Hasta La Motion!

May 26

Cougar Talk…

Mac the cougar “talking” with the cameraman…

Learn more about Mac here: http://bigcatrescue.org/mac/

BIG CAT TV is a close look into our day-to-day operations, the conservation efforts we support, and the 100+ feline residents of “Big Cat Rescue” in Tampa, FL. USA. Big Cat Rescue is an educational non-breeding sanctuary and a registered non-profit 501c3 so your donations are tax deductible!

Subscribe here: http://youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=BigCatRescue

Website: http://bigcatrescue.org

Watch more Big Cat Rescue on Animalist at: http://animalist.com/BigCatRescue

Follow Big Cat Rescue on Twitter http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

Like Big Cat Rescue on Facebook http://facebook.com/bigcatrescue

Add Big Cat Rescue on Google+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/+bigcatrescue

May 26

MTV – Carrinho 5"

Posted in: Animation

MTV/Viacom Brazil issued us a challenge: to create a set of super-brazilian IDs with high-impact visuals. The goal was to explore FIFA’s World Cup in an unbiased way, keeping it in line with their target audience. We chose to embrace reality and created, wrote and produced films about a World Cup that happens not only on TV or in stadiums, but also on the daily life of the ordinary brazilian citizen. Vivid colors, imperfections and little bit of chaos were the ingredients to build an aesthetic that could synthesize Brazilians’ everyday lives in its most true and universal form, without being too regional or falling into the common places of national culture depictions. A combination of live-action, rotoscopy, cel animation and motion graphics allowed us to achieve a final look able to give the piece all the fluidity and visual clutterness the narrative demanded. Hope you like it!

May 26

MTV – Alongamento 6"

Posted in: Animation

May 26

DMAX Imaging uses MODO's 3D content creation toolsets

Posted in: Animation

Sun 25th May 2014 | News

[embedded content]

Behind the scenes at DMAX Imaging from The Foundry on Vimeo.

Creating high-end visualizations and animations for prestigious clients like Apple, Beats, Mini and Nest is no easy feat. San Francisco-based DMAX Imaging uses MODO’s 3D content creation toolsets to create the amazing visuals for a wide range of campaigns.

McKay Hawkes, CGI Director at DMAX Imaging discusses the shift from traditional methods like product photography for stills campaigns to highly complex 3D animations based on actual CAD data. Learn how they have seen clients shift from being skeptical of CG to a growing industry-wide acceptance. To find out more about MODO, follow this link: thefoundry.co.uk/products/modo/

May 26

ReelSmart Motion Blur 5 and Twixtor v6

Posted in: Animation

Sun 25th May 2014 | News

RE:Vision Effects has released the ReelSmart Motion Blur™ version 5 and Twixtor® version 6 with GPU support for eyeon Fusion® .

Speedups up to 3x on GPUs when using RSMB and Twixtor, already known for their speed, have been measured over running in CPU mode. Speedups of this magnitude are usually seen with higher end cards and larger image sizes. Note that most currently-sold GPUs will provide customers with needed acceleration, including many mobile GPUs for laptops. Of course, the total speedup end-users will see will vary once application overhead is taken into account: this includes disk I/O, internal host buffering schemes, bandwidth of PCIe bus, codec used for footage, etc.

Twixtor creates highly engaging slow motion shots without the cost of renting a high speed camera. In order to achieve its unparalleled image quality, Twixtor synthesizes unique new frames by warping and interpolating frames of the original sequence by employing RE:Vision’s proprietary tracking technology that calculates motion for each individual pixel.

ReelSmart Motion Blur (RSMB) automatically adds more natural-looking motion blur to a sequence. Proprietary tracking technology is at the heart of RSMB, so there is no handwork involved. Of course you can add as little or as much blurring as you need and even remove motion blur! This is a useful tool to give video a more film-like feel, and is also useful to reintroduce motion blur for blue or green screen shoots where a fast shutter is necessary to pull a good key. Also included in RSMB is a feature that allows you to blur with user-supplied motion vectors that, most likely, will come from a 3D animation system.

