welcome to cg and concept art thread.
this thread is about world of cg.
all the news and info are welcome to share.


i m at cg field industry about 6 years.
cg and concept art is mostly relate to games or movie.
or even dcc medium industry.
and i found out there are lot of people out there start
discover them into this field. so i start to create one.
it is different from graphic design or normal art line.

soon we will share the world of cg.
welcome cg people.
thank you.

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Added on July 14, 2008, 2:00 am

This early opening of the CGSociety SIGGRAPH Diary wll give you a look at the conference from as many different angles as possible. Throughout these posts, updated every few days, CGSociety will be announcing special features, we'll be interviewing the Chairs, and lighting your way towards SIGGRAPH with our descriptions of the many sessions and attractions. CGSociety will be there!

Over five days in mid-August, the Los Angeles Convention Center and the Nokia Theater will be awash with SIGGRAPH sessions and attractions. Los Angeles is the home of SIGGRAPH and every two or three years, the stage is returned. SIGGRAPH is the place where university labs, studios for film and games, film and animation schools and the CG artists spill their new techniques into the creative community.

The New Tech Demos at SIGGRAPH, which used to be named 'Emerging Technologies,' present creative, innovative technologies and applications in many fields including displays, robotics, input devices, and interaction techniques.

"Many of these cutting-edge technologies exemplify how our past informs our future and how it affects the upcoming opportunities and challenges of computer graphics and interactive techniques," stated Mk Haley, SIGGRAPH 2008 Conference Director of Encounters with Disney-ABC Digital Media. "The technologies and installations in New Tech Demos encourage people to engage with the future, as well as celebrate our past, as we invigorate, explore, and define our potential."

During SIGGRAPH, CGSociety will be at the show in LA, posting a SIGGRAPH diary, updated daily, keeping everyone worldwide up to date with the attractions for the week.

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Added on July 14, 2008, 2:02 amSIGGRAPH 2008's newly expanded Computer Animation Festival is spread over the five days with screenings, talks, studio events, with two days of 3D stereoscopic panels and screenings.

As well as the juried screening, the festival offers inspiring studio content, Flash films, DemoScene animation, international school retrospectives, selections from the Japan Media Arts Festival and the latest in real-time game graphics. To be admitted to the Computer Animation Festival, you will need either a Full Conference Pass or a Computer Animation Festival Pass.

The 2008 Computer Animation Festival presents artists and experts in talks on all aspects of production, from animation to visual effects, from shorts to full-length features, from television to movies, from art to science, from learning the history of animation to learning the craft.

Participate in selecting the Audience Prize and see the results at the Festival's first annual award show: a raucous hour of animation, animation directors, prizes, and surprises. And don't miss exciting nightly events hosted by Pixar, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Industrial Light & Magic. There will be a full slate of talks and several production sessions, including a mind-bending look into 'Speed Racer,' a journey behind the scenes of 'Cloverfield' and 'Iron Man,' as well as a review of ideas that didn't quite make it through production.

In the studio reel of the Computer Animation Festival, a trailer be premiered from a yet-to-be-released animated feature from animation director Rob Coleman and the crew at Lightstream Pictures. This is accompanied by a talk from the principal members of Lightstream Animation who will talk about building an animation studio while creating their animated feature. More details on this will be discussed in a later entry.

There is a retrospective animation school reel to be shown and an accompanying talk by five top international schools for the study of film, animation and effects. An amazing exhibition of work is on display from AnimationMentor, Austalian Film TV and Radio School, Bournemouth University, Brigham Young University, Carnegie Mellon, Filmakademie Baden-Wurttemberg, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Otis College of Art & Design, the Pratt Institute, Ringling College of Art & Design, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Texas A&M University, University of Southern California, Vancouver Film School and many others. Hael Kobayashi and Sande Scoredos worked tirelessly to stage and curate this presentation.

PIXAR's Presto and Glago's Guest are both playing in the Nokia Theater, (Petree Hall C, Wednesday 3:45pm) and there is a joint PIXAR/Disney talk with Richard Hollander and Andy Harkness following the screening.

Nominated for best of show is 'Carbon Footprint,' from Jellyfish Pictures. This is part of a Future History session with Look Effects, at the same time in Hall D on Wednesday. The two companies discuss three projects (Look Effects talks about 'Life After People,' and 'Blown Away: Greensberg Kansas'), all three projects use visual effects to tell alternate stories of the future.

There is plenty more in store as part of the Computer Animation Festival. Stay tuned!

This post has been edited by cymon: Jul 14 2008, 04:32 AM

here is some sample of my concept work for my clients.
it is public approved visual.

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Added on July 14, 2008, 2:30 amit can be 2d or 3d.
the main core is the ideas(concept)
normally can find through big production game, movie or even mv.
it just a team of concept artist/designer to provide them the concepts
for their project.


This post has been edited by cymon: Jul 14 2008, 02:30 AM

yes, it is world famous disney hall. design by world pioneer frank gehry.
it is sort of trademark of this building.

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Added on July 14, 2008, 4:24 am


Creator of video game brands moves in on renowned special effects studio.

Ubisoft has announced the acquisition of Hybride Technologies, a Montreal-based studio renowned for its expertise in the creation of visual effects for cinema, television and advertising.

Created over 15 years ago, Hybride employs 80 team members. The studio’s many projects include such innovative films as 300, Frank Miller’s Sin City and the Spy Kids series.

Ubisoft will work closely with Hybride to share technology and to develop tools in order to optimize the creation of both video games and visual effects and to offer gamers visual experiences that rival those of the cinema. At the same time, Hybride will continue to work with its film partners while also bringing its expertise to leverage Ubisoft’s intellectual properties for the movie industry.

"The future of our industry depends on our ability to create brands that captivate audiences and to extend those brands to other forms of entertainment," said Yves Guillemot, chief executive officer at Ubisoft. “The acquisition of Hybride falls directly into the strategy that has already led us to open a digital creation studio in Montreal and to acquire the Tom Clancy brand for video games and ancillary products. The exceptional quality of the team at Hybride and the expertise of our Ubisoft teams will allow us to create one of the best 3D animation studios in the entertainment industry.”

"This alliance is a true first for the industry,” continued Yannis Mallat, chief executive officer of Ubisoft Montreal. “Ubisoft and Hybride share the same vision of entertainment convergence and a common passion for innovation and creativity.”

“It is the quality and innovation of our artists that made Hybride into one of the most successful studios in cinema and the most important visual effects producer on the North American East Coast,” stated Pierre Raymond, founder and chief executive officer at Hybride Technologies. “The sharing of technological and creative expertise between Ubisoft and Hybride will position the two companies at the head of the pack in an entertainment industry in rapid evolution.”

In addition to bringing its technological knowledge and its collaboration to Ubisoft’s brands, Hybride will continue to work with its external partners. The forecast for this visual effects creation activity for cinema, television and advertising will initially generate sales of approximately 6 to 7 M€ and a current operating income of about 10 % of sales.

