Bachelor thesis at University of Applied Sciences Augsburg, July 2014. Music: »Caribbean Dream« by yet (facebook.com/weareyet) Supervision and advice: Sebastian Onufszak & Robert Rose Frame by Frame (12.5fps) Tools used: Wacom Cintiq 21UX, Toon Boom Animate Pro, Adobe After Effects (CS)
Tue 5th Aug 2014 | News
Image from Hercules courtesy of Milk VFX. Full CG, wide flyover shot with populated amphitheatre and background crowd in Athens.
Independent visual effects company Milk has standardized on Shotgun for production management and tracking. Based in London, the boutique studio that recently celebrated its one-year anniversary focuses on delivering high end VFX for television and film. Milk positioned Shotgun at the heart of its workflow when establishing a VFX pipeline, and continues to increase the level of integration. Nearly all of Milk’s 80 staff members use Shotgun daily particularly across production, administration and pipeline teams.
“Starting from scratch was somewhat of a luxury, since it gave us the opportunity to tailor our pipeline to fit our specific needs,” said Milk CEO Will Cohen. “Shotgun is the industry-leading tool for production management and is unwaveringly reliable. From a hiring standpoint, most people already know how to use Shotgun or can get up to speed on it quickly, which means they can dive right in and spend little to no time learning a new system. Shotgun has really become the driving force behind our entire pipeline, making it easy to share work.”
Staffed by a tight-knit team of industry veterans, Milk is already earning industry accolades, having taken home the 2014 British Academy Television Craft Award for its outstanding visual effects work on the BBC’s “Doctor Who 50th Anniversary special: Day of the Doctor.” Other recent projects include Fox’s series event “24: Live Another Day” as well as the summer feature “Hercules” and the eighth season of BBC’s “Dr. Who.”
Milk Head of Pipeline Benoit Leveau began testing Shotgun in August 2013, then successfully rolled it out into production in October of that year. Currently, Shotgun is used to manage all productions, feed assets to the team and for scheduling. Milk also leverages Shotgun’s Pipeline Toolkit to hook into proprietary tools for ingest and file generation as well as to content creation tools such as Autodesk Maya and Mudbox, The Foundry’s NUKE and MARI, Side Effects Software’s Houdini and Thinkbox Software’s Deadline. The studio is also considering plans to start using Shotgun’s client review feature in the future.
“I’m a big fan of the Pipeline Toolkit because it provides us the freedom to define and augment our workflows. I also love that it’s open source so anyone can contribute, and the Shotgun support team has been very quick and detailed across all interactions,” Leveau explained. “I believe that we are just beginning to scratch the surface on what can be done with Shotgun.”
Added Milk producer Liam Tully, “With Shotgun, we can assign and manage tasks, track deliverables through the pipeline, communicate task priorities, trace feedback, and generate status reports. Having direct access to that wealth of information and the flexibility to customize our interfaces helps us better allocate resources and stay organized for jobs of all sizes.”
On the recent acquisition by Autodesk, Milk Head of Production Lorna Dumba noted, “Shotgun has already proven an incredibly useful tool, so we’re excited about the prospect of accelerated feature development that we would hope to see with the merger.”
Tue 5th Aug 2014 | News
MAXON today unveiled CINEMA 4D Release 16 (R16), the next generation release of the company’s industry-leading 3D motion graphics, visual effects, visualization, painting, and rendering software application. In addition to countless workflow enhancements, CINEMA 4D R16 delivers powerful new features including a modeling PolyPen ‘super-tool’, a Motion Tracker for easily integrating 3D content within live footage and a Reflectance material channel that allows for multi-layered reflections and specularity. CINEMA 4D R16 reinforces MAXON’s commitment to provide creative professionals with exceptional stability and performance, unmatched integration, and a straightforward, efficient and flexible interface to optimize any workflow for VFX, motion graphics, visualization and game development.
“CINEMA 4D R16 elevates the 3D design experience so that creative professionals in film, broadcast, digital media and visualization can create, share and manage compelling content and collaborate more effectively on the most demanding projects,” says Harald Egel, co-founder and CEO of MAXON Computer. “Our programming team has optimized modeling and rendering capabilities while adding powerful advanced capabilities that not only bolster performance but also insure our customers have the most efficient pipeline to other digital content creation tools for streamlined productivity.”
CINEMA 4D R16 sets a new standard for 3D software excellence. Innovative new features in R16, available for both the Mac OS X and Windows platforms, include:
Motion Tracker – Delivers quick and seamless integration of 3D elements into real world footage. Footage can be tracked automatically or manually, and aligned to the 3D environment using position, vector and planar constraints.
