Singer Says Quicksilver...
Just in time for the Memorial weekend, fanboy favorite Bryan Singer announced...
Posts from category "Tech Reviews"
Massive 3.0: A Real Crowd-Pleaser
The rat pack in Ratatouille, the armies of thousands in 300, the herds of animals in Evan Almighty, and before that, in 20 other feature films, all animated with Massive, might lead you to believe the software developed by Stephen Regelous originally for Lord of the Rings, is crowd simulation [...]
NVIDIA Helps Bring Short to Life
We meet the two slacker stars of animator/director Tim Heath’s short film Plush Life as they drive to work one morning. Lundo is furry and looks a little like a Muppet. Flint has plastic eyes and wears velveteen with a flame embroidered on his belly. Journey’s ‘Wheel in the Sky’ [...]
Caligari Truespace 7.5
Caligari Truespace has been around since the beginning of time; i.e., in terms of 3D content development. In fact, Truespace was one of my first 3D programs running on an Amiga ‘ yes, a Commodore Amiga. When I finally found my way into the visual effects industry, my awareness of [...]
Maya Professional Tips and Techniques
You may have noticed that I have a tendency to like previous primers published by Autodesk Maya Press. They have a way of taking the apparently mundane problems of the 3D geek and put them into a perspective which most people can follow. In addition, they add special insights that [...]
Maya Visual Effects: The Innovator’s Guide
I’m often a stickler for abiding to methodologies that conform to ways tools are used in the production world’especially when it comes to manuals, books and tutorials. This is because most people trying to learn these techniques are doing so because they want to work in the animation, gaming or [...]
Advanced Maya Texturing and Lighting
Lee Lanier, the author of the more general Maya Professional Tips and Techniques (also reviewed this month), has focused his knowledge into the realm of digital lighting in Maya, which is a topic in need of a full book. Keep in mind that a lot of these techniques can migrate [...]
Craft Animation’s Director Tools
Swedish company Craft Animations has come up with a series of tools that not only save time in rigging, but additional savings are gained because the rigs are meant to create not only procedural animation, but real-time, controllable animation. As they explain it on their site, ‘In the pre- Craft [...]
Sitni Sati’s FumeFX Version 1.0
In almost every conversation I had about the differences between 3ds Max and Maya, I used to bring up Max’s lack of a fluid dynamics system. But that’s a thing of the past since Sitni Sati, the brilliant boys in Croatia and the developers of AfterBurn and DreamScape, have developed [...]
Skymatter’s Mudbox
With the release of Mudbox from Skymatter, 3D sculpting and modeling has jumped to a new level. The guys at Skymatter’Weta Digital alum’created this modeling tool based on their personal trials and tribulations in heavy-duty productions such as Lord of the Rings and King Kong. This is somewhat unique because [...]
Autodesk’s MotionBuilder 7.5
Autodesk’s new MotionBuilder 7.5 is the first software release since the company completed the acquisition of Alias last January. Not a general 3D program that handles modeling, dynamics, animation or texturing, this substantial program is for character animation’period. And because the product’s objective is clear, there is focus on tools [...]
A Real-Life Replica of...
Cowabunga, dude! A real-life replica of Simpsons’ hometown of Springfield is...
Blue Sky’s...
Epic, the new animated adventure from director Chris Wedge and his gifted team...