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Added on July 14, 2008, 4:30 am


ELEMENTAL 3 is available for pre-order!



ELEMENTAL 3 is the finest art book showcasing the work of CG artists in architectural visualization and product design, and is the first Ballistic title to dedicate half of its pages to architectural subjects. A set of four bonus prints are yours free when you purchase ELEMENTAL 3 Limited Edition. The bonus prints also come with the first 200 Hardcover editions bought during pre-sale.

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Added on July 14, 2008, 4:39 am
Autodesk acquires ECOTECT


report that Autodesk, Inc. has recently completed the acquisition of substantially all the assets related to the Ecotect software tools for conceptual building performance analysis from both Square One Research Ltd and Dr Andrew J Marsh.



Autodesk currently plans to continue support of the existing Ecotect and its related tools and is working to transition the sales process to the Autodesk e-Store. In the interim a free trial version of the latest commercial software is available for download until August 15 2008, after accepting the end-user license agreement (EULA) that accompanies the product.


- Ecotect is a comprehensive environmental design tool that covers a wide range of simulation and analysis functions required to truly understand how a building design will operate and perform. Environmental design principles, such as solar, thermal, shading, lighting, and airflow, are most effectively addressed in the early phases of the design process. With Ecotect tools, architects and engineers can measure how fundamental criteria will affect building performance in the conceptual and detailed phases of design. Architects and designers work easily in 3D and apply a rich palate of tools that are important for our customers to drive and support an energy efficient and sustainable future.

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Added on


July 14, 2008, 4:40 amAward-winning VFX studio Frantic Films VFX, a division of Prime Focus Group, recently served as a lead visual effects provider for the forthcoming stereoscopic feature film, "Journey to the Center of the Earth,"
produced by Walden Media and New Line Cinema.

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Added on July 14, 2008, 4:45 am



'Planet 51' heads into Sony orbit


Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group has picked up U.S. distribution rights for the CG-animated kidpic "Planet 51."
TriStar Pictures will release the film, which features the voices of Dwayne Johnson and Jessica Biel, on Nov. 20, 2009.

Alien adventure comedy centers on an astronaut who lands on Planet 51 thinking he's the first to set foot on it. To his surprise, he discovers it's inhabited by little green people who live in a white picket-fenced world reminiscent of 1950s America. Film is produced by Ilion Animation Studios.

Justin Long, Seann William Scott, Gary Oldman and John Cleese round out the voice cast.

New Line previously bought domestic distribution rights for the $50 million plus-budgeted film and had touted it as it as its first-ever CG-animated feature. After New Line was folded into Warner Bros. in February, "Planet 51" became the domain of Warners and was set to be released by the studio in summer 2009.

This post has been edited by cymon: Jul 14 2008, 04:45 AM

EXOTIQUE 4
Entry Deadline: Noon, Monday August 4, 2008 GMT

Call for Entries - Ballistic Publishing invites you to submit your work to EXOTIQUE 4: THE WORLD'S MOST BEAUTIFUL CG CHARACTERS. The fourth book in the series will showcase the best digital character creations produced for film, television, games and personal endeavor.

EXOTIQUE 4 will showcase the world's most stunning CG characters. We are looking for all types of character work from humans to fantastic creatures.

If your work is selected for publication in EXOTIQUE 4 you will receive a complimentary copy of the book and will also get international exposure by having your work included in the premier collection of digital character art.

There is no cost or limit to the number of entries you can enter for EXOTIQUE 4.

pls dun it wrong,
the purpose i open this thread is to share wat is happening or exchange ideas/concept art forum.
u may seen there is no one post for mean time.
concept art is still very fresh in malaysia market.

only the few who already venture it professionally.
most will think it is an illustration / graphic design.
no, it is not

concept art is about ideas that translate into medium (2d or 3d).
here not only we exchange concept art but also we talk about cg.
software, hardware, info or news..



This post has been edited by cymon: Jul 14 2008, 11:34 PM

welcome to the world of cg and concept art.
conceptart / cgtalk is one of my regular daily site i surf.
i m the member too..

really nice to hear tat u are venture into tis field.
i know it is hard for old generation to understand this, most of them will tell u :

same only with graphic design just matter of terms... both also draw draw mah..

the main core is still the ideas that sell..
do u hav anything to share wit ??

This post has been edited by cymon: Jul 15 2008, 12:09 AM

Crashing, breaking, shooting, bleeding and smashing – these are just a few of the many visual effects created by Rhythm & Hues for The Incredible Hulk. To manage all this destruction, Houdini’s particles and dynamics played a key role in achieving quick turnarounds for both the look development and execution of over 183 VFX shots.

For most of the movie, the effects needed to blend with the live action footage to keep the focus on the Hulk and his nemesis Abomination. For the rain grotto sequence, Houdini provided water runoff on the Hulk, rain, and atmospheric mist. For battle sequences, Houdini was used to create the cracking of concrete and asphalt, dynamic simulations of flying car parts and car crushing effects. Other effects needed for the battles included streams of blood, dust and debris, along with gun flashes, grenade explosions and bullets ricocheting off the Hulk.

The Sonic Cannon

While most of the effects stayed in the background, the Sonic cannon sequence was featured center stage. The VFX artists put together an impressive combination of effects including skin peeling, flying glass and debris. The time allocation was extremely tight for this shot with 2 weeks for look development and 5-6 weeks to completion. This timeline demanded a series of 2-3 day deadlines without the typical R&D time available to prototype different solutions.

“With Houdini, one person can fulfill the needs of several departments, making sure there is no feedback lag as information changes hands,” says Nathan Ortiz, FX Supervisor with Rhythm & Hues. “Taking rendered and comped images to our supervisor and, in turn, the director was fast and effortless. Ultimately this helps us control costs and meet deadlines faster.”

Houdini Digital Assets were used to let VFX artists quickly drop down effects to get shots up and running. Rhythm & Hues also developed a custom “RHDA system” which made it easier to package up the solutions within their larger production pipeline. This plug-and-play approach allowed artists to take a creative approach despite the tight timelines.

“Houdini is flexible and its productivity is from the lack of limitations.” says David Horsley, FX Supervisor, Rhythm & Hues. “Artists could set up character animation just as easily as a shader and then plug these into practically everything else that Houdini has to offer. Even new users were able to get up to speed quickly without extensive training.”


Lighting the Hulk

Lighting was accomplished using both the in-house Wren renderer and Houdini’s Mantra renderer. For many shots, Rhythm & Hues exported geometry to the Lighting department to render with the proprietary Wren renderer. Geometry generated by the effects sequences could be modeling and simulated in Houdini then lit with the same lights and environment as the characters.

Mantra was used to render out test shots of geometry that would eventually be rendered in Wren. In some cases these Mantra test images were approved and used in the final composite. Several shots were rendered completely in Mantra. In the Harlem brawl church sequence where the marble floor cracks open, the shots were pre-visualized using Mantra, with shaders designed in VOPs, and then the final render was generated with Mantra. For these shots almost everything was completely created within Houdini.