Interaction Tag – Gives users control over 3D objects and works with the new Tweak mode to provide information on object movement and highlighting. Ideal for technical directors and character riggers, the tag reports all mouse interaction and allows object control via XPresso, COFFEE or Python.
PolyPen – Utilize the new ‘super-tool’ to paint polygons and polish points as well as easily move, clone, cut and weld points, edges of 3D models. You can even re-topologize complex meshes. Enable snapping for greater precision or to snap to a surface.
Bevel Deformer – The powerful Bevel toolset in CINEMA 4D can now be applied nondestructively to entire objects or specific selection sets. Users can also animate and adjust bevel attributes to create all new effects.
Sculpting – R16 is packed with numerous improvements and dynamic features to sculpt with precision and expand the overall modeling toolset. The new Select tool gives users access to powerful symmetry and fill options to define point and polygon selections on any editable object. Additional features give users more control and flexibility for sculpting details on parametric objects, creating curves, defining masks, stamps and stencils, as well as tools for users to create their own sculpt brushes, and more.
Other modeling features in R16 include an all-new Cogwheel spline primitive to generate involute and ratchet gears; a new Mesh Check tool to evaluate the integrity of a polygonal mesh; Deformer Falloff options, and Cap enhancements to easily add textures to the caps of MoText, Extrude, Loft, Lathe and Sweep objects.
Reflectance Channel – The new Reflectance material channel in R16 provides more control over reflections and specularity within a single new channel. Features include the ability to build-up multiple layers for complex surfaces such as metallic car paint, woven cloth surfaces, and options to render separate multi-pass layers for each reflection layer to achieve higher quality realistic imagery.
New Render Engine for Hair & Sketch – A completely new unified effects render engine allows artists to seamlessly raytrace Hair and Sketch lines within the same render pass to give users higher quality results in a fraction of the time.
Team Render Server
Team Render, introduced by MAXON in 2013, features many new enhancements including a client-server architecture allowing users to control all the render jobs for a studio via a browser.
CINEMA 4D is revered for its spectacular image quality and an intuitive, easy-to-use interface that puts professional results within reach of artists at all levels of CGI experience. Additional productivity boosting features in R16 include:
Content Library – Completely re-organized and optimized for Release 16, the preset library contains custom made solutions with specific target groups in mind. New house and stair generators, as well as modular doors and windows have been added for architectural visualizers. Product and advertising designers can take advantage of a powerful tool to animate the folding of die-cut packaging, as well as modular bottles, tubes and boxes. Motion designers will enjoy the addition of high-quality models made for MoGraph, preset title animations and interactive chart templates.
Exchange/Pipeline Support – Customers can now exchange assets throughout the production pipeline more reliably in R16 with support for the most current versions of FBX and Alembic.
Solo Button – Offers artists a production-friendly solution to isolate individual objects and hierarchies for refinement when modeling. Soloing also speeds up the viewport performance for improved workflow on massive scenes.
Annotations – Tag specific objects, clones or points in any scene with annotations that appear directly in view for a dependable solution to reference online pre-production materials, target areas of a scene for enhancement, and more.
UV Peeler – Delivers an effective means to quickly unwrap the UV’s of cylindrical objects for optimized texturing.
CINEMA 4D Release 16 is scheduled to ship in September, 2014. Pricing and upgrade information is available at: www.maxon.net. Available for both Mac OS X and Windows. Recommended system requirements.
Wed 6th Aug 2014 | News
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Chaos Group has introduced Chaos Group Laboratories, a new collaborative think tank to explore advances in rendering technology. Located in LA’s hub of design, visual effects and technology, Chaos Group Labs will serve as a place where artists, industry leaders and academic researchers are invited to contribute to development discussions and help solve key computer graphics challenges.
Significant progress has already been made on projects that focus on massively parallel rendering, cloud and GPU rendering, virtual performance capture, and rendering for next generation cinematic experiences.
“We are passionate about artists and rendering challenges, and we want to help move the entire industry forward,” said Lon Grohs, Chief Commercial Officer at Chaos Group. “Chaos Group Labs allows us to bridge the gaps between hardware, software and artists’ needs at a much deeper level.”
Digital Filmmaking – Chaos Group Labs is working closely with a number of independent filmmakers including the CONSTRUCT team to innovate new rendering workflows and improve the cinematic experience. These experiments include outputting imagery to be displayed at high dynamic range, high frame rates, and ultra-high resolution, all of which result in a significant increase in the rendering required. In addition, this research has led to advances in virtual performance capture, bringing ray traced rendering to the entire filmmaking process. Working with partners at NVIDIA, OptiTrack, and BOXX Technologies, Chaos Group’s newest prototype of V-Ray for MotionBuilder will be showcased at Real-Time Live during SIGGRAPH 2014.
