Invazion 10 – concours de création de courts-métrages en stéréoscopie

par lameche le 7 septembre, 2009

Le concours de création de courts-métrages en stéréoscopie Invazion annonce son ouverture officielle. Les prix se répartiront selon 3 catégories: Best overall film, Best stereoscopic story telling, Excellence in visual art. Ni le jury, ni les prix ne sont encore annoncés. A suivre…

Site du concours ICI…

communiqué de presse – SIGGRAPH 2009 – Stereoscopic 3D Cinema and Home Theater Trends

par lameche le 15 juillet, 2009

SIGGRAPH Announces Stereoscopic 3D Cinema and Home Theater Trends

CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–SIGGRAPH 2009 will present a dynamic line-up of speakers and sessions that will discuss trends and future directions for Stereoscopic 3D both for the Hollywood movie industry as well as for the general public home theater experience.

“Stereoscopic visuals are a hot topic right now. The Computer Animation Festival programming aims to give the attendees, whether they have a technical or a general entertainment interest in 3D, a full view of what is happening with the genre, both artistically and technically as it evolves,” stated Carlye Archibeque, SIGGRAPH 2009 Computer Animation Festival Executive Producer. “Stereoscopic filmmaking is a technology that is going to go from the cinema experience to the home theater environment faster than we expected, and this content will provide the information needed to understand what’s coming in the very near future.”

Following are only some of the highlights of this content. High resolution images and interviews are available by request:

3D to the Home: What Can Possibly Go Wrong?

Peter Ludé, Senior Vice President, Engineering, Sony Electronics

There are over two million 3D-ready televisions already in US households, but the industry remains divided about delivering stereoscopic content to the home. How much programming will be available, how will it be delivered, and by when? Will consumers need to wear those funny glasses? Will the world adopt 3D standards, or will competing formats emerge? Will the images on the small screen look as good as in the cinema? Peter Ludé will review these thorny topics and address the technical, business, and creative decisions that will be required over the next few years in the transition to 3DTV.

Visual Storytelling in Three Dimensions

Bob Whitehill, Stereoscopic Supervisor, Pixar Animation Studios

In combination with other visual techniques such as color and composition, stereography (if used wisely) can enhance mood, evoke emotion, and draw an audience further into a film’s story. Using examples from UP, Toy Story, and Toy Story 2, Bob Whitehill discusses the use of 3D as a visual storytelling device in Pixar’s films.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs: Making Mouthwatering 3D

The Sony Pictures Imageworks production team discusses and demonstrates the creative and technological elements that helped them achieve the most delicious event since macaroni met cheese. This behind-the-scenes look at the making of an epic food-filled film featuring food clouds and spaghetti twisters reviews the early design decisions that drove the look of the film, the global illumination renderer used to bring the movie to life, and more. Plus, there will be a special first-time screening of major portions of the film during conference week.

Additional 3D programming will focus on Production Sessions that take the festival attendees behind the scenes into the production pipeline of a variety of this year’s 3D films, including: Coraline, Monsters vs Aliens, G-Force, and key 3D sequences from the upcoming September release, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Additional programming will focus on the developments in stereoscopic gaming, scientific and biomedical research, and the evolution of 3D standards for film, broadcast, and the home.

For detailed information on the entire program, visit http://www.siggraph.org/s2009/computer_animation_festival/stereo/index.php.

About SIGGRAPH

SIGGRAPH 2009 will bring an anticipated 20,000 computer graphics and interactive technology professionals from six continents to New Orleans, Louisiana, USA for the industry’s most respected technical and creative programs focusing on research, science, art, animation, music, gaming, interactivity, education, and the web from Monday, 3 August through Friday, 7 August 2009 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. SIGGRAPH 2009 includes a three-day exhibition of products and services from the computer graphics and interactive marketplace from 4-6 August 2009. More than 200 international exhibiting companies are expected. More details are available at www.siggraph.org/s2009.

About ACM

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery www.acm.org, is the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field’s challenges. ACM strengthens the computing profession’s collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional networking.

Communiqué de presse – Christie annonce 5 nouveaux projecteurs 2k,4k intégrant la technologie relief Brilliant3D

par lameche le 24 juin, 2009

CHRISTIE LANCERA UNE NOUVELLE GAMME DE PRODUITS 4K DLP CINEMA® EN 2010

Le leader du marché offre aux exploitants de salles de cinéma cinq nouveaux modèles de projecteurs en résolution 2K et 4K

Christie, leader mondial des systèmes de projection numérique, annonce le lancement de sa nouvelle série de projecteurs de cinéma numérique Christie Solaria™, reposant sur la technologie éprouvée DLP Cinema® de Texas Instruments (« TI » ; Bourse de New York : TXN), la plus prisée sur le marché. Les cinq nouveaux produits de la série offrent aux exploitants de salles une plage étendue de niveaux de résolution et de luminosité, adaptés aux écrans de toutes tailles. La nouvelle gamme comprend les Christie CP2210, Christie CP2220 et Christie CP2230 – tous trois disponibles en résolution 2K et 4K – ainsi que des modèles 4K haut de gamme pour des écrans allant jusqu’à plus de 30 mètres, les Christie CP4220 et Christie CP4230, affichant une luminosité sans précédent de 30 000 lumens.

Tous les projecteurs de la série Christie Solaria exploitent la technologie de nouvelle génération de Texas Instruments, conçue pour répondre aux spécifications DCI (Digital Cinema Initiatives). Chacun des cinq projecteurs se caractérise par une nouvelle architecture modulaire qui facilite leur maintenance, ainsi qu’un Media Block intégré en option, et incorpore la technologie Christie Brilliant3D™ qui assure les projections en relief les plus réalistes et les plus lumineuses. En outre, grâce à leur capacité de produire une luminosité plus élevée au moyen de lampes à consommation réduite, tous les projecteurs Christie actuels engendrent des économies pouvant atteindre 25% du coût d’exploitation par rapport aux technologies concurrentes.