Unlimited Destruction

For the University Courtyard Raid, a whirlwind of effects was brought together in Houdini. These effects included; glass cracking and simulation of glass flying in the air, grass rendering and grass dynamics for ground interaction, muzzle flashes on guns, grenade explosions, bullet impact and hits on Hulk's body, Humvee Destruction dynamics of metal crushing (cloth), gas steam simulations from the damaged Humvee, gas simulation of tear gas in the glass walkway, and drool and spit from the Hulk.

The tear gas simulations, stream, and grenade explosions were simulated using R&H’s internal fluid dynamic software run through the Houdini interface. In some cases, Houdini’s particle operators were integrated with the proprietary fluid dynamics system.

The ability to prototype then execute hundreds of effects under tight deadlines is crucial for working in production. Houdini has become an important tool for tackling feature-film quality effects and these workflow efficiencies help studios like Rhythm & Hues remain competitive. And in the end, the ability to do all this while supporting the director’s vision makes it all worthwhile.

ABOUT RHYTHM & HUES STUDIOS

One of the world’s leading producers of quality character animation and visual effects for entertainment and advertising, Rhythm & Hues Studios has continually pushed the boundaries of the digital frontier since its founding in 1987. The studio has been recognized with numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards® for Achievement in Visual Effects, (Babe, 1995 & The Golden Compass, 2008), and three Scientific & Technical Academy Awards. The studio’s work is seen in more than one hundred and fifteen feature films, hundreds of commercials, and will be featured in the upcoming releases of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, They Came From Upstairs, Land of the Lost, Night at the Museum 2, Cirque du Freak and Fast & Furious 4.

Technical Papers
At SIGGRAPH’s core are the peer-reviewed technical papers – the technology everyone will be using two years from now, maybe a bit more, and some studios will implement the algorithms right away. This year, researchers submitted 512 papers describing the latest, most innovative computer graphics techniques. Of those, the technical papers committee of approximately 65 senior reviewers selected 90. You can – and should – catch a preview of this amazing new technology during the often hilarious and always entertaining “Fast-Forward Papers” preview Monday at 6:00.

“One of the really interesting sets of papers are on what I characterize as gradient-based illustration techniques,” says Greg Turk, papers chair. “They offer very powerful techniques for image creation and editing. The applications are as compelling as painting. I expect these ideas to move from academia to the artist within a couple years.”

Two papers Turk expects will be controversial offer methods in one, for changing the features of faces to make them more attractive, and in another, for swapping facial features. “Who would have guessed that face manipulation would be a trend this year,” he says.

In another paper, researchers at Electronic Arts reveal how they bring user-created creatures to life in “Spore,” the irreverent, quirky, and highly anticipated game from Sims creator Will Wright, scheduled for release in September. And, researchers at Cornell University explain how they created the knitted scarf on the cover of the Conference Proceedings.

“We look for novelty, technical advancements, the highest quality results,” says Turk. “And, the wow factor. Some people do things you’d never think of like the bizarre self-animating image.” You’ll have to see it to believe it.

New (emerging) Tech
The New Tech committee selected and invited forty-four exhibits specifically to stretch your mind in interesting ways. You’ll find them in Hall H on the exhibition floor and in the South Lobby; they’re open to everyone with a Basic pass. So, immerse yourself in ancient Rome in the lobby and feel digital ants crawl up your sleeve in Hall H. Watch a robot arm move an egg without breaking it, move your hand through space and touch objects in virtual reality, and use the “Bug,” a peripheral-based controller unit to build own custom camera with GPS. There’s more, of course.

FJORG!
Sixteen three-person teams signed up for this iron-animator competition, which takes place over 32 non-stop hours beginning Monday morning and ending Tuesday. Each team gets the same character animation assignment and it’s a riot. During the 32 hours, interesting distractions show up – Buddhist monks, salsa dancers, mimes, dragon dancers, a DJ, and some of the most famous animators in the industry. They pack themselves into one big room with cots in the back, 515B at last report, so stop by and check out the action. And if you’re an animator, you can help mentor. On Wednesday, the judges analyze all the entries during an awards ceremony, pick the top five, and announce the winners.

Talks
Two kinds of talks this year – those as part of the Computer Animation Festival, which tend to focus on the artistry of visual effects and animation, and talks that are part of the core conference, which dig into technical details. A Full Access Pass gets you into all the talks, a CAF pass opens the doors to CAF talks within the festival.

“One that I’m excited about is a piece on digital cinematography,” says Darin Grant, conference production director, speaking of a full conference talk. “We have Pixar and Blue Sky giving their approaches to cinematography and setting up camera rigs for ‘Wall-E’ and ‘Horton,’ and some work from ILM on their digital environments in ‘Indiana Jones’. It’s an eye cracker on Monday morning at 8:30. But, I’ll be there. And Friday is character TD day.”

Grant also singles out the CAF sessions on ‘Iron Man’ and Cloverfield in ‘Monsters and Machines’ early Wednesday afternoon, ‘Speed Racer’ Thursday morning, and ‘Kung Fu Panda’ early Thursday afternoon, as well as a full conference talk on ‘Madagascar 2’s green grass early Tuesday afternoon. If you don’t have a full conference pass, you’ll find abstracts on the full conference DVD, which you can buy.

Stereo3D
Deep within the Computer Animation Festival is an exciting and new two-day conference on stereoscopic 3D. With nine sessions, two days of content on Monday and Tuesday, and a screening, this has to be the most concentrated look at stereo 3D on the planet. It starts with a tutorial and a history.

“Someone could come in cold, not knowing anything about stereo 3D, and come out with an appreciation for the history and technical challenges,” says Rob Engle, who organized the event. Speakers from Disney, DreamWorks, Imageworks and other studios share their expertise. Other sessions look at 3D in games, theme parks, science, animation and live action films. If you think the future of films is stereo 3D, this is the place for you to be, to meet people, see films, and wear funny glasses. The meeting room in Petree Hall C has a 21-foot screen and a RealD system. If you want to just see the films, show up at 5:45 on Monday.

SpeedLab
Lastly but not leastly, something else new, new new. “Here’s how this came about,” says Adam Finkelstein. “A fairly large group of us were having lunch during the jury meeting for the content of SIGGRAPH 08 and one person lamented that at the conference, we go, absorb information, sit passively and listen, and then leave. We’re not creating anything. ‘We’ in this case refers to the research community. So we talked about it.” And, did something about it. That something is SpeedLab. Here’s how it works. People will show up in a room to be determined on Monday at 3:45, they’ll form into teams, and during the week, they’ll work on an assigned problem. On Friday at 1:45, they’ll present their solution and the winning ideas will receive prizes.

“It’s totally freeform, but I imagine people will exchange information at the meeting, arrange to meet, and in the meantime, think about the problem,” Finkelstein says. “We’ll give them problems that are grand in nature. Not something you could solve by writing a paper.”