Users are advised that their specific speedups are dependent on system configuration, specific GPU, and features of RSMB and Twixtor that are used. Customers should test the demo to make sure they will see the speedups they desire before upgrading to RSMB v5 or Twixtor v6.

Availability and System Requirements

• Fusion 5.1 and up, 64-bit only
• For GPU support, the GPU driver must support OpenCL 1.1. On Windows, check with your manufacturer for updated drivers for your GPU, and make sure you have one that supports OpenCL 1.1. We recommend the latest drivers available.
• Windows 7 or 8, 64-bit. Windows Vista supported for CPU-only mode.
• More detailed GPU info found at http://revisionfx.com/support/faqs/generalfaqs/gpu-info/.

Pricing:

• ReelSmart Motion Blur v5 Fusion-native node-locked license is $189.95. Floating License: $284.93.
• Twixtor v6 Fusion-native node-locked license is $665.00. Floating License: $997.50.
• Upgrade pricing can be found here: http://www.revisionfx.com/products/rsmb/pricing/
• Volume discounts available. Contact sales@revisionfx.com.

Downloads:

• Demo RSMB download: http://www.revisionfx.com/products/rsmb/downloads/#eyeon
• Demo Twixtor download: http://www.revisionfx.com/products/twixtor/downloads/#eyeon

May 26

Mixamo Opens Technology to User-Imported Content

Posted in: Animation

Wed 21st May 2014 | News

Mixamo, Inc announced y that it will be adding advanced character customization technology into its Fuse product. The new technology, which can be applied to both proprietary and user-imported content, will allow game artists, game modders and hobbyists to create a limitless library of 3D characters for their games simply by clicking on a mesh (arm, leg, cheek, etc) and manually dragging it in a particular direction. Anyone with a current copy of Fuse, or a current All Access subscription, will be able to access this new feature for no additional cost. The new technology will go live in Fuse starting next week, and will be on display in Mixamo’s booth at Nordic Game (booth #A27).

Available on Steam and via the Mixamo website, Fuse is a character creator solution that allows users to browse through a vast number of meshes (arms, legs, torsos, etc) and texture choices (shirts, pants, etc) and “fuse” them together to create customized, high-quality characters in a matter of minutes. Users can also import content that they’ve created in other software packages to increase their creative options. With the advanced customization technology, over 280 automatically inherited morph targets can be applied to the imported content once Fuse’s standard UV layout is followed.

With the addition of advanced character customization technology, users will no longer be bound by the static mesh choices provided in the software – they will be able to click and drag meshes, including imported meshes, in multiple directions to make them thinner, wider, longer, shorter, etc. This morphing ability can be activated through contextual UI controllers or more traditional sliders. Once customized, each character can be saved and exported for use in games, game engines or other 3D software package. Workflows are also available for Gmod, TF2, SFM and Source engine.

“Fuse democratizes 3D character creation by providing an open content system to artists, game modders and others for creating high-quality 3D characters in minutes, rather than hours or days,” said Stefano Corazza, CEO and co-founder of Mixamo, Inc. “Without losing its simplicity, this release makes Fuse an even more flexible content creation tool. Now the character creation options truly are limitless.”

Fuse is available on Steam for $99.99 or from the Mixamo website.

May 26

Allegorithmic Integrates Silicon Studio’s YEBIS 2 Tech

Posted in: Animation

Tue 13th May 2014 | News

Today Allegorithmic will begin integrating Silicon Studio’s YEBIS 2 into Substance Designer 4.3 and Substance Painter beta.

After this integration, what game developers see in their viewport is what will be available in the final rendering. Removing the need to ever leave the program establishes a workflow that for the first time begins and ends in Substance. Whether that means creating beauty shots or making sure the asset currently being textured behaves after applying cinematic post processing effects like SSAO, antialiasing, glare or depth of field, artists now have a level of convenience (and power) that’s never been seen before in the world of game design.

