Watch the fascinating new trailer for Siggraph 2013 featuring cool new technologies, showing jaw-dropping simulations, experimental graphics and more…

The technical papers showcased in the Siggraph 2013 technology trailer will be presented at this year’s conference in California in late July.

The trailer contains some very interesting experimental technologies and there are some great topics, ranging from ‘Propagation of Light Acquiring Reflectance and Shape from Continuous Spherical Harmonic Illumination’ and ‘Scalable real-time volumetrics’ to ‘GI with Radiance Regression Functions’ and ‘New Approach to Handwriting Beautification’.

If the narration stumps you slightly, don’t worry, the real beauty is in watching the unbelievable animations: there’s an automatic animation tool, a clever new hair graphics system, and a simulation of wet, dense snow (right at the end of the trailer) – convincing stuff from The University of California, Los Angeles and Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Enjoy!

Below are just a few highlights from the Technical Papers program:

The Structure-Aware Hair Capture work by Linjie Luo, Hao Li and Szymon Rusinkiewicz is extremely clever stuff.

Their system reconstructs coherent and plausible wisps aware of the underlying hair structures from a set of still images without any special lighting. Take a look:

Also of note is the ICTGraphicsLab’s work on Acquiring Reflectance and Shape from Continuous Spherical Harmonic Illumination:

And this tech, from C. Lawrence Zitnick, tidies up your sloppy handwriting. Great, if like me, you have OCD tendencies!

Siggraph 2013 Technical Papers program

The 40th Siggraph conference will be held in Anaheim in late July.

The Siggraph Technical Papers program is the premier international forum for disseminating new scholarly work in computer graphics and interactive techniques.

At the conference, paper authors provide brief overviews of their work in the Technical Papers Fast Forward event, then they present their complete papers in 22.5-minute sessions that include 4.5 minutes of Q&A.

For more information, visit the Siggraph site

From arch-viz to visual effects, Mark Ramshaw meets the studios that made their mark on the CG industry in the last year. This week, The Senate…

Unsung hero syndrome invariably accompanies specialisation in ‘invisible effects’. Nevertheless, boutique facility The Senate has been quietly building up an enviable reputation in the last few years, delivering seamless environment and visual effects work on a series of films, while continuing to push the boundaries in the higher end of the broadcast market – an area that spawned the company in the first place when several independent artists teamed up to work on Steven Spielberg’s 2002 mini-series, Band of Brothers.

▲ All-digital library and snow (top) and Kings College Cambridge gate house, created for The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader

“It’s been a conscious decision to specialise in this sort of work,” says Sarah Hemsley, CEO at The Senate. “Sadly, you often see companies take on anything and then sometimes they just can’t deliver. The best thing in business is to know your strengths and play to them, and that’s very much what we do.”

While Hemsley has been working to forge strong relationships with the major studios over the last few years – building to a recent body of work that includes 215 shots for Voyage of the Dawn Treader and 180 for Captain America: The First Avenger – she stresses that the UK remains a vital touchstone.

“We’re very keen to work on smaller UK projects. We’re currently involved with a British movie called Fast Girls, and have also worked on TV projects like Downton Abbey and Luthor. We have the ability to scale down or up to 50 seats, and so can work well with any size project and be very economical for the studios.”

This scalability, says Helmsley, also enables The Senate to avoid subcontracting. “Many people now outsource things like roto work, which is harming our talent pool. We take the approach of bringing people in-house at a roto/junior level, and then give them the chance to work up through the company.”

As for the upcoming year, the studio already has a raft of high-profile projects lined up. “2012 brings Wrath of the Titans, Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows – which has some really great work in it – and a few things I sadly can’t discuss yet,” says Hemlsey. “It’s going to be a very busy year. The future is looking rosy.”

Visit www.senatevfx.com to discover what the studio is working on right now.

From arch-viz to visual effects, Mark Ramshaw meets the studios that made their mark on the CG industry in the last year. This week, Storm Studios…

Formed in 1996, Storm Studios is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, animation facilities in Scandinavia, although it wasn’t until 2006, with Free Jimmy (the region’s first CG-animated movie) and Peter & the Wolf, that the studio began to attract serious attention in its native Norway and abroad. Since then, feature film visual effects work has been Storm’s bread and butter, with a merger between Storm and Nordisk Film in 2010 further strengthening its industry position.

