Win a seat at the OSCARS!

Beginning September 24, fans from around the world can enter online for a random drawing for bleacher seats along the 85th Academy Awards red carpet.

There are only 700 seats available on the 500-foot-long walkway that leads into the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highlight Center. Those who are selected will watch and cheer Oscar nominees, presenters and other ceremony guests as they arrive at the awards on Sunday, February 24, 2013. In addition to seats, the winners of the Oscar Fan Experience will be invited to watch the Academy Awards at a nearby theater and will receive a fan gift bag.

The entry form is available HERE. The application process will close on November 16 at 5 pm PT. In previous years, as many as 20,000 fans have entered the drawing for the limited number of red carpet seats. 

Those whose names are selected in the random drawing will be notified in November. They will then be required to submit additional information for security purposes.

Hypermatter Makes Maya All Jiggly

 Hypermatter has been around for Maya for a pretty long time. Most people have probably missed it. Their marketing campaign and website leave little to be desired. Never-the-less this plugin which currently supports Maya 2009,2010,2011,2012, 32bit,  is a great elasticity solver.

 

You can do rigid body dynamics with Hypermatter but where it really shines is in giving superior elasticity to objects. It's fairly easy to use. Check out the  NON-GIF video for a look at it's implementation.

There isn't much more to see on the site besides what I have here. This is the best of the "gallery" type stuff but do hit the website for an crippled eval. You can dl a demo HERE

Makerbot Makes Cover Of Wired

 Congratulations to Bre Pettis and the new Makerbot Replicator for making the cover story of WIRED mag. I told you these guys were going places.

 If you want to read the article check it out HERE. Yep it's really online

 I subscribe to WIRED because I want to stay current on what is hot in Tech. I found a great offer for a WIRED subscription. It's the best deal you will find. I don't get anything from it. I just think highly of the mag. Get you sub HERE.

Also, Congrats to our Blog ! We have reached our 100th POST ! Yeah for us !

Golaem Updates Their Crowd Sim Plugin For Maya

There are a few options out there for you if you are a Maya user interested in visualizing crowds. A fairly new plugin for Maya called Golaem (I have no idea what that means. Anyone?).

I have not used the software but will be evaluating it shortly. It seems considerably easier to use than say, Massive. Check out the demo below for a taste of how crowd sims are implemented in Maya with Golaem.

 Here is what they say about themselves. "Golaem is a software company that focuses on populating 3D worlds with autonomous virtual humans. Golaem helps creators and engineers to bring life to their digital worlds by providing virtual humans integrated in their favorite platforms.Based on state-of-the-art researches, Golaem technologies include real-time animation, navigation, and human behaviors, from single characters to functional crowds. Golaem offers a decisive progress to customers by combining those fundamentals of human behaviors into standalone products. Designed for digital entertainment and simulation, Golaem products enable to streamline digital content creation and save valuable production time."

 You can find out more about Golaem HERE. You can get a 30 day eval HERE so check it out.

Luxology And The Foundry Announce Merger

 Hello–
Ten years ago, Allen Hastings, Stuart Ferguson and I had the audacity to form a little company called Luxology. The number of people we have subsequently touched with modo and our rendering technology is beyond anything we dared imagine. Now, we are announcing another major step in our growth via a merger with The Foundry – the #1 VFX software vendor in the business. modo and Luxology will continue to serve you, in fact things are about to get really interesting. Please participate and join us in this next chapter as we continue our quest to provide the best creative software for artists and designers everywhere.
Sincerely,
Brad Peebler
Stuart Ferguson
Allen Hastings
Luxology Headquarters
www.luxology.com

 

I have mentioned Unity 3D here on occasion. I'm not a real heavy gamer graphics guy. Never-the-less, that doesn't mean that I am not fascinated with the creation of games. Another notable game creation release this summer was the UNREAL Developers Kit. It's a powerful way to create games. It has a full palette of tools for getting some impressive game play and stunning visuals out of the UNREAL game engine. Check out the trailer below. The Best part of this release is that its FREE. You can download your copy HERE. Go at it boys and girls !

SpeedTree Halloween Edition

I had a chance to evaluate SpeedTree.  There are quite a few programs out there that help you make trees. Xfrog and Onyx Tree to name a couple. There are merits to each of them but for my money SpeedTree is the way to go. ILM felt the same way as they chose it for Avatar. See a profile of SpeedTree on Avatar HERE.

 

Since I am gearing up for Halloween I thought I would use some NON-traditional speetree created images for this entry. The above is a real favorite. This package come in two main flavors with a few variants. SpeedTree Cinema and SpeedTree for  Games. You can get more info HERE.

   

 

 One of my favorite features is the ability to draw out a tree, in realtime, with a stylus or mouse. This is a greaet deal of fun and really affords you the ability to get exact and get creative with your tree models.

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If your in the market for a great tree modeling program with all the bells and whistles. SpeedTree addresses Gamers as well as Film work. Get an eval of SpeedTree HERE. You'll be glad you did. Below is a realtime demo animation done with SpeedTree. Gamers should be particularly thrilled.

Luxology Introduces NPR Kit

 

Luxology has announced the availability of Modo NPR Kit  (Non-Photorealistic Renderer). Attempts to do this in the past have been hit or miss as far as I'm concerned. The new NPR Kit really transcends what we have come to expect in a NPR. It has mostly been used for Cel shading scenarios in the past.  

 

 The new Modo kit seems to be much more robust than your average Cel Shader. Take a look at these images. A wide array of looks can be conceived with the NPR. The price of the kit is $149 as an introductory price. It's usually $199 for the add-on kits.

If your a Modo user this seems to be a small price to pay for an outstanding addition to Modo. For those that are not Modo users. It may be worth buying Modo to just possess these features.

