH Technical Papers

One of the best things about SIGGRAPH is the sense, rightfully so, that you can discover the next new things in computer graphics, the trend, the technology that will become part of our lives in a few short years. This is most evident in the prestigious Technical Papers sessions.

Southpaw Tech. works its DAM solution, Tactic alongside The Foundry's Nuke compositing app.

Southpaw Tech. works its DAM solution, Tactic alongside The Foundry's Nuke compositing app. 

Southpaw Technology will bring its DAM solution, Tactic and The Foundry’s compositing application, Nuke closer together. The integration will improve the workflow for compositors working with Nuke by alleviating many of the mundane tasks associated with file management.

Animating a Blockbuster: How Pixar Built Toy Story 3

Screenwriter William Goldman once famously declared that the most important fact of life in Hollywood is that “nobody knows anything.”

Eat3D DVD

In this DVD instructor Adam Schuman walks you through the entire process of constructing a low resolution character worthy of any "next-generation" game. Follow him as he shows you his techniques in exporting the high-res model from ZBrush, reconstructing the low-res meshes, creating the UV's for all of the meshes, baking out all of the maps (3ds Max and xNormal), creating all of the textures, using real-time viewport shaders, and rendering out the final for your portfolio. This DVD is geared to improve your workflow by helping you understand what is expected of professionals in the field today.

Framestore CFC teamed up with Nokia for a Vfx competition.

VFX ARTISTS INVITED TO CREATE EFFECT FOR 


FRAMESTORE AND NOKIA'S NEW APP


London-based VFX house Framestore and Nokia have launched a competition inviting amateur animators and VFX enthusiasts to contribute ideas for a new special effect for their new project, FX Studio.

FX Studio is a mobile and web-based application that allows people to add a range of Hollywood-quality special effects to their home movies.  Using 3D marker technology and external rendering processes, the application is poised to deliver startling results. It follows Framestore's Pocket VFX app for the iPhone.

FX Studio will feature a number of effects from a range of film genres. Entrants to the competition have been asked to submit an idea for the final Sci-Fi special effect, which will feature on both the web and mobile versions of the FX Studio application.