▲ Storm’s matte painting expertise at work in Mathias Calmeyer’s movie Captain Sabertooth

“Merging Storm’s effects knowledge with Nordisk Film’s long traditions and post-production expertise, we’ve achieved our dream of creating a one-stop shop,” says managing director Kristin Hellebust. “We’ve also helped design one of the finest post-production facilities in Europe, in the form of Nordisk Film Shortcut, which has recently expanded to a second studio in Stockholm.”

While there are some foreign projects currently in development, Hellebust says that tangible results from acclaim for internationally well-known projects such as Max Manus and The Troll Hunter have yet to appear. The Norwegian film industry, meanwhile, remains very budget-conscious.

“It’s also often expected that the visual effects company invest 50 per cent of the honorarium in the film, with the risk of never getting a direct return on this investment,” explains Hellebust. “Of course, with a population of just five million, it’s understandable that budgets are small, and one positive consequence is that we’re used to being extremely efficient and creative.”

Following a year of investment on internal R&D, and the development of efficient pipelines, Hellebust says one of the next things is going to be to enjoy the benefits of the brand-new facilities shared with Shortcut. On the work side, in 2012 Storm will continue its recent push into commercials, while feature work will include CG environments for three children’s movies, plus a sizeable contribution to the Scandinavian/British production Kon-Tiki.

Visit www.stormstudios.no to discover what the studio is working on right now.

From arch-viz to visual effects, Mark Ramshaw meets the studios that made their mark on the CG industry in the last year. This week, Ars Thanea…

That Warsaw is home to some serious art talent isn’t in doubt. If nothing else, the work of Platige Image saw to that.

Nevertheless, Ars Thanea’s rapid rise in the space of just four years is striking. Originally the brand name for the portfolio of one of the studio’s founders (Bartlomiej Rozbicki), Ars Thanea began life focused on interactive design.

Gradually, however, it’s grown into a full-service ad agency, spread across two offices, and with departments focusing on areas including motion, mobile and still image creation.

▲ Art for Polaroid’s Grey Label line, a collaboration with Haus of Gaga

“In the beginning we were really only interested in the interactive part of the work, but as we grew we decided that to achieve the best possible quality we needed to have full production under one roof,” explains executive creative director Peter Jaworowski.

“We do still have a couple of generalists, but as the company has grown we’ve employed specialists in modelling, painting and so on more and more.”

The studio’s client roster already reads like a who’s who of iconic brands, including Coca-Cola, Diesel, Martini and Puma, plus motor manufacturers Fiat, Mercedes and Mazda.

In technology, clients include Ubisoft, PlayStation, Orange, Nokia, and Nvidia, and in the broadcast field the portfolio includes work for Discovery Channel and SyFy.

“In the interactive division I’d say 80 per cent of our revenue comes from Polish clients and 20 per cent from elsewhere in Europe,” says Jaworowski.

“With image creation, however, around 60 per cent is from the USA and elsewhere in the world, and then 30 per cent from Europe and just 10 per cent from Polish clients. As we’re gaining more recognition and taking on bigger campaigns, it’s very much changing in favour of international work.”

The trend for servicing international clients looks set to continue with several more on the horizon in California for 2012. “We’ll see how it works out, but already we’re thinking hard about opening a San Francisco office next year. The future is actually looking very bright, with plenty of work on the way.”

Visit www.arsthanea.com to discover what the studio is working on right now.

From arch-viz to visual effects, Mark Ramshaw meets the studios that made their mark on the CG industry in the last year. This week, Fido…

In an increasingly competitive industry, it’s not uncommon for small-to-midsize studios to opt for some degree of specialisation. Even so, Fido’s reputation for photoreal creature work is quite remarkable. So too is its commitment to internal R&D, developing the tools that enable such work to stand out from the crowd.

▲ The digital fur flies with this all-CG squirrel star of an advert for Saatchi & Saatchi, Stockholm

“We’ve focused heavily on creatures and simulations of real-world elements for the last six or so years now,” says Mattias Lindahl, senior VFX supervisor at Fido. “These areas are obviously technically very challenging, so we’ve had to rely on our R&D department to push beyond the limits of what’s possible with off-the-shelf software.”