The first 50 people that show up will get to play the game. “We hope mixture of artists, students and researchers come,” Finkelstein says. “We’re hoping to make this intellectually stimulating as a creative process and just have fun with it. We think it will be fun, anyway. That’s why we’re doing it.”

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Added on July 19, 2008, 1:08 pmThe Primetime Emmy nominations for outstanding work in television have been announced.
Here are the VFX categories:



Outstanding Special Visual Effects For A Miniseries, Movie Or A Special
Comanche Moon • Part 1
CBS • The Firm / Sony Pictures Television / CBS Paramount
John Adams • Join Or Die
HBO • Playtone in association with HBO Films
Life After People
History Channel • Flight 33 Productions for History Television Network Productions, A&E Television Networks
The Company • Part 2
TNT • Scott Free/John Callery Productions in association with Sony Pictures Television
Tin Man • Part 1
Sci Fi Channel • RHI Entertainment


Special Visual Effects For A Series
Battlestar Galactica •
He That Believeth In Me
Sci Fi Channel • Universal Media Studios in association with R & D TV
Heroes • Four Months Ago
NBC • Universal Media Studios in association with Tail Wind Productions
Human Body: Pushing The Limits • Strength
Discovery Channel • Dangerous Films Ltd. in association with Discovery Channel
Jericho • Patriots And Tyrants
CBS • CBS Paramount Television
Stargate Atlantis • Adrift
Sci Fi Channel • Pegasus Productions IV Inc., Metro-
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles • Pilot
• FOX • C2 Pictures in association with Warner Bros. Television


Outstanding Nonfiction Special
The Pixar Story
Starz • Leslie Iwerks Productions
Leslie Iwerks, Producer


This post has been edited by cymon: Jul 19 2008, 01:08 PM

BlurBeta is back online after a long Hiatus, I think it's been 4 years!

Since Blur now uses both Max and XSI, Both Max and XSI tools are available for download. We're happy to be able to share our tools to the community, Enjoy!

To download go to www.blur.com and click on "blurBeta" in the bottom right.

There is a "Light" version for both XSI and Max which includes a limited selection of the main tools, as well as a "Full" version which includes all the tools (But there's lots so don't get lost!).

I know it's boring, but please read the ReadMe after installing, you may have to move a few files around! Also Python is required if you are using XSI tools.


Some Highlights of Blur's tools:
Max
Caching Tools
Transform Caching Plugin
Render Elements - Render Pass tools
Onion - Easy Layer management
Modeling Tools
Animation Tools
Camera Tools
Utilities (Naming etc)

XSI
blurXUI - EASIER creation of complex UIs, You can use OpenSource QT to design UIs
Animation Tools (Plotting Tools etc)
Camera Tools
Caching Tools
PointCache Operator
RigBuilder
Quick Widget Maker ( constrained nulls of all kinds! )
BlurStandard Layout, Macros and Keymap


These tools are provided without warranty or support, but if you like you can email us at beta@blur.com with steps for reproducing bugs, or edited versions with improved functionality, and the bug fixes or improvements may make it into a future update.

DARK KNIGHT SPECIAL EFFECT CG HOUSE

Dneg: Bruce's penthouse scenes, armoured car chase, Batmobile/Batpod/chopper, big crowd scene, ferries, Gotham City views and extensions, Pruitt building sequence, batsignals, digital doubles

Framestore (I'm not entirely sure of their total workload, so if someone from there would like to add to this then please do): Two Face, Hong Kong sequence, Hospital sequence, digital doubles, sonar vision eyes.

Buf (again, if someone from Buf would like to add to this that would be great): sonar vision POV.

New Deal Studios (miniatures and models): Garbage Truck crash, Hong Kong pyro building elements.

Cinesite Europe: ground level Batsignal beams, some grapple gun wires, additional comps.

In all there are approximately 700 shots in the final film. I'd guess that around 200 of those are IMAX, the rest are anamorphic scope.

Around 30 mins of the finished film is in the native IMAX format which is mostly 5.6K with the odd shot at 8.1K. The rest of the film is anamorphic cinemascope with most of the work being done at 4K - the exceptions are shots that started life as IMAX but which eventually ended up as scope only, these shots were all worked on at 5.6K. All of the work, from all the vendors was done in this way. There are very slight differences between the IMAX and standard 35mm releases - the odd shot here and there that is in one version only.

The IMAX version of the movie is the definitive version of the film as everything, including the scope work, was done with that in mind. However, all the shots are composed to work in scope too.

For those who are interested, this is essentially an analogue movie - there's no digital intermediate, it's all graded on film. See it in IMAX if you can - I think it may be one of a kind as the shift to digital IMAX projection will effectively clamp the images to 4K resolution. It looks amazing!

SIGGRAPH 2008 is evolving along with the computer graphics and interactive techniques community.
Join 30,000 creators of computer graphics and interactive techniques at SIGGRAPH 2008 in Los Angeles, 11-15 August, for world-class technical presentations, creative exploration, and the industry's largest marketplace of products and services: the SIGGRAPH Exhibition.

See, hear, and interact at SIGGRAPH 2008 with digital innovators, creative researchers, award-winning producers, provocative artists, energetic executives, and adventurous engineers.

The evolution of SIGGRAPH presents several new ground-breaking enhancements that aim to dissolve the borders between traditional SIGGRAPH programs to create a more fluid, interdisciplinary conference. Highlights include:

- SIGGRAPH's newly expanded Computer Animation Festival features five days of screenings, four days of talks, three days of all-star studio events and two days of 3D stereoscopic panels and screenings.


- Technical Papers - Hear the world's most advanced scientists and engineers in computer graphics present the full range of the world's most significant achievements in the field and illuminate new directions for future investigations.


- The return of FJORG! - the 32-hour international computer graphics "iron-animator" competition.


- Dynamic Featured Speaker presentations from Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios President, Ed Catmull; Irish artist and "U2 3D" film director Catherine Owens; and Takeo Kanade, Professor of Computer Science and Robotics, and Director of the Quality of Life Technology Engineering Research Center, Carnegie Mellon University.


- New Tech Demos - new and innovative technologies that you must experience to understand.


- Art & Design Galleries - Explore the latest digital art.


- Talks, Classes, Special Events and much more!

Hellboy 2 :: Production Focus






Well Hellboy II: the
Golden Army, is a creatures feature, with a decided
emphasis on the plural. On display in the film is a huge assortment of some of the most freakishly bizarre characters to appear in a superhero movie. The singular creatures spring largely from the fertile imagination of director Guillermo del Toro, who also helmed the original ‘Hellboy,’ released in 2004 (as well as multi-award winning ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’).

Del Toro, who dotes on monster fables and supernatural fantasy worlds – as does co-screenwriter Mike Mignola who writes the popular ‘Hellboy’ comic books--significantly ups the visual ante in ‘Hellboy II’. He creates a vast menagerie of characters in a series of set pieces that seamlessly merge practical effects and costumed characters with animatronics and loads of CG animation.