Check out the Luxology website HERE for a gallery of amazing "looks" you can achieve with the NPR  I think you'll be glad you did.

Shave and a Haircut and Arnold Renderer Too !

 

Since I was talking about Joe Alter's plugin LipService I thought that I might mention his flagship software Shave and a Haircut (currently at version 6) This plugin works on Maya 2009 2010 2011 2012/ Linux, Windows and OSX.  No 2013 yet. It's hands down the best hair/fur software out there. That's not just my opinion. WETA uses it too.

 I found it VERY interesting that Shave supports so many renderers. This includes Mentalray, Pixar's RMS, 3Delight, Maxwell, and Vray for Maya.  It also supports the Arnold Renderer. Hmmm... very interesting.

 

Check out Joe Alter and Shave and a Haircut 6 HERE

Joe Alter Releases LipService for MAYA... Finally.

"Joe Alter of Shave and a Haircut Fame (Maya hair and fur plugin) has finally released LipService for Maya.  Here's what it is in Joe Alter's own words. Couldn't say it better myself.

LipService is a powerful multi-resolution subdivision surface sculpting, rigging and animation system built into a friendly and intuitively organized Maya plugin.

LipService's sculpting tools are comparable to ZBrush** and Mudbox*. Its animation tools extend this multi-resoltion editing philosophy through to motion and rigging.

This is the first time we've ever seen this kind of tool. Utilizing tools like PSD, Corrective Sculpt, and Blendshapes at the subpoly level allows you to increase the amount of animated detail in your scene by orders of magnitude.

Even inhouse tools at the largest studios in the industry do not do this yet, which is why they've been eager to test it during beta and track its progress."

You can get a video sense of the feature set of LipService by going HERE 

As for what the fist symbol is all about. I have NO idea.  What about Max? C4d? XSI? LW? Modo?
Not bloody likely!

Plexus 2 Is Now Available From Rowbyte

One of my favorite scripts for After Effects is Plexus. I have written about it here before. Now Rowbyte has announced Plexus 2. It's new features are best seen in a new demo video of the new features which is below.



It's worth seeing what others have been using Plexus for. I've seen it in commercials. It's easy to pick out because its so unique. Below are some commercials utilizing Plexus. Be sure to check out the AEscripts site HERE

NYSE Listings LinkedIn from aescripts + aeplugins on Vimeo.

Nikon - The Oracle from Padawan on Vimeo.

Quixel's nDo2: A Robust Rival to Mindtex

 

It's been my day to find new software to present. Sweden's Quixel has come out with a formidable alternate to Mindtex. I used both programs and have to give the win to nDo2. It has more features. 

 

It does a bang up job of creating textures from photos. It can create all kinds of maps from a photo including AO, specular, 16bit height, difuse and even Cavity maps. You can get demo software HERE

The best part is that it fuses with Photoshop which really makes it a useful tool. Check out their demo ad.

 

Marmoset Toolbag goes to Version 1.06

 

 Here's a fun program I found the other day. I believe that this is directed towards gamers but it can be utilized by other types of artists as well. Here's what they say about there product. It's similar to Keyshot in it's implementation if that helps you get the idea.

Toolbag is a full-featured, real-time material editor and presentation tool bundled in a small package. This stand-alone toolkit provides 3d artists an efficient workflow to bring AAA presentation quality to their 3d models, texture sets, and animations in a real-time environment.

Whether you're an independent contractor, recent grad looking for work, art house
seeking new clients, or just starting to learn your craft, Marmoset Toolbag is an
essential tool to boost your portfolio.

Primary Features

* HDR image-based environment lighting
* Dynamic light creation and editing
* Smart scene-matched shadow projections
* Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO)
* Circle of confusion / Bokeh depth of field effect
* Auto-turntable options for mesh/camera/light rotation
* Screenshot output resolution up to 4096 pixels
* HDR screenshot output
* 6 blending modes
* 8 material channel modes
* 13 viewport rendering modes
* Tangent-space & World-Space normal map support with invert/swizzle options
* Alpha-to-coverage transparency
* Editable Cinematic post-effect system
 * Drag-and-drop GUI support for texture, mesh, & material files

  

Red Giant Knoll Light Factory Goes To Version 3.0

 

Red Giant has released Knoll Light Factory 3, a major update yet to the advanced 3D lens flare system. Co-developed with Academy Award winning VFX supervisor John Knoll, the new Light Factory delivers an intuitive interface, realistic flare elements, helpful designed presets, and time-saving animated behaviors. 

 

 “This is the biggest advance to Light Factory in many years,” notes John Knoll, inventor of the lens flare technology. “Version 3 delivers a great new editor to make flare creation faster, and new and updated elements for the flare engine for better accuracy at high resolution. The library includes a collection of realistic cinematic and distant flares that I've built to help with your next production.”  

 

To showcase the impact of Knoll Light Factory 3, Red Giant has produced Order Up, a new short film in collaboration with Seth Worley, the director of Red Giant’s film Plot Device.

A Bevy of FX Software Packages from FXGear

I'm just throwing this out there without any endorsement that I have used their products. Frankly I have never heard of FXGear. I have heard of Qualoth 2013 (cloth sim software ) their premier software package. I have also heard that Qualoth 2013 is pretty effective at simulation of cloth.

 


FXGear has some other dynamic sim software in it's arsenal too. These include another cloth simulator called ezCLoth 2013 (for gamers), Flux 2013 is  fluid sim software, and FXHair 2013. I can't really speak intelligently about these packages other than to say that FXGear seems to take exception to Syflex and DreamWorks uses their FXHair product. The various packages are for Maya, Max, and Stand alone which adresses other similar fx software packages. Watch the DEMOS and you decide. More Demos and their very understated website are HERE.