Fido effectively came into being in 2000, with the merger of four separate entities: one focused on art direction, one on post work, another on motion graphics, and another on practical effects. “Our practical workshop is another thing that makes us different from most other visual effects houses, as it gives us the ability to create animatronics, prosthetics, and FX make-up for our clients, as well as digital solutions,” says Lindahl.

The studio has just completed 150 CGI creature shots (plus 240 animatronic shots) for Sony’s German-language movie Yoko, and is now working on a Scandinavian-British retelling of the Kon-Tiki voyage.

• Read an interview with VFX studio Important Looking Pirates about its shark shot in Kon-tiki.

Moving ahead, Lindahl says a recent buyout by Forestlight means that some aggressive expansion is now on the cards.

“Fusing with Forestlight means that we can plan for the long term and think bigger than before. We currently have around 40 people, including freelancers. We want that number closer to 100 in the near future.”

Visit www.fido.se to discover what the studio is working on right now.

From arch-viz to visual effects, Mark Ramshaw meets the studios that made their mark on the CG industry in the last year. This week, Iloura…

Those outside Australia might be forgiven for thinking that Iloura is a relative newcomer, but its recent run of high-profile projects (including work on Steven Spielberg’s The Pacific mini-series and James Cameron’s Sanctum) is just the latest chapter in a 30-year-long story.

▲ Movie-level visual effects for Spielberg’s acclaimed mini-series The Pacific

“We started life as a traditional post house, and then in the 1990s began investing in visual effects tools,” explains Simon Rosenthal, executive producer at Iloura. “3D animation then became an important part of our work, particularly after acquiring a local animation company.”

Now a subsidiary of film investment and distribution company Omnliab, the studio employs around 150 people across its Melbourne and Sydney offices, with an average of 70 devoted to film, 30 to 40 dealing with advertising, experiential work, and 45 on an episodic TV series. It’s this flexibility that enabled the studio to tackle 500 shots on Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

“We hadn’t spent a lot of time developing those types of effects in-house before,” says Rosenthal. “But after meeting the challenges of the project, with the fire and so on, we’re now very strong on effects animation.”

While the movie is likely to push Iloura further into the spotlight, Rosenthal remains cautious. “We’re more interested in good opportunities, ones that challenge the artists without crucifying or tipping them over the edge. Making sure we look after them, retain them and maintain that drive is the biggest challenge we face. Expansion will happen, but we want to make sure we don’t ever lose that personal boutique feel.”

Visit www.iloura.com to discover what the studio is working on right now.

From arch-viz to visual effects, Mark Ramshaw meets the studios that made their mark on the CG industry in the last year. This week, A Large Evil Corporation…

Animation probably isn’t the first thing that springs to mind when you think about the phrase, ‘large evil corporation’. However, the trail wouldn’t lead you to the headquarters of a certain large-scale fast food franchise, but to a small team of talented artists occupying a quirky animation studio in the picturesque city of Bath.

▲ Evil Corp recreated the familiar feel of UK kids’ classic Trumpton for the Adland campaign

“A lot of the stuff we produce is emulating a stop-motion feel, which is partly from my background in stop-motion animation, but also partly from other jobs that have come along and the solutions that were needed at the time,” says director Seth Watkins.

One such job the studio landed was to create a short film about community blog and advertising archive Adland, which could be used by the educational awards body in British advertising, Creative Circle, to publicise its guidebook.

Working alongside creative agency Abbott Mead Vickers, the Evil Corp team were shown the film’s script and realised early on that the big challenge on this project would be finding a solution to the physical scale of the set that would be relatively simple and therefore cost-effective to produce. “The modular nature of Trumpton-style children’s stop-frame lent itself perfectly to this,” says Thomson. “We could make the characters, build a few models and adapt them, and the animation was very simple.”

“I think that there’s a charm and authenticity to stop-frame animation, and that’s perhaps what makes you feel,” he says, “although we’ve never gone so far as to try and convince people that it’s absolutely stop-frame. Most people are fooled generally, as a lot of what we’ve done recently tends to have more reality, like shadows and depth of field that really sell it to people.”

The studio is well known for its cartoony stop-motion style, but the team are excited to be working towards new ventures. “We’re pitching on a few things that are quite different, so we’re hopeful for the new year,” says Watkins. “The main thing is interesting because it’s very different to what we normally do, and it’s a bit of a mix-up as well. There’s a sort of Pixar-style animation and a realistic Vue-type environment. If we get this job, it will be a real injection of that very different thing that will show people we’re capable and diverse.”