The Wikihuman Project – To further realistic rendering and animation of digital humans, Chaos Group Labs has formed a panel of academic and industry experts from around the globe, including several members of the Institute for Creative Technologies at USC, including Paul Debevec. “This has always been one of the biggest challenges for CGI,” said Chaos Group Creative Director Christopher Nichols. “And the findings of this open project will be a milestone for the VFX industry.”
Virtual Reality – Chaos Group has also partnered with tech startup Nurulize to develop fully immersive, virtual reality experiences designed for the Oculus Rift.
The disruptive technologies worked on by Chaos Group Labs, combined with partnerships with artists, designers and leaders in multiple industries and disciplines, is a mission that will enable creatives to express themselves in a far more impactful way than ever before.
To pitch ideas or join the conversation, contact: labs@chaosgroup.com.
Disney XD has released the first seven minutes from the premiere of its forthcoming animated series Star Wars Rebels.
Star Wars Rebels continues the epic tradition of the legendary saga with all-new action-packed adventures. Set in a dark time in the galaxy, as the evil Galactic Empire tightens its grip of power from world to world, the series begins as Imperial forces have occupied a remote planet, ruling with an iron fist and ruining the lives of its people. The clever and motley crew of the Ghost is among a select few who are brave enough to stand against the Empire. Together, this ragtag group will face threatening new villains, encounter colourful adversaries, embark on exciting adventures and become heroes with the power to ignite a rebellion.
The show will premiere with a one-hour special on Disney Channel (US) this October, followed by series launches on XD channels around the world.
The series has been created by screenwriter Simon Kinberg (X-Men: Days of Future Past, Mr. & Mrs. Smith). It features voice work by Freddie Prinze Jr., Steve Blum, Vanessa Marshall, David Oyelowo and Jason Isaacs.
Adlabs Imagica has got Vishal Punjabi from The Wedding Filmer to create an ad film on its “Masti ki Baarish” campaign. The film shows families enjoying at Imagica while it rains and beautifully captures the fact that there is something for every age group at Imagica.
Adlabs Entertainment CMO Harjeet Chhabra said in a statement: “We wanted to explore the joyous emotions associated with the monsoon and also give people a reason to step out of their homes with their loved ones to enjoy the Masti ki Baarish at Imagica. ‘The Wedding Filmer’ was the perfect choice for this as they know how to bring the emotions alive on screen.”
In this film kids, youngsters, parents and grandparents are seen having a good time, enjoying the downpour equally with childlike innocence. The film showcases the rides and attractions along with the ongoing street food festival. A particular shot taken from the Gold Rush Express ride gives you an amazing view of the park.
Conceptualized and scripted by ‘The Wedding Filmer’, the first TV spot starts with a monsoon version of the popular Imagica jingle that sets the mood for Masti ki Baarish. The television commercial is currently being aired on leading General Entertainment Channels (GECs) and Kid’s channels. It is also being showcased at more than 250 multiplex screens across key markets.
Vishal Punjabi from ‘The Wedding Filmer’ added: “No matter how much we all love what we do; the routine always makes life a little mundane. What better to step out of it and step into a world of magic, fairy tales, cartoons, everything that fascinated us as kids and terrifies us now? Including the rain! So we took that trip to our childhood and captured it the best we could… With our family and friends and this is the result.”
Imagica is a fun drive away from Mumbai and Pune. You can also reach Imagica by bus from both Mumbai and Pune. For those who want to have an added train experience can take a train from CST to Khopoli, where a free Imagica shuttle takes you to the park at10am every day. Get into your rain gear and brace yourself for an international standard theme park experience in India and get wet in “Masti ki Baarish” at Adlabs Imagica.
“Monsoons in the mountains are a magical time. It’s lush, green and dreamy! Now imagine whizzing through the skies, dancing in the rain and spending that precious weekend with your family like an awestruck child again. That’s the emotion we were after with this film for the colourful wonderland that is Imagica,” ends Zara from ‘The Wedding Filmer’.
As more and more brands use the digital medium to find solutions to reach out to their target audience, the Indian media agencies are seeing an upward trend.
The latest was when WATConsult, won 19 awards at the recently held ‘CMO Asia – Social Media & Digital Marketing Excellence Awards’ in Singapore on 31 July 2014. An APAC level award which witnessed participation from 12 countries in the Asian region; the landslide win has made WATConsult, the highest awarded independent digital media agency in India.
