BOOM! Hey what’s up! Our new Tutorial is online AND we’re excited to announce Video Copilot is going on Tour! We’ve been looking for new ways to get together with the community and showcase other amazing designers at a fun show! We are happy to finally share all the details!
In an attempt to catch up in the render wars, I finally get to use Redshift for Cinema 4D on my new PC. This is the first time loading up C4D and using Redshift on my new computer.
If you are interested in following along with my Mac to PC journey, check out the previous videos:
In this video, you will see me fire up Cinema 4D and open some studios with Light Kit Pro 3. Then we will try rendering in Physical before hopping over into Redshift. You’ll also see me dabble in animation in the first time in a long time, as I no longer have to wait hours to create animated scenes.
I’m not gonna lie, this was a lot of fun, and I’m totally blown away by how fast I can get results. Let’s hop in.
Looking for the plugins and tools mentioned in the video? Here you go.
The post Testing Cinema 4D and Redshift Speed on a Windows PC appeared first on Greyscalegorilla.
Devika Prabhu
With the growing love towards Marvel in India, Disney India is launching Marvel HQ. The channel is replacing Disney XD, which went off-air from 6 January. Disney’s new channel will go on air from 20 January and will commence with four new Marvel animated series including Hulk And The Agents Of Smash, Avengers Assemble, Guardians Of The Galaxy and Ultimate Spiderman. Marvel HQ will be available in four languages including English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.
Disney India executive director and head-product media networks Devika Prabhu said, “We are creating a window and first experience for Marvel fans through Marvel HQ. With this channel, we are also introducing new viewers to the Marvel Universe. Currently, the objective is to have all things Marvel.”
The channel is also a fresh new offering to the super-hero action seeking and Marvel fans across the country. It aims to transport viewers into the world of epic storytelling told through inspiring characters and will reach out to kids above nine years of age including boys and girls. It will also introduce them to the world of Marvel and bring in youth and audiences who are fans of Marvel animation and the movies.
The other animated shows featuring on the channel will be Pokemon, Beyblade, Digimon and Big Hero 6. The channel’s programming will be boosted in the month of March considering the vacation period of kids and will feature new series such as Black Panther’s Quest Rising Secret Warrior and Future Avengers among others.
On the need to launch a separate channel, Prabhu said, “At Disney, we cater to all our viewers. Disney Junior is targeting pre-school viewers; Disney Channel attends to kids and families. Marvel HQ will give us an opportunity to reach in the action-adventure space. With the growing popularity of Marvel, we feel that there was a need to launch this channel.”
The channel doesn’t have any exclusive deals as of now in regards to content. The network will keep sharing the content with other platforms too. The coming summer vacations are going to be MARVELOUS!
The post Fans to explore a new Marvel destination launching soon on Indian television appeared first on AnimationXpress.
American Mythology Comics is bringing Laurel and Hardy’s shenanigans back to their fans. The publisher plans to celebrate and pay tribute to Stan and Ollie’s legacy by bringing the new stories to fans. The publisher is producing a new series and reprinting the tales with writers S.A. Check (The Three Stooges, Casper, Legend Gary), and Jordan Gershowitz (Tom and Jerry, Danger Mouse, Sesame Street).
Art for the new series will be created by veteran comic artist, Jorge Pacheco (Rocky & Bullwinkle, Pink Panther, Looney Tunes). Pacheco is well-versed with illustrating the comedy duo, having already done so over thirty years ago when Stan and Ollie last saw the panelled pages of comics. Both new stories will centre on honouring the tone and feel of the original skits made famous by the comedians.
In a statement, Larry Harmon Pictures Corporation VP Marci Breth said, “With the current international release of our new Laurel and Hardy feature film, Stan & Ollie, the timing is perfect to reintroduce Laurel and Hardy comics to new generations of Laurel & Hardy fans, as well as of course to the millions of existing fans around the world.”
The classic duo, Laurel and Hardy will be returning to comics in April.
The post Laurel and Hardy will be returning to comics appeared first on AnimationXpress.
Recently Framestore received nine nominations from the Visual Effects Society, showcasing the diverse talent and range of projects across the global studio’s portfolio.