« Le succès de nos 7000 installations à travers le monde nous confère une mine sans équivalent de connaissances et d’expérience. Nous sommes parvenus à un degré de fiabilité de 99,999% et avons assuré plus de 10 millions de projections numériques. Cependant, au‑delà des chiffres, les enseignements les plus importants nous viennent de nos partenaires exploitants », commente Jack Kline, président et COO de Christie Digital Systems USA.

Il ajoute : « Alors que nous entrons dans la seconde décennie du cinéma numérique, nous sommes conscients de la nécessité pour nos partenaires exploitants d’élargir encore leur choix de projecteurs afin de répondre aux attentes d’un marché dynamique. Notre gamme actuelle continuera de satisfaire la demande immédiate des exploitants et des studios, aussi bien pour les projections 2D que 3D, puis, en 2010 et au-delà, notre série Solaria répondra aux besoins étendus de nos clients en termes de luminosité, de résolution et de coût d’exploitation. Forts des connaissances acquises auprès de notre clientèle internationale, nous estimons que 80% des salles seront en 2K et que le reste passera en 4K, équipé d’écrans de plus grande taille. »

Les Christie CP2210, Christie CP2220 et Christie CP2230 seront disponibles au premier semestre 2010, et les Christie CP4220 et CP4230 au second semestre 2010. Les exploitants désireux d’en savoir plus sur l’ensemble de la gamme Christie sont invités à prendre contact avec leur interlocuteur chez Christie.

Communiqué de presse – Luxology modo 401

par lameche le 23 juin, 2009

SAN MATEO, Calif. – June 19, 2009 – The rapid evolution of modo took another leap today as Luxology LLC announced the immediate availability of its latest 3D content creation software, modo 401. With a focus on rendering and animation enhancements, modo 401 delivers a wealth of new features and innovative workflows, which enable users to easily model on top of existing geometry, see changes in their scene immediately from the radically improved Preview renderer and efficiently re-use assets throughout the content creation process. These new features benefit customers in a broad array of disciplines such as architectural visualization, product design, game development and advertising image production.

« modo 401 continues our emphasis on making the 3D creative process as fluid as possible for designers and artists, » said Brad Peebler, president of Luxology. « This new version is packed with improvements and is clearly our biggest upgrade of modo to date. »

Rendering
Rendering enhancements include caustics, dispersion, blurry refraction, volumetric lighting and Pixar-patented deep shadows. The new Instance Replicators allow dense amounts of surface detail like welds, rivets, trees and barnacles to be rendered with trillion polygon detail. Light linking and support for multiple environments provides precise control over how each part of a scene is individually lit. modo 401 also supports stereoscopic rendering and will render on up to 32 cores across a network of 50 workstations.

Animation
Animation improvements in modo 401 include inverse kinematics, dynamic parenting, channel constraints and modifiers. modo’s new animation capabilities facilitate the creation of sophisticated rigs in modo 401 that can be driven with a few simple inputs. For example, a tank model can be rigged to track and turn accurately across undulating terrain while maintaining realistic tread and wheel movement. Pre-built animation assemblies provided with modo 401 allow users to apply animation to their models automatically.

Workflows
Optimized artist workflows are another essential element of modo 401. Artist feedback during modeling and other operations is enriched with a deeply threaded Preview renderer that boasts extremely rapid updates and progressive rendering capability. modo 401 boosts artist productivity by facilitating the re-use of assets throughout the content creation process. modo 401 ships with over 1,500 pre-built assets including profile curves, realistic surface finishes, fur presets, 3D props, vegetation, animated rigs and professionally designed lighting environments that light a scene in two mouse clicks.

« These pre-built assets in modo offer us a way to get to final quality more quickly, » said Gary Fitzgerald of DesignworksUSA. « modo also allows us to capture and re-use our own design assets for greater efficiency. »

modo 401 boasts a wide array of other productivity enhancing improvements, including:

– Expanded modeling toolset: Most modeling tools in modo now support per vertex collision with geometry. When paired with modo’s new ability to load static meshes that have a lower memory footprint, users can now leverage modo to retopologize even the densest meshes into production ready assets. In addition, new Profile Presets simplify the modeling of edge-based details like crown molding or complex bevels.
– More realistic materials: The new Fur material enables a multitude of material appearances from hair, bristles and fur to water droplets, string, grass and tinsel. Carbon fiber and highly glossy clear coat surfaces lend realism to consumer product visualizations.
– Data import and export: modo 401 is now even better equipped to read and write data that can be exchanged with other 2D and 3D applications. File exchange improvements include COLLADA, FBX, 3DM and a new SolidWorks 2009 file importer for Windows.

Pricing and Availability
modo 401 is available immediately for the new suggested retail price of USD $995. Upgrades from any existing version of modo remain at $395. modo 401 runs on Mac and PC platforms, and is newly available for 64 bit Windows. modo 401 is sold and supported by a network of authorized Luxology resellers around the globe.

For additional images and videos, please see:

* modo 401 tour: http://www.luxology.com/modo/tour/.
* Two example images of a chimpanzee and a soldier by modo 401 beta tester Jacques Defontaine illustrate various uses of Fur.
* A tank model rig video by Rich Hurrey demonstrates new animation enhancements, as well as a confetti clip rendered in stereo by David Stripinis.
* An example image of an anteater by Zoltan Korcsok shows more uses of the new Fur material.

© Copyright 2009 Luxology LLC. modo and Nexus are registered trademarks of Luxology LLC., in the USA and/or other countries. All products or brand names mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.