Visit www.evilcorp.tv to discover what the studio is working on right now.

A Large Evil Corporation was one of the studios featured in our Hottest Studios of 2012 feature first published in issue 152.

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Check out dates, rumours and videos which show some of the new features in the forthcoming Autodesk software releases

March is a big month for Autodesk, putting the finishing touches to its main products and preparing to tell the world about them. Here we have sneak peeks of new features and details of the Unfold event in Montreal at the end of March but check back on our website later this month as we reveal everything you need to know about new versions of Maya, 3ds Max, Softimage and Mudbox. Check back for rumours of new features as we’ll be updating this page as and when we hear anything!

Unfolding the new Autodesk product line

The Unfold event takes place in Montreal on Wednesday 27 March 6pm EST and you can watch it online. Autodesk is showing a behind-the-scenes look at a new project, running Autodesk 2014 workflow demonstrations, and a state-of-the-industry panel where experts will debate the future of the 3D industry.

Getting your Autodesk product questions answered

Ahead of the Unfold event, on Tuesday 26 March you can join an online exclusive where you can see the new Autodesk 2014 animation products in action. You’ll be able to browse the new interactive site and get Autodesk product managers to answer questions about the new products. If you have a very specific question to ask, you can register for a The Expert Challenge session to ask your question live. Details on the website of individual sessions.

New tools, new features in Autodesk 2014 products

Here are six videos that show a sneak peek at some of the new tools in the forthcoming releases. Check back to this page as we add more information in the coming weeks.

3ds Max: Populate

3ds Max: Nitrous part 1

Softimage: Sequencer

Maya: Grease Pencil

Maya: Modelling Tools

Mudbox

Exciting news about a comprehensive redesign to the issue of sister-title Computer Arts that hits newsstands on 4 April 2013. Sneak preview here!

The magazine has been rebranded and every section has been reinvented to bring you more inspiration, more insight and more analysis than ever before. And here is a sneak preview of the new design – in print and on iPad:

Can’t see this? Click here to view the sneak preview!

modo 701 is coming and it’s going to be fitted with a new particle system and there’s some talk of it being available on Linux. Find out more here…

This major release of modo will significantly enhance the modelling, sculpting, animation, effects and rendering workflows and continue to add value with a number of new features.

Over the last year, the development team has listened to a huge amount of customer feedback and has made significant enhancements to the core functionality in this new version.

modo 701 features / highlights

• Procedural particle engine with an easy to use pre-set workflow
• Audio playback and a sound channel modifier, bringing animations to life
• Schematic improvements, reducing scene graph complexity
• Dedicated dynamics simulation layer, significantly improving performance
• Simplified complexity of materials and layered shaders
• Large scene performance improvements by as much as 175x
• Preview render synchronisation improvements, over 50x faster in large scenes
• New Python interpreter, making python execution many times faster
• Unlimited network rendering

Luxology’s co-founder, Brad Peebler mentioned modo will be made available on Linux, in a recent modcast on the Luxology forums

modo for Linux

Brad Peebler, co-founder of Luxology, revealed some of the inner workings of Luxology on the latest modcast, in which he mentioned modo being ported to Linux! Whether this will happen for modo 701, or in another future release, remains to be seen, but it’s certainly exciting stuff.

Brad Peebler, Co-Founder of Luxology comments:
“We’ve made such big improvements to the existing architecture of the software in modo 701 that 601 users will notice a huge leap forward. We’ve also added some really cool functionality like the new particle system. This release will truly deliver on the philosophy that perfection comes through refinement. As always, we have pushed the limits and can’t wait to find out what you all think.”

modo 701 pricing

New licenses of modo 701 will increase to $1,495/£999/€1,169 and new floating licenses of modo 701 will increase $1,795/£1,199/€1,399.

Upgrade and educational prices remain the same for USD and GBP, EUR upgrade and educational pricing has decreased due to exchange rate fluctuations.

However, people without modo can buy 601 now at the current price ($1,195) and then get a free 701 upgrade on launch.

modo owners (version 501 or before) can upgrade now and get a free upgrade to 701 on launch.

To buy modo and for more information please go to the Luxology store.

modo 701 release date

We don’t know when this will happen exactly, but if Luxology sticks to its usual schedule, it will out be later this year.