Three feature films worked on by Framestore are up for the award in Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature; Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Infinity War, Universal’s Welcome to Marwen and Disney’s Christopher Robin, with Framestore’s Chris Lawrence (Overall VFX Supervisor) and Michael Eames (Animation Director) nominated for their contribution to Christopher Robin. The film also landed a nomination in the Outstanding Animated Character in a Photoreal Feature category for Tigger, with Framestore Compositor Thai-Son Doan recognised for his role on Welcome to Marwen, earning a nomination in Outstanding Compositing in a Photoreal Feature.
Nominations CEO William Sargent said, ‘It is with great pride that we see Framestore’s work acknowledged so widely by our peers at the Visual Effects Society. The range of work nominated at these prestigious awards showcases the diverse talent and artistry across our global offices and illustrates what we do at Framestore; bringing extraordinary ideas to life through craft, imagination and technology.’
Framestore’s trailblazing work in advertising is also celebrated, with both McDonald’s Reindeer Ready and U.S. Marine Corps A Nation’s Call up for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Commercial. The full-CG Bobbi the Reindeer character from the McDonald’s film is up for Outstanding Animated Character in a Commercial, while the studio’s advert for Apple, Welcome Home is nominated for Outstanding Compositing in a Photoreal Commercial.
Framestore’s Television division is also represented, with a nomination in Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Episode with The Terror; Go For Broke.
The ambitious dark ride project for China’s Wanda Group, Pearl Quest, is also nominated at the awards in the Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project category, the second time Framestore has been up for this award.
The announcement follows the news that four films featuring work by Framestore have been shortlisted for the Academy Award in Visual Effects Avengers: Infinity War, Christopher Robin, Mary Poppins Returns, Welcome to Marwen with two film also being nominated for the BAFTA in Special Visual Effects for Avengers: Infinity War and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
The post Framestore scores 9 nominations at the 17th Annual Visual Effects Society Awards appeared first on AnimationXpress.
After Infinity War ended with half of the universe getting wiped out including our beloved Spider-Man, with the snap of the Mad Titan, Marvel has now dropped the first teaser trailer and the first poster for Spider-Man: Far From Home. The teaser trailer ensures that the adventures of Peter Parker is going to continue!
Tom Holland returns as Parker in Spider-Man: Far From Home, the next chapter of the Spider-Man: Homecoming series! The friendly neighborhood superhero decides to join his best friends Ned, MJ and the rest of the gang on a European vacation. However, Parker’s plan to leave super heroics behind for a few weeks, are disrupted when he reluctantly agrees to help Nick Fury uncover the mystery of several elemental creature attacks, creating havoc across the continent!
The trailer gives fans the idea about the subtitle along with what to expect of this superhero adventure. The film is to have appearances of few notable familiar faces from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and more than one powerful new character – including Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal)!
Holland had previously revealed on Jimmy Kimmel Live Spider-Man’s new suit – a black-and-red combo, as opposed to the traditional blue-and-red mix, with the spider logo on the chest area redesigned to look sleeker.
Michael Keaton, Jon Favreau, Zendaya, Marisa Tomei, Cobie Smulders, Samuel L Jackson, Jacob Batalon, Tony Revolori, Angourie Rice and Hemky Madera all return for the upcoming film.
Spider-Man swings back into theaters on 5 July 2019.
The post Spidey’s adventures to continue as Marvel releases ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ teaser trailer appeared first on AnimationXpress.
Global esports organisation Gen.G announced that it has appointed Chris Park as chief executive officer. Gen.G has also announced that co-founder Kevin Chou will assume the role of executive chairman.
“We are extremely excited for Chris to join Gen.G and lead us to new heights. He has a brilliant mind for growth and innovation, and we look forward to him applying his great skill set with Gen.G. We have big goals for 2019 and beyond, and Chris is the right person to lead us into the future,” said Kevin Chou, executive chairman for Gen.G.
Park comes from a long and distinguished career in sports business leadership and building innovative brands, most recently from Major League Baseball where he served since 2015, most recently as Executive vice president, product & marketing.
