SuperSteve3D

Double Negative (DNeg), one of Europe’s largest post production houses for film and already a prolific user of The Pixel Farm’s popular matchmoving toolset PFTrack, has recently purchased an additional 10 licenses of the product for use in its new facility in Singapore.

Matchmove Supervisor at Dneg, Sam Schwier explains some of the reasons why PFTrack just keeps getting better and is the tool of choice for Dneg: “PFTrack is widely used in the London office and we have found the latest version (v5) to be a huge improvement for problem solving shots we undertake. The interface improvements in this version allow us to see the status of a track much more clearly, and it is now also much easier to feature track.”

In helping to establish the new facility, CG artists and professionals were brought from singapore to DNeg’s London HQ to familiarize them with the DNeg pipeline which tightly integrates PFTrack, so that the two studios can work together seamlessly. “The idea was to expose them to our established pipeline for world class VFX ” Says Victoria Rodgers, Head of HR at Dneg. “As there hasn’t been a lot of tracking done in Singapore it is almost an entirely new concept to most artists in the studio, so we need them to be able to pick it up very quickly and PFTrack allows us to do this.” adds Schwier.

Over the last couple of years, Dneg have invested heavily in PFTrack, making it a significant part of their VFX pipeline using unique tools such as the XML camera data importer, survey data management and geometry tracking. “Dneg are exactly the kind of forward-looking company that The Pixel Farm develops products for. It’s always a pleasure to see the continued high quality results they produce using our software.”, says Michael Lancaster, Product Director at The Pixel Farm. “We wish them every success with their expansion plans in Singapore”.

DNeg is currently hiring local talent to compliment it’s 3D department in the Fusionoplois, Singapore studio, specifying a preferred knowledge of PFTrack. www.dneg.com

 

Since the release of ZBrush 3.2 for OSX and the introduction of GoZ (www.GoZBrush.com), we have received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from the artistic community as well as companies interested in becoming GoZ supported applications.

In order to continue refining GoZ and other ZBrush4 features, we have decided to postpone the release of ZBrush 4 and instead release an interim ZBrush 3.5 for Windows and Mac users. Version 3.5 will have all the features of ZBrush 3.2—including GoZ—as well as additional refinements.

Some of the features in ZBrush 3.5 are…

Multiple texture, normal and displacement maps per SubTool, with enhanced displacement and normal map options such as native export of 32-bit displacement maps. High-Definition displacement and normal maps from HD geometry. Improved perspective with a floor grid. Reorganization of the Tool sub-palettes to coordinate with selected SubTools. The ability to merge all visible SubTools and optionally weld the seams. The new PUVTiles mapping method, which represents the most efficient use of UV space yet. PolyPainting and masking have now been enhanced to 16-bit from the previous 8-bit. New navigation to work with the virtually unlimited zooming. Right-Click Navigation. New sliders added to Project All, providing more control over your results. Memory management enhancements give the capability to subdivide your models to higher polygon counts. New ambient occlusion masking, which can create an AO texture for use in other applications.

Furthermore…

ZBrush 3.5 will also include one of the still unannounced key features of ZBrush 4. We are very excited to include this very powerful and creative new feature in version 3.5, and are sure that you will be too! An introduction to this feature will be made available here, at ZBC, within the next couple of weeks.

The Windows version of 3.5 will be released by the end of August, followed by a release of the OSX version in September. Following the release of 3.5, we will continue to refine ZBrush 4 and its features (such as LightBoxand Spotlight) for release in the 4th Quarter of 2009.

ZBrush 3.5 and ZBrush 4 will be released as free upgrades to all registered users.

 

Alongside today’s introduction of updated Time Capsule models, Apple appears to have finally discontinued Shake, its long-standing high-end digital compositing and visual effects software package. While Shake’s product pages remain available on Apple’s site, it is no longer listed in the online Apple Store and MacRumors has received word that Apple sales representatives have been informed of the product’s discontinuation. Shake had been priced at $499.

Shake was originally launched in 1997 as a product of Nothing Real, which was acquired by Apple in early 2002. Apple continued to update Shake over the next several years, but the release of Shake 4.1 in mid-2006 was accompanied by the announcement that no further software updates were planned. A minor update to version 4.1.1 was issued in late 2008.

At the time of Shake 4.1’s release, rumors claimed that Apple’s replacement for the software package, code-named “Phenomenon”, would be based on Apple’s Motion software and released in 2008. While such a standalone product has not surfaced, it is possible that Apple finally views Motion 4 and other components of the updated Final Cut Studio released last week as a sufficient replacement for Shake’s features.

Update: Apple’s Shake product pages now redirect to the Final Cut Studio main product page.

 

Vicon will be showcasing a pre-release version of its eagerly awaited boujou 5 at the SIGGRAPH conference in two weeks in New Orleans. boujou is the industry leading camera match-moving software for artists to capture complex camera motion and calibration data from image sequences.

Building on its established ease of use and automation, boujou 5 is enhanced with a unique new way of solving 3D camera positioning and motion paths from image sequences. This new approach radically accelerates the solve and allows users more manual interaction within complex shots.

The upgrade includes new features that many existing boujou users will have been eagerly waiting for:
•    New Automatic Sequential Solver-Previous versions of boujou took the entire shot into account before delivering a solve. Now, the application looks at a single frame at a time, which not only enables the user to intervene, it can make the entire process a lot faster.

•    Fully functional Graph Editor-Lets the user manually tweak the camera data and, if necessary, reprocess a shot. boujou 5  also provides the ability to lock valid sections of solved data or sections which are known to be correct, which animators can then use to improve other segments of an image sequence.

•    Reference Frames- Allows users to import still images taken with any camera and use them to assist in a solve.

 

Moved to new host last week

 

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