The digital media agency was conferred the ‘Best progressive digital marketing company’ title. The win is a reflection of the fast growing nature of WATConsult, both, from a business and credibility stand point.
Among other wins, the ‘Best social media campaign of the year’ award was shared by Godrej master brand’s campaign and bestseller group’s Super Saturday campaign. The ‘Best social media integrated campaign’ award was shared by Radio Mirchi’s ‘Mirchi Music Awards’ campaign and SAP India. The campaign for SAP India also won the ‘Best use of Linkedin’ award. Colors TV’s ‘India’s Got Talent twitter’ campaign won the ‘Best use of social media’ and the ‘Best use of twitter’ award. Mother Dairy’s Mother’s Day Video campaign won two awards including the ‘Best viral marketing campaign of the year’ and the ‘Best online video’ award. Sony DADC won two awards with their app ‘Jarvis’ winning the ‘Best social app of the year’ and their ‘Beerpacity’ campaign winning the ‘Best use of gaming and animation’ title.
Mother Dairy Fruit & Vegetable Milk SBU business head Sandeep Ghosh said, “It’s a moment of pride for us as our social media campaign has won the award for ‘Best Viral Marketing Campaign of the Year’ and ‘Best Online Video’. The credit goes to WATConsult for creating the campaign as well as the successful connects with the users online. We would like to congratulate them for the awards as well as for achieving this feat of bagging 19 awards from a single award ceremony.”
Multiple awards winning campaign from TATA Chemicals – The Human Touch of Chemistry campaign continued its winning streak with the ‘Best in online content’ award. WATConsult, also, ventured into the social cause marketing segment winning two awards for Dr. Reddy’s Laboratory and Nuclear Friends Foundation earning the title of ‘Best use of social media for social cause’. Bajaj Allianz general life insurance company won the ‘Best online marketing campaign’ award for its lead generation campaign. India’s leading FMCG conglomerate, Godrej won two more campaigns including the ‘Best integrated campaign award’ for their work on ‘The use of digital for ROI’ by Godrej Security Solutions and the ‘Best rich media online ad’ for the Godrej Masterbrand campaign.
Tata Chemicals VP and CHRO R Nanda said, “We are happy to note that our ‘Partner in Progress’, WATConsult have been awarded a Gold in the category – Best in Online Content for our website Human Touch of Chemistry at the CMO Asia (Singapore) awards. Thanks to the efforts of the individual team members at WATConsult in making the Human Touch of Chemistry campaign a success. Our aim is to increasingly strive to provide relevant and updated content related to science and chemistry which would help create a positive impact on the minds of millions of people around the globe.”
Godrej Security Solutions asst VP and marketing head Mehernosh Pithawalla added, “This award stands testimony to our strategy and I’m glad we have won an award in a category linked to return on investment. Digital marketing which is strongly aligned to your marketing strategy can result in great marketing return on investment.”
The icing on the cake for WATConsult, however, was their founder & CEO, Rajiv Dingra, winning the ‘Young Social Media Entrepreneur of the year’ title. Dingra, who is all of just 29, is now one of the leading thought makers in the digital market circuit in India.
Dingra said, “19 Awards in one night is a huge achievement. We have shown that our work in FY 2013-14 was above industry standards and with 28 awards in total across eight award ceremonies, we have only made sure that we set our standards and sights higher for FY 2014-15. WATConsult is, now, undoubtedly the most awarded independent digital agency and we look forward to owning that no. 1 spot in the years to come.”
Comic Con India is all set to host Bangalore Comic Con 2014 to entice Bengaluru’s audience with its biggest pop culture event of the year. The convention will take place at White Orchid Convention Centre from 12-14 September 2014 between 11:00 am to 9:00 pm; Bangalore Comic Con will now be of not 2, but 3 days of crazy fun.
Bangalore Comic Con 2014 will be hosting one of its kinds, interactive and experiential 50 Hours of Programming through panels, launches, gaming, video hangouts and more. Famous international personalities like Dan Parent, an American comic book artist and writer best known for his work for Archies Comics; David Lloyd, a British comics artist best known as the illustrator of the story V for Vendetta; Rob-Denbleykar, Co-Creater of Cyanide and Happiness; Peter Kruper, an American cartoonist and illustrator, Best known for his work in Spy vs. Spy series; will be attending and taking special sessions here.
There will also be an exclusive live chat (via satellite) with the one and the only Neil Gaiman, an English author of short fiction, novel, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films.