The title character – a cigar-chomping, beer-guzzling, engagingly irrepressible, seven-foot red devil (played by Ron Pearlman) – who has been raised from a helltot by a secret agency of the government, reappears in this sequel to engage in a succession of bouts against a host of magical demons. Encoring Hellboy’s entourage are Abe, the amphibious empathic, and flammable girlfriend Liz. A new addition to the team is Johann Krauss. Described as a “protoplasmic mystic,” Johann has been reduced to a trail of smoke that inhabits a robot outfit.

Mike Wassel was the film’s VFX supervisor. London-based Double Negative was the primary CG vendor. ‘Hellboy II’ was the biggest digital animation project Double Negative has undertaken to date. In the past it has contributed significantly to notable effects films such as ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’, ‘10,000 B.C.’ and, most recently, ‘Batman: the Dark Knight’.







This was the first time Wassel had worked with Double Negative. He was picked for the project by Universal, the studio behind ‘Hellboy II’, in large part because he had delivered as VFX supervisor on a number of Universal productions including the ‘Fast and the Furious’ series of films.

“I was shooting ‘Evan Almighty’ when the guys at Universal approached me about getting involved with ‘Hellboy II’,” he recalls. “I was the film’s overall VFX supervisor but I was also embedded into Double Negative as the lead visual effects supervisor,” he notes. “Since it was primarily a single vendor show, it made sense to have me based at the facility.”


Double Negative, headquartered in London’s Soho district, is known for its character animation capabilities. The VFX company was pro-active in seeking the ‘Hellboy II’ assignment. “The excitement and enthusiasm the company showed had a huge influence on del Toro choosing to go with them,” says Wassel. “Guillermo is a very demanding guy, but the people at Double Negative rose to the challenge. They did amazing work, which is a testament to the company.”

Working with Wassel was Lucy Killick, the VFX producer. The Double Negative team was led by senior visual effects producer Steve Garrad and digital effects supervisors Adrian De Wet, Andrew Chapman and Justin Martin. Eamonn Butler was the animation supervisor.

The director was very involved in talking directly to those doing the animation, so he was able to get the performances that he wanted from his characters that didn’t have a live counterpart. “Many of the creatures are from his drawings,” observes animation chief Butler. “He came to us with his well-known ‘book,’ the one he does for each of his films.“

“Guillermo is a huge fan of animation,” declares Butler, who earned his spurs in Hollywood working for a decade as a 2D animator at Disney. “Right from the get-go he told me he wanted ‘Hellboy II’ to appear like an animated picture, with the CG characters we worked on looking larger than life. He wanted to create a world that was very rich, very textural so you could come back more than once and still see more detail going on in the background.”








In total, Double Negative delivered 1,050 shots for ‘Hellboy II’. That includes about 300 contracted out to other facilities: Cube FX in Budapest and three London houses--Lipsync Post, The Senate and Baseblack. Overall, there were some 1,400 shots, Wassel estimates. These ranged from digital tweaks on practical characters to an entire animated sequence near the start of the film that was assigned to Ghost, based in Copenhagen, which is the largest digital effects house in Scandinavia. Ghost worked completely outside Double Negative’s digital pipeline.

Jepp Nygaard Christensen, a part owner of Ghost, was the VFX supervisor for the striking puppet segment early in the movie. It tells the backstory of the Golden Army a millennium ago, through hundreds of puppets that appear carved from wood but are in fact totally CG. “Guillermo emphasized he wanted the puppets to look like real puppets and we spent loads of hours animating them,” says Christensen.

For its part, Double Negative was faced with a lot of heavy lifting on ‘Hellboy II’. The reason was both the sheer quantity of CG animation as well as the diversity of the many creatures del Toro asked for. The requirements pushed the Double Negative team to come up with many innovative solutions.

“The overall scope of the project and managing all of it simultaneously was one of the most challenging aspects – and all that work was done on a fairly tight budget,” says the VFX supervisor. One of the biggest achievements was “creating what looks like a much larger and more costly production.”

Each of the many creature sequences is dramatically different. “You can’t compare them,” says Wassel. He adds: “The amount of hand animation in the Golden Army scene is one example of the diverse set of problems we were asked to solve throughout the project. In the Tooth Fairy sequence, we had to replicate thousands of the nine-inch creatures. For the Elemental, we had to create a 90-foot vined creature that is extraordinarily powerful and wreaks enormous damage in a New York street scene that was almost entirely animated except for ‘Hellboy’.”

The movie Kungfu Panda seems to be making it to court room too.
Zhao Bandi an artist from China filed a case recently against Dreamworks and
Paramount Pictures for the offensive grotesqueries depicted in the movie
and asks for an apology from the film’s producers.

"I think they painted the panda’s eyes green with ulterior motives. Green eyes are somewhat evil. I have studied drawing and painters will never use green eyes when depicting a kind person."

"The panda is not only a symbol for China but also for the people. Making a panda’s father a duck is nothing but an insult to Chinese people. I am afraid Chinese youth in several years will regard Donald Duck as their ancestors."


“Kung Fu Panda” opened in China on June 20 to strong box office demand. But Zhao has been calling for a boycott of the film, saying it “exploits China’s ‘national treasure’ and its martial arts.”

He also claimed the Hollywood comedy hurt Chinese people’s feelings because it came out shortly after a devastating earthquake hit southwestern China’s Sichuan Province, the primary habitat for giant pandas. The screening of “Kung Fu Panda” was postponed in Sichuan to “appease quake survivors,” Xinhua news agency reported last month.

Warner Bros. Digital Distribution and Warner Premiere announced today a new way for graphic novel fans to connect with their favorite characters and the stories they know and love through short-form digital content. “Warner Premiere’s Motion Comics” draw on a massive amount of source material to bring a visually engaging experience to life through the use of subtle movements, voice-overs, sweeping music scores and stunning comic book artwork. The highly anticipated debut episode of DC Comics “Watchmen” is now available exclusively as a free iTunes download for the next two weeks via Entertainment Weekly’s website (www.ew.com/watchmen). Beginning August 2, the debut “Watchmen” Motion Comic will be available on the iTunes Store (www.itunes.com) for purchase and download for $1.99. In addition, the Eisner Award-winning “Batman: Mad Love” starring Batman, The Joker and Harley Quinn can be downloaded to own from Xbox Live and available on Verizon Wireless’ V CAST Video service starting July 22. A full lineup of “Warner Premiere’s Motion Comics” and release dates will be announced shortly after Comic-Con.

Watchmen – Motion Comic
“Watchmen” takes viewers through the critically acclaimed DC Comics and Hugo award-winning graphic novel by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Set in 1985 at the height of the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union, costumed avengers have been banned with the exception of two – The Comedian and Rorschach. During this time the mysterious murder of a United States government official named Edward Blake occurs in New York, possibly by Soviet Communists. It is later confirmed that Blake is actually a costumed avenger – The Comedian. The news of the murder is discovered by his fellow costumed avenger, Rorschach who sets out to discover the murderer.