“Digital artists ultimately want to feel unconfined by unnecessary layers. They want to make a change and see what it’s actually going to look like right away,” said Dr. Sébastien Deguy, Founder and CEO at Allegorithmic. “Combining YEBIS 2’s stellar post processing technology with the PBR viewports in both our Substance texture creation products will help us remove most of these layers, and will continue to make the Substance suite the only one-stop shop for textures.”

“Today the latest and most advanced version of our middleware YEBIS 2 is used by the most innovative game developers in Japan and abroad,” said Takehiko Terada, CEO at Silicon Studio. “It is a real pleasure to see it utilized by the most innovative company in its field and through products we love. We can not wait to see what the 3D artists’ community will produce now that YEBIS has joined with Substance!”

Availability

This integration will be available for Windows and Mac, first in Substance Designer, then in Substance Painter. There will be no additional costs added to the price of Substance Designer or Substance Painter because of this integration.

Craft CameraFx for MotionBuilder

Posted in: Animation

Tue 13th May 2014 | News

Craft Animations released Craft CameraFx, a new animation tool for users who’d prefer it to be simple and intuitive. Designed specifically for camera animation, Craft CameraFx presents users with a layer-based workflow that helps them create a dynamic sequence in a matter of minutes.

Craft CameraFx was inspired by Craft Director Studio’s “driving” workflow, and incorporates new abilities to manage cameras within a 3D scene. Traditionally Craft Director Studio users would have to use several cameras if they wanted to string together different effects. Now they can add multiple layers to the same camera and see changes directly from a set view to streamline the animation process. The software even lets users modify a sequence after it’s made. No more re-staging and re-recording if you don’t get it right the first time.

“Traditional methods like spline animation always come with a stiff workflow,” says Michael Belin, co-founder and developer at Craft Animations. “With CameraFx, it’s simple. Want your camera to shake at a precise moment? Simply add a noise effect. Set the start and end times. Bang.”

Tailored for easy customization and rugged professional use, effects in Craft CameraFx exist as small modules within its new layer system. Module movement characteristics are generated in real-time and several can be stacked together for scenes that require complex animations.

For example, a user might quickly set up a crude path for an object using a rough spline animation or other basic input. Adding one of CameraFx’s offset effects will then smooth out and extend curves on the path without actually modifying the source animation.

This system was refined from specifications and requests from the Ubisoft Toronto team during the development of Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Blacklist, giving Craft CameraFx a true trial-by-fire in the AAA game market.

“We relied on Craft CameraFx to help us achieve realistic camera animations in Splinter Cell Blacklist,” says Randy Yuen, Camera Specialist at Ubisoft Toronto. “We saved time by using this toolset, which helped our team deliver game animations at a very high level of quality.”

Through elements like recording feedback, precise customization, and a variety of effects options, artists of all levels can now have unprecedented control over their animations.

Additional key features of Craft CameraFx include:

• Streamlined Animation Workflow: Intuitive controls make camera animations easy to create and tweak
• Real-time Feedback: A constantly active system applies changes in real-time so users have the freedom to change animations and view results right away
• Simple and Smart Controls: The unique layer system and user-friendly interface makes advanced combinations of effects easy to achieve
• Powerful Effects: A collection of specific camera effects includes the most common camera characteristics to easily achieve advanced animation techniques

“In markets like Games, Film and VFX, artists are always in search of something that can save time but still deliver a consistent result,” says Belin. “That’s why we created CameraFx. It’s simple, but also more powerful than any other camera animation tool.”

Pricing and Availability

Craft CameraFx is priced at $1,995, and is available now for users of MotionBuilder 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. A purchase includes a perpetual license for the specific platform and host version of Craft CameraFx, as well as first tier support from Craft Animations. Users can access a trial of Craft CameraFx here.