Jatin Varma, Founder, Comic Con India, shared, “We are extremely excited to kick of our 3rd edition of the event in Bangalore, the past one year has seen a dramatic expansion of our shows and Bangalore fans are going to experience it now. We are bringing over everything from International guests to exhibitors, activities; this will be our biggest show till date. We look forward to having fun with all the fans in the city next month!”
Bangalore Comic Con will be a ticketed event now onwards, to further expand the scope and size of the event. For Bangalore Comic Con 2014, Tickets will be available online via Book My Show as well as at the Venue. Only a limited number of VIP tickets will be issued. The tickets would be priced at Rs 250 per day – Online and Rs 300 Per day – At the Venue and Rs 650 for the Super Fan VIP Ticket for all three days. Super Fan ticket offer is available in limited numbers and can be booked online only; these will not be available at the venue.
Cosplay (Costume Contest), one of the major attractions at Comic Con India, will continue to give assured prizes to everyone in costume. Comic Con India has created five categories to increase one’s chances of winning gifts. Each day, one winner will be chosen from each of the five categories:
1. Comic book/graphic novel
2. Animated Series/Movie
3. Manga/Anime
4. Sci-Fi/Fantasy
5. Gaming
All 3 days, one lucky winner out of the chosen 5 will get an awesome chance to win a special grand prize!
For the sheer love for Comics, more than 15 new titles are being planned to get launched at the convention. Ravanayan Finale – Part 2, Aghori – Issue 11, Odayan II – Yuddham, The Kaurava Empire, Rumi by Sufi Comics and The Caravan Prequel will be among the most awaited and exclusive book launches at the convention.
There will be International Exhibitors like Cyanide & Happiness, a famous webcomic and 3D Sense Animation, a leading digital arts school in Asia, bringing international content from all across the globe, especially for Bangalore.
At the convention, there will be some Awesome Anime & Manga Merch from Japanese Merchandiser IINE Toys, along with the best and most exclusive International merchandise at the convention from across the globe. Also, there will be exclusive Indian merchandisers including Kook N Keech by Myntra, Wacom, Bombay Merch, Collectors Heritage, Hysteria, Chimp, Chumbak, Keep Chilling, Wear Your Opinion, Planet Superheroes, Lazy Ninja, Graphicurry, Carmocrat and lots more!!
The main participants for the Bangalore Comic Con 2014 are Amar Chitra Katha, Orange Radius, Abhijeet Kini, Pop Culture Publishing, Random House, Sufi Comics, Campfire Graphic Novel, Holy Cow Entertainment, HarperCollins Publishers,Vimanika Comics, Raj Comics, Scholastic India, Mario Gallery, Viz Media (Simon & Schuster India), Westland and more!!
Comic Con India is dedicated to creating unique events and giving the fans, exhibitors and partners a platform to celebrate their undying love and passion for comics & pop culture. Comic Con India is dedicated to expanding India’s popular culture by creating high profile events that cater to fans of not only comics, but also, gaming, movies, television, merchandise, toys & more.
Adding momentum to innovation, Pogo has partnered with upcoming Bollywood movie Singham Returns to create a special TV presentation with Ajay Devgan and Chhota Bheem. The special titled Dholakpur Ka Singham will air on 9 August at 10:30am.
The 90 minute TV special will have the honest police officer, Bajirao Singham share his experience about his visit to Dholakpur. Audiences can look forward to loads of action, dialogue-baazi and ‘roaring’ fun when Bajirao Singham meets Bheem. The heroes will also be seen showing off their clever ways of fighting evil and protecting their beloved citizens against danger.
Commenting on Chhota Bheem and Dholakpurka Singham, Bollywood mega star Ajay Devgan said: “Chhota Bheem has become a sensation across the country. He and Bajirao Singham have a lot in common. They both fight against evil and stand up for what is right. My son is a huge fan of Chhota Bheem!”
Quoting a line from Dholakpur ka Singham, Ajay Devgan added, “Dholakpuraur gaon ke badmaashon, bachke!! Kyuki… Aali re aali, aata tujhe baari aali.”
Krishna Desai, Ex. Director & Network Head – Kids, South Asia, Turner International India said: “Bajirao Singham a.k.a Ajay Devgan is a super-cop who has become a hero for kids across the country. The huge fan-following that Chhota Bheem and Ajay Devgan share, is sure to make this venture successful and highly entertaining!”
Kids can also be a part of this Bheem and Bajiroa’s adventure by winning amazing Pogo prizes! All they have to do is tune-in to Dholakpurka Singham on 9 August, 10:30 am onwards and participate in the contest.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A. during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