During his search viewers discover whether Rorschach is really insane or if he’s uncovered a plot to murder super-heroes and, even worse, millions of innocent civilians. On the run from the law, Rorschach reunites with his former teammates in a desperate attempt to save the world and their lives. But what they uncover will shock them to their very core and change the face of the planet. Following two generations of masked superheroes from the close of World War II to the icy shadow of the Cold War comes this groundbreaking comic story — the story of The Watchmen.

In the July 18 edition of Entertainment Weekly fans will find a special link through EW.com (www.ew.com/watchmen) that provides access to the episode via iTunes. Additional episodes for purchase will also be made available via iTunes and other distribution partners in the coming months leading to the theatrical release of Watchmen in 2009.

Batman: Mad Love
“Batman: Mad Love” is taken directly from the pages of the Eisner Award-winning single issue graphic novel by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. The story revolves around The Joker’s sidekick Harley Quinn who is madly in love with him. She uses crime to demonstrate her love for her “Puddin’” and sets out to commit the ultimate act of love – killing Batman.

The “Batman: Mad Love” Motion Comic will be available to purchase from Xbox Live and viewing on mobile phones enabled for Verizon Wireless’ V CAST Video service starting July 22. “Batman: Mad Love” episodes will also be available from other distribution partners in the coming months.

welcome my friend.
here we can exchange info, ideas and projects too.

i really want to bring out the professional issue, the concept art is still new and not much intro to our market.
i m happy to hear u are doing concept digital art as one of your hobby.
just keep up, friend.

mind to share some of your work?

George Lucas Meets the Press For Animated 'Clone Wars'










The mere attendance of George Lucas at a Monday morning press event for Star Wars: The Clone Wars — the new CGI-animated feature film opening August 15th — was viewed by the many of the reporters in attendance with as much interest as in the film itself.

After all, it’s been more than thirty years since Lucas released his first Star Wars film. In that time his complex relationship with the sweeping space epic he created has taken many forms: he produced all six films, wrote their stories, and directed four of them, including the 1977 original and the prequel trilogy of 1999’s The Phantom Menace and its follow-ups, 2002’s Attack of the Clones and 2005’s Revenge of the Sith. And although Star Wars has been undeniably profitable for Lucas, more than a few men would probably choose being digested by a Sarlacc to spending three full decades of their life steering a story — and a cottage industry — between the rocky shoals of creative innovation and fanboy appeasement.

But Lucas continues to keep a firm grip on his franchise, despite Star Wars: The Clone Wars being the first Star Wars film not directed by Lucas to appear on the silver screen since 1983. During Monday's press conference, asked what kind of entertainment industry exists in the Star Wars universe, the silver-haired filmmaker confidently replied, “You won’t see the entertainment industry until we get to the live-action TV show, several years down the road.”

That question, like the majority of reporter's questions in the brief thirty-minute press conference, was directed at Lucas, who appeared relaxed and expressive. Seated next to director Dave Filoni and producer Catherine Winder, Lucas held forth on topics ranging from the art of animation to the realities of television production. Explained Lucas: “I’m trying to take Star Wars — which is a $50 million an hour adventure — and do it for two million for television, without a noticeable gap in quality, and that’s a real challenge.”

A feature film wasn't a part of the original Clone Wars plan, but sprang from Lucas’ satisfaction with how his team met the production challenge. The film bridges the gap story-wise in the Star Wars universe between "Episode 2" Clones and "Episode 3" Sith and serves as an introduction to the upcoming animated Clone Wars television series that will air on Cartoon Network beginning this fall.

“We ended up doing the [animated] TV series, the first few shots came back, and I looked at it on the big screen, and it came back so much better than I had ever planned," recalled Lucas. "I said, ‘We should do this is a feature. This deserves to be on the big screen.’ And it seemed like a good way to introduce, Asoka, Anakin [Skywalker’s] apprentice, who plays a big part in the TV series.”

Although Lucas occasionally discussed the appeals of the story and the scope of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, not surprisingly it was this focus on the technical challenges and how it shapes the creative experience to which Lucas returned again and again.

Speaking at length about the film's non-photorealistic animated style, the filmmaker explained, "photorealistic is what movies are. Animation is an art"

"And to be philosophical about it, you either like photorealistic art, that’s something you want to hang in the Museum of Modern Art, or you like something that actually tries to find the truth behind the realism through design and exaggeration," he continued. "Animation is an art that’s all about design, that’s all about style. Movies are photorealistic — all my movies have been photorealistic, even when they’ve had animation, but animation is very different. And what we tried to do with this is not make animation that looks photorealistic — which is what 3-D animation always seems to be striving for, to look more like reality — but make 3-D animation that takes animation in new direction.

Director Dave Filoni expanded on that idea.

"I came from a 2-D animated background, where we use design and shape and color all the time," he explained. "I wanted to apply that thinking to 3-D features, and George did, too. We talked a lot about sculpting with light and shadow. And I thought by having artists hand paint textures over the [computer animated] characters, it would keep the spontaneity, a little bit of 'painter-liness', the experience that you can get where something isn’t quite perfect but that improves the emotional reaction. And it kind of came together with this new technology we’re using.”

“Art is a technological medium,” Lucas mused. “That’s all art is. Your artistic choices are dictated by the amount of resources allocated to you. If you’re a pharaoh, you can build pyramids. If you’re a shaman, you have some colored chalk and a wall.”

Although he didn’t extend the analogy, it wasn’t hard to understand after walking the grounds at Big Rock Ranch, the home for Lucas’s animation division: George Lucas wants to be both pharaoh and shaman with his art, the builder of the pyramids that last, and the shaper of dreams that inspire. It is how these twin poles of his aspiration conflict and mesh that continue to make Lucas a compelling figure, as much a creation of his own mythology as Yoda or Darth Vader.

To the extent Lucas is aware of his place and stature within that mythos, he uses it as he seems to use much of what he has — pragmatically.

“Most animated features cast big voice actors because it helps build publicity for the film,” Lucas said. “The actors aren’t paid nearly as much for their voice work, as they are to show up and talk to the press, to lure people’s attention to the film. And as much as I love you guys, I don’t think I need to bring Angelina Jolie here to have you turn up for this. I think you guys will come and if you love it, you’ll let me know. But I don’t think I need a big star to have turn out.”

---

Added on August 10, 2008, 4:17 pmAutodesk Mudbox 2009













Designed by professional artists in the film, games, and design industries, Autodesk® Mudbox™ digital sculpting and texture painting software gives 3D modelers and texture artists the freedom to create without worrying about the technical details.

Autodesk Mudbox 2009 combines a highly intuitive user interface with a powerful creative toolset for creating ultra-realistic high-poly 3D models. Breaking the mold of traditional 3D modeling applications, Mudbox 2009 provides an organic brush-based 3D modeling experience that ignites the creative process.