Park will be setting and guiding the day-to-day execution of the brand’s strategy in a close partnership with Chou, and as chairman, Chou will remain active in leading the Board of the company he founded. During his tenure with Major League Baseball, Park paid close attention as esports grew into a formidable counterpart to the more traditional sports leagues. He’ll now play an important role in the ongoing development of the esports business as CEO of Gen.G.
“I can’t express how thrilled I am about this new journey into the esports world with Gen.G. Having spent years with a traditional sports league, it was evident that competitive gaming was booming — well now it’s here and here to stay. I look forward to continuing to build an esports powerhouse in Gen.G, especially here in the US and specifically LA, setting the bar for what a gold standard organisation should look like,” said Chris Park, chief executive officer for Gen.G.
Park will relocate from New York City to Gen.G’s new headquarters in Los Angeles, while also spending time in Seoul, Korea as part of his onboarding. In other organisational moves, Kent Wakeford is transitioning to vice chairman.
“Chris possesses the vision, creativity and work-ethic to level up everything we do here at Gen.G. Given his experience, understanding of the sports business, and passion for competition, we know that Chris will make an effortless transition. I speak for everyone here at Gen.G when I say he’s a perfect fit for our organisation,” said Arnold Hur, chief growth officer, Gen.G esports.
Gen.G is coming off a banner year in 2018, as it announced a renewal with NETGEAR’s Nighthawk Pro Gaming, brought on the legendary Chris Bosh as Player Management Advisor, and formed an all-female Fortnite team. Competitively, Gen.G’s PUBG and Heroes of the Storm teams claimed championships, while the Seoul Dynasty and League of Legends teams are poised for big years in 2019.
The post Esports organisation Gen.G appoints Chris Park as chief executive officer appeared first on AnimationXpress.
Today, Autodesk has launched Maya 2019, the latest version of its popular 3D animation, modelling, simulation and rendering software, featuring significant updates to help artists achieve their creative vision within a faster, more interactive and visually engaging working environment.
“The more you can make the technology behave and get out of the artists’ way, the more they can keep their thought process fluid. With Cached Playback, animators can iterate more, and they totally love that,” Blue Sky Studios technical program manager Christopher Moore.
Maya 2019 addresses the key challenges artists face throughout production, providing faster animation playback to reduce the need for playblasts, higher quality 3D previews with Autodesk Arnold updates in viewport 2.0, improved pipeline integration with more flexible development environment support, and performance improvements that most Maya artists will notice in their daily work.
“We’re not looking to make it so our artists get more shots per week off their plate. We’re doing this so we can set the bar even higher for the quality of art we can produce,” Blue Sky Studios CTO Hank Driskill
“The new features in Maya 2019 give artists a more responsive working environment so they feel more creatively engaged and can iterate faster to produce better quality. Cached Playback is going to reduce the need for playblasts by animators, and Arnold updates take the guesswork out of the equation, by making viewport previews closer to the final Arnold render,” said Autodesk Media & Entertainment sr. director products Chris Vienneau.
Key new Maya 2019 features include:
— Faster Animation: New cached playback increases animation playback speeds in viewport 2.0, giving animators a more interactive and responsive animating environment to produce better quality animations. It helps reduce the need to produce time-consuming playblasts to evaluate animation work, so animators can work faster.
— Higher Quality Previews Closer to Final Renders: Arnold upgrades improve real-time previews in viewport 2.0, allowing artists to preview higher quality results that are closer to the final Arnold render for better creativity and less wasted time.
— Faster Maya: New performance and stability upgrades help improve daily productivity in a range of areas that most artists will notice in their daily work.
— Refining Animation Data: New filters within the graph editor make it easier to work with motion capture data, including the Butterworth filter and the key reducer to help refine animation curves.
— Rigging Improvements: New updates help make the work of riggers and character TDs easier, including the ability to hide sets from the outliner to streamline scenes, improvements to the bake deformer tool and new methods for saving deformer weights to more easily script rig creation.
— Pipeline Integration Improvements: Development environment updates make it easier for pipeline and tool developers to create, customize and integrate into production pipelines.
— Help for Animators in Training: Sample rigged and animated characters, as well as motion capture samples, make it easier for students to learn and quickly get started animating.
Maya 2019 is available today as a standalone subscription or with a collection of end-to-end creative tools within the Autodesk Media & Entertainment Collection.
The post Autodesk launches Maya 2019 appeared first on AnimationXpress.
ResearchAndMarkets launched a report of ‘European Animation, VFX & Games Industry: Strategies, Trends & Opportunities, 2019’ recently. The report states that the total value of the European animation industry was $45.6 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach $46.2 billion by 2020. The size of European video gaming industry was $19 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach 21.5 billion by 2020. The spend on special effects as a per cent of production cost is about 20-25 per cent. The traditional form of content viewership is giving way to a sharp increase in streaming video consumption.
Overview
The demand for animation, VFX and gaming has expanded with the increase in targeted broadcasting hours by cable and satellite TV, availability of low-cost internet access, penetration of mobile devices along with the growing popularity of streaming video. In addition, the demand for Animation and VFX content to power immersive experiences such as AR and VR is growing exponentially. The rapid advancement of technology has made animation, VFX & games available to the masses, and this industry has become one of the fastest growing segments in the global media and entertainment market. We are increasingly seeing more of the global animation, VFX and games production taking place in a globally distributed mode. Production work is becoming global with tax incentives, regional low labour costs and lower computing costs, which put pressure on companies to reduce costs and set up facilities in tax-advantaged or low-cost regions. This is a model which is increasingly being tapped by content producers.
The European animation studios have started partnering with global players to produce animation content for Television. These alliances have resulted in content suited for the local population. This is particularly seen in countries such as France, UK, Germany and Spain. The European animated feature film industry has still not achieved the popularity and global appeal of their American counterparts. International marketing is a key area for improvement for European animation studios. There are very few European films with trans-national success. This is partly due to the diverse cultural backgrounds. However, this is undergoing change with a small number of local European productions enjoying European and global success.
Market Size
The total value of the European animation industry was $45.6 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach $46.2 billion by 2020. The size of the European video gaming industry was $19 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach 21.5 billion by 2020. The total value of the global animation industry was $259 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach $270 billion by 2020. The spend on special effects as a per cent of production cost is about 20-25 per cent. The traditional form of content viewership is giving way to a sharp increase in streaming video consumption.
Strategies, Opportunities, Growth factors
Global consumers are displaying a growing appetite for engaging, high-definition visual experiences. Moviegoers are demanding high-quality productions with engaging visual effects and realistic animation and studios are including more animation and VFX shots into films. Consumers are consuming more immersive content across channels such as ultra-high-definition TVs, tablets and smartphones to head-mounted devices.
Animation, VFX and games content is being consumed not only on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and Twitch but also on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. With growing internet penetration and access to multimedia devices, customers are spending more time on streaming digital content. Streaming video is the fastest growing segment distribution channel for animation and is witnessing double-digit growth and the same is expected to continue for the next few years. This growth is attributed to the exponential growth in the number of online video viewers throughout the world. Cloud computing is playing a key role in character rendering and modelling processes as the cloud-based rendering of animation films are more effective and efficient as it reduces the time and cost compared to traditional rendering.
Cloud Gaming services which are growing at an exponential pace would need the right pricing model to both drive adoption and generate sufficient returns for platforms and publishers. The availability of low-cost micro-payment systems is allowing users to pay for access or download small quantities of digital content and is the key for online games market to grow. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning based techniques are being used for in-game analytics, customer acquisition, retention, cross-sell, churn, classify player behaviour etc.
Popular eSports tournaments have rich spectator interactions and immersive fan experiences for in-person and online viewers. Micro-segmentation of fans is emerging as eSports leagues and the tournament is consolidating various genres, platforms and viewing experiences by careful customer segmentation, targeting and positioning. China has become a leader in eSports and several tournaments are organized throughout the year with millions participating in both online and offline modes.
The post European AVGC sees sharp increase in streaming video consumption appeared first on AnimationXpress.
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