Features
Autodesk® Mudbox™ software is an advanced, high-resolution, brush-based 3D modeling software built on a unique sculpting paradigm. This production-proven digital modeler has been designed from the ground up to address the needs of professional modelers working in the film, game development, design, and visualization industries.

User Interface
Cameras
Display
Sculpt Layers
Advanced Digital Sculpting
3D Brushes
Workflow
Texture Painting and Assignment
Texture Baking
General Workflow
Connectivity and Integration

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User Interface
Become productive in hours, rather than weeks with the intuitive Mudbox user interface.

For traditional artists with no previous 3D experience, tools that closely mimic the behavior of their real-world counterparts are quickly understood and easily adopted.
Work with tools such as brushes, stamps, and stencils to quickly sculpt and create lifelike textures.
Use the Layer editor to organize your work.
Maximize your workspace by hiding UI elements and using standard hotkeys to manipulate the camera.

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Cameras
Mudbox features innovative, accelerated camera manipulation, for excellent interactive performance with even the densest meshes.

Use multiple real-time cameras within a scene, including true perspective and orthographic cameras.
Bookmark your camera positions.
Model using reference images: each camera has its own image plane.
Use Smart Focus to position the camera based on the cursor position and brush size.
Manipulate your camera with trackball-style controls.
Use the same keyboard shortcuts for Mudbox cameras as those that are used for cameras in Autodesk® Maya® software.

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Display
Work interactively in an environment in which high-res 3D models retain their subtlety, realism, and detail.

Apply one or more image maps to any object, independent of the other objects in the scene.
Use smooth shading mode to get a display more representative of the limit surface.
Interactively view multiple texture channels (including bump and reflection) at the same time.
Interactively view multiple maps and multiple materials in the scene.
Work in real time with models that properly display advanced lighting (including HDRI-based lighting) and shadows.
Incorporate advanced display options into your presentation, including ambient occlusion, depth of field, and tone mapping.
Back to the top


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Sculpt Layers
Store different detail passes, design directions, libraries of morph targets, and more on multiple layers.

Mirror or flip the detail stored in one or more layers.
Edit nondestructively: Mudbox delivers paintable masks.
Quickly duplicate, merge, flatten, group, and reorder layers.
Precisely blend layers using interactive multiplier sliders and layer masks.
Use layers to store libraries of morph targets.

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Advanced Digital Sculpting
High-quality brushes, stencils, and curves let you quickly “sculpt” your geometry into the 3D model you envision.


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3D Brushes

Use intelligently designed default brushes or quickly tailor them for custom behavior and performance.
Choose from a number of base brush types, including
Sculpt brush—enables you to create complex forms with great control
Flatten brush—enables you to quickly create planes and wipe away detail
Wax brush—enables you to easily fill in areas
Accurately shape your brush tips with falloff curves and stamps. A sharp falloff curve will cut an accurate, sharp stroke into the geometry with no soft stroke profiles.

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Workflow

Sculpt both sides of topologically symmetrical models simultaneously—even when they are in an asymmetrical pose—with the powerful tangent space mirroring functionality.
Use curves as guides for brush strokes.
Use image stamps to quickly brush (in 3D) a detailed texture directly into your mesh.
Quickly add high-quality detail through mesh displacement. Use 8-, 16-, or 32-bit images to displace your mesh; Mudbox even supports displacement using multiple maps at one time.
Back to the top


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Texture Painting and Assignment
Quickly and easily paint multiple diffuse, specular, reflection, and bump textures across multiple high-resolution maps on your 3D models.

Apply detail precisely where required, regardless of UV distortion or surface complexity. In the Mudbox 3D Paint mode, the brush position relative to the model is calculated in true world space; paint is projected tangent to the model. 3D painting is integrated with the familiar stamps and stencils workflow.
Selectively paint reference images onto the model from a particular viewpoint. Using the new Projection brush, you can project paint onto the model from screen space.
Paint hero characters with ease: Mudbox supports the painting of multiple maps on multiple meshes.
Paint both sides of your model simultaneously with the familiar symmetry workflow.
Paint and display a different texture for each UV square unit tile.
Use the intuitive layer editor to easily manage multiple paint layers. You can select, blend, and organize several images for each texture channel.

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Texture Baking
With its robust texture baking capabilities, Mudbox solves one of the most common bottlenecks in production pipelines: baking of normal and displacement maps.

Bake high-quality normal and displacement maps between multiple arbitrary meshes. Detail can be baked into 8-, 16-, and 32-bit maps.
Generate smooth, high-quality maps using extraction options designed to address issues related to poly faceting by extracting between the limit surfaces of the given meshes.
Displace your meshes using multiple floating point maps.
Bake normal maps that are compatible with Autodesk Maya and Autodesk® 3ds Max® software.

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General Workflow
Mudbox performance is renowned, with tools organized in a familiar, intuitive manner.

Work in real time even on 3D models that are fully subdivided into tens of millions of high-quality polygons.
Manipulate the camera using conventional camera controls—to maximize your workspace and reduce “back and forth” workflows.
Streamline your workflow through tools such as the Hover Pick functionality and hotkeys.
Use asymmetrical mirroring to streamline the process of working on posed or asymmetrical models.
Work on one mesh in the context of others: Mudbox supports multiple meshes within the scene.
Use the built-in image browser—with full support for 8-, 16-, and 32-bit images—to view reference images and quickly assign them to stamps, stencils, or camera image planes.
Back to the top


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Connectivity and Integration
Mudbox interoperates well with Autodesk Maya and Autodesk 3ds Max, as well as with other 3D software applications, making it a natural choice for experienced artists.

Integration with Autodesk Maya 2009 and Autodesk 3ds Max 2009
Autodesk Mudbox provides enhanced interoperability with Autodesk Maya and Autodesk 3ds Max through improved matching of Maya and 3ds Max normal and displacement maps. Additionally, Mudbox employs, by default, the same keyboard shortcuts as Autodesk Maya for camera manipulation.

Supported Formats
Scene Import : OBJ
Scene Export : OBJ
Texture Import : BMP, EXR, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIF
Bitmap Output : BMP, EXR, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIF. Some formats applicable to certain renderers only.


System Requirements
Software
The 32-bit version of Autodesk® Mudbox™ 2009 software is supported on the following operating systems:

Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional, SP2
Microsoft® Windows Vista® Business, SP1
The 64-bit version of Mudbox 2009 software is supported on the following operating systems:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, SP2
Microsoft Windows Vista Business, SP1
Mudbox 2009 documentation is compatible with any of the following web browsers:

Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 6.0 or higher
Mozilla Firefox® 2.0 or higher
Hardware

At a minimum, the 32-bit version of Mudbox 2009 software requires a system with the following hardware:

Intel® Pentium® 4 (or equivalent) processor
1 GB RAM (2 GB recommended)
650 MB free hard drive space (2 GB recommended)
Ethernet adapter or wireless Internet card
Qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL® graphics card
Three-button mouse or qualified Wacom® tablet
DVD-ROM drive
At a minimum, the 64-bit version of Mudbox 2009 software requires a system with the following hardware:

Intel EM64T, AMD Athlon® 64, or AMD Opteron® processor
1 GB RAM (2 GB recommended)
650 MB free hard drive space (2 GB recommended)
Ethernet adapter or wireless Internet card
Qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics card
Three-button mouse or qualified Wacom tablet
DVD-ROM drive
Notes:

Latest graphics card drivers are required for proper display.
Latest Wacom drivers are required for best tablet support. When installing a new Wacom driver, be sure to first uninstall the old driver, restart, and then install the new one according to Wacom instructions. Failure to do so may impact performance of the hardware.



This post has been edited by cymon: Aug 10 2008, 04:17 PM

i m zbrush user too but not very active.
i m active at other dcc. 3d max or maya.
but mudbox quite ram-eater depend to zbrush.

the source is searchable.
it just my duty to active the thread, i really want to exposed the cg market to the local market.

Maya 2009 Key Features & Enhancements

• Fully integrated mental ray 3.7 core: The integration of the mental ray 3.7 core provides the following enhancements:

– Motion-dependent Displacement: It is now possible to control displacement while motion blurring, improving render times for motion blurred scenes, while producing a more realistic result.
– Improved, Adaptive Tessellation for Catmull-Clark Meshes: Catmull-Clark Meshes are now adaptively tessellated at render time. This produces better displacement maps with render time mental ray subdivision surfaces.

• Streamlined Multi-Camera Rendering with mental ray: Multi-camera renders in mental ray are optimized though the re-use of pre-computed elements, reducing the penalty for multi-camera rendering and making the production of stereo films more viable.

• Native Render Proxy Support: Render Proxies (also known as mental ray assemblies) can now be natively rendered from within mental ray for Maya as well as through mi file rendering with mental ray standalone 3.7, yielding performance gains in multiple ways.

• mental ray Volume Rendering Enhancements: A new intersection engine for volume shaders eliminates artifacts where two or more different types of volumes intersect, without the need to use Auto Volume feature that is specific to ray tracing. Volume types such as Fur, Light Fog, Particles and Fluids to be rendered together without artifacts using scanline or rasterizer rendering for improved render speed and memory usage.

• High Quality, High Performance Global Illumination: Irradiance particle
support and algorithm improvements to enable a higher degree of physically correctness; 'one button click' renderings with select tuning capabilities and automatic adaptivity.

• Built-in Ambient Occlusion Support: Built-in ambient occlusion algorithm with caching capabilities provides an alternative to shader solutions for animations.

• Fully integrated OpenEXR library: No longer an external component, the OpenEXR library supports “windowing” capabilities of the format used in the renderer, as well as improved multi-channel support.

LightWave 3D® v9.5 for Windows released




Achieving new levels in animation, illumination, hair and fur, rendering and workflow


SAN ANTONIO, Texas – August 7, 2008 – NewTek Inc., manufacturer of industry-leading 3D animation and video products, today announced the release of LightWave® v9.5 for Windows®, a major update to its award-winning 3D application, LightWave 3D®. LightWave v9.5’s new capabilities include FiberFX, a complete hair and fur solution, a new lighting system and many improvements to animation, rendering and workflow. The update is available to registered owners of LightWave v9 series at no charge. SIGGRAPH attendees can see LightWave v9.5 demonstrations at NewTek booth #159.

“With so many features and enhancements in LightWave v9.5, users suggested that we could release it as v10. Customer feedback has been positive,” said Jay Roth, president of 3D division, NewTek. “LightWave is the application choice of Emmy® winners, and is seeing increasing use in feature film projects. With this new version, the LightWave community is experiencing a renaissance."

A highlight of LightWave v9.5 is FiberFX, a proprietary polygonal fiber modeler for creating realistic hair, fur and feathers. It provides artists with a full suite of tools to model and style each fiber, create volumetric shadows, render-in reflection and refraction and more.

LightWave v9.5 also offers improved rendering quality and speed, with major upgrades to the radiosity sampling system and interpolated modes. Also, there are new disk-based caches for radiosity: the Static Cache, for animations where only the camera moves; and the Animated Cache, where any element of the scene can move. Both types allow the user to pre-render the cache and apply the solution when doing the full scene render – either locally or across a render farm. LightWave radiosity can now be rendered at reduced resolution and applied to the full size final render, providing a higher quality output with even faster render times, a huge benefit for today's time-pressured production environment.

LightWave v9.5’s IK and animation system includes numerous improved character animation controls. Adding to LightWave’s z-axis bones, artists now have joint-type bones, which is more familiar for users of other programs with joint-based metaphors. It also adds a "stretchy bones" capability to LightWave.

The lighting system is now a plug-in API, allowing third parties to create custom lights and lighting plug-ins. IES lights have been added with a thumbnail preview of the luminaire with other information and controls. Also available are new size-selectable spherical lights and dome lights.

LightWave v9.5 allows the import and export of FBX and Collada scenes and objects. This greatly improves compatibility with other 3D applications, as you can now seamlessly transfer meshes, rigs, materials and animation information. The LightWave OBJ I/O plug-in now provides extended import capability for this file type.

LightWave v9.5 Update Includes:

Character Animation Enhancements

* Hair and Fur System
* Collada, FBX and OBJ I/O support
* Enhanced IK and Animation Systems

Lighting, Rendering and Surfacing Enhancements

* Lighting System is now an API
* IES, Spherical and Dome Light types
* Enhanced Area and Linear Lights
* Faster and higher quality GI Rendering
* Disk-Based GI Caching
Static Cache (only the Camera moves)
Animated Cache (anything moves)
* Interpolated Soft Reflections/Refractions for Node-base surfacing
* Oren-Nayar Shading Option for Many Materials
* Optimized Materials and Shaders

SDK and LScript Improvements

* Light Plug-in Class for Third Party Lights and Light Plug-ins
* SDK Support for New GI Functions and Disk Cache
* SDK Support for New IK and Animation Capabilities

UI and Workflow Enhancements

* Composition Tool Overlays in Camera View
* OpenGL GLSL Enhanced View for New Lighting System
* Audio Waveform in the Graph Editor

NewTek will be providing a free trial edition of LightWave v9.5 on disc and by download. Artists should note that there are now more than 24 hours of free LightWave training at www.lightwave3d.com, in addition to an extensive library of printable tutorials.

my works are craps at zbrush.
most at a time i only use to make organic stuff like creature/aliens thing.
of course in zbrush it giv u more option of crafting tool.
the rest i still depend on 3dmax for all my project.

but when i do interior/archi stuff i work on cad program.
cad program now a these day are really powerful/friendly user compare 5 years ago.
only lack in rendering tool i would say.

This post has been edited by cymon: Aug 18 2008, 11:39 AM