Pixel Arts - News

DAZ 3D-Gizmoz Introduces DigimiDAZ 3D-Gizmoz Introduces Digimi

2010-03-03T20:15:00.000+02:00

On the heels of a successful merger, DAZ 3D-Gizmoz today unveiled Digimi, the ultimate platform for generating personalized avatars. Leveraging the collaboration of existing technologies from DAZ 3D and Gizmoz, Digimi offers a premier solution for complete avatar customization that extends creative possibilities toward developers of games, online worlds and real-time environments.

"As the gaming market continues to grow, so does the need for customization, differentiation and quality," explains DAZ 3D-Gizmoz President, Eyal Gever. "This is exactly what Digimi will offer: the foremost platform for creation supported by the best human figure content library available in the marketplace. As we continue to roll out new tools, we have no doubt that Digimi will become synonymous with realistic and personalized avatar generation."

Addressing game developers' growing demand for high-quality 3D content, DAZ 3D-Gizmoz has also launched a new End-user License Agreement (EULA) which provides developer distribution licensing for their renowned collection of versatile 3D figures and assets. Available today, this new EULA and developer catalog allows DAZ 3D-Gizmoz models and user-generated content to be customized and distributed directly within cross-platform games, virtual worlds, social communities and MMOs.

Companies and influencers throughout the game development industry are already realizing the impact of Digimi. "Unity is committed to work alongside innovative companies to help achieve our goal to continually advance game development tools and processes," said CEO of Unity Technologies, David Helgason. "DAZ 3D-Gizmoz offers an ideal solution for this advancement. The combination of the Digimi avatar generator and content catalog with the Unity platform allows developers to produce visually stunning results more quickly, easily and cost effectively."

Digimi offerings will be available for demonstration during the 2010 Game Developers Conference at the Unity Technologies booth #1112. The entire developer content catalog will be previewed at the DAZ 3D-Gizmoz booth #934. For more information, please visit www.digimi.com.

Industry Insight Regarding Digimi

"Digimi and the EULA represent tremendous growth opportunities for DAZ 3D-Gizmoz as user-generated content is becoming an increasingly important part of a consumer's online gaming experience. With the company's comprehensive library of assets and figures, consumers can create a highly personalized gaming experience. DAZ 3D-Gizmoz is providing a complete solution for avatar development that saves both time and money, without restrictions on compatibility or customization." - Wanda Meloni, M2 Research Founder and Senior Analyst

"The game development world is changing quickly thanks to visionary products like Digimi. Incorporating Digimi's photo-realistic heads into our game 'Tug of Mind' has added a unique and fun dimension that wasn't available to us anywhere else." - Orn Haraldsson, CEO of MindGames

"Papervision 3D is very excited that the Digimi personalized avatars can now be created and delivered in 3D Flash and that they support the Papervision 3D open source format which is compatible with all web rich-media, social applications and games." - Carlos Ulla, Papervision 3D Founder

About DAZ 3D-Gizmoz

DAZ 3D-Gizmoz, with offices in Draper, UT and Tel Aviv, Israel, joined forces in December 2009 and is led by Dan Farr, CEO and Eyal Gever, president. It is the leading publisher of personalized 3D digital characters, software and accessories, for creative professionals, game developer and 3D enthusiasts. The company provides a central solution to design, manage and transport high-quality digital characters that can be deployed in virtual worlds, cross-platform games, social networks, mobile applications and professional modeling and animation tools.

For additional information, please visit www.digimi.com.

(...:::http://www.pixelarts.eu:::...)

ZOIC STUDIOS EARNS THREE VES AWARDS AT 8TH ANNUAL GALA EVENT

2010-03-02T21:56:00.000+02:00

Zoic Studios is proud to have earned three VES awards at last night's event, held at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, California. The annual event recognizes outstanding visual effects in more than twenty categories of film, animation, television, commercials and video games.

Andrew Orloff, Executive Creative Director at Zoic Studios comments: "Zoic studios is extremely proud to have achieved this level recognition from the VES. It's been a fantastic year for us and it is great to be recognized for the creative work we've all put into the broadcast medium. All the artists from Zoic this year, winners and nominees alike should be proud of the work they have done in continuing to
raise the bar in television visual effects."

Zoic's earned the following VES awards:

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Broadcast Program:
CSI Crime Scene Investigation - Ep. 1001 Family Affair
Rik Shorten, Sabrina Arnold, Steve Meyer, Derek Smith

Outstanding Created Environment in a Broadcast Program or Commercial:
V - Pilot "Atrium and Ship Interiors"
Chris Zapara, Chris Irving, David Morton, Trevor Adams

Outstanding Compositing in a Broadcast Program or Commercial:
CSI Crime Scene Investigation - Ep. 1001 Family Affair
Derek Smith, Christina Spring, Steve Meyer, Zach Zaubi

For those unable to attend the live event, the 2010 VES Awards can be viewed on Friday, March 5 at 10pm ET/PT on REELZCHANNEL.

Zoic is an award-winning Digital Studio involved in producing lauded commercials and viral advertising as well as innovative content for episodic television, feature films and the gaming industry. From visual effects, to live action production and specialty shooting, Zoic Studio's imprint can be seen in such compelling entertainment as True Blood, Fringe and V; spots for Mountain Dew, ESPN, NASCAR, Craftsman, HP and VW, as well as innovative projects for EA, Killzone, Gamefly and Sony. Zoic Studios has offices in Los Angeles and Vancouver. www.zoicstudios.com
Andrew Orloff, Executive Creative Director at Zoic Studios comments: "Zoic studios is extremely proud to have achieved this level recognition from the VES. It's been a fantastic year for us and it is great to be recognized for the creative work we've all put into the broadcast medium. All the artists from Zoic this year, winners and nominees alike should be proud of the work they have done in continuing to
raise the bar in television visual effects."

Zoic's earned the following VES awards:

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Broadcast Program:
CSI Crime Scene Investigation - Ep. 1001 Family Affair
Rik Shorten, Sabrina Arnold, Steve Meyer, Derek Smith

Outstanding Created Environment in a Broadcast Program or Commercial:
V - Pilot "Atrium and Ship Interiors"
Chris Zapara, Chris Irving, David Morton, Trevor Adams

Outstanding Compositing in a Broadcast Program or Commercial:
CSI Crime Scene Investigation - Ep. 1001 Family Affair
Derek Smith, Christina Spring, Steve Meyer, Zach Zaubi

For those unable to attend the live event, the 2010 VES Awards can be viewed on Friday, March 5 at 10pm ET/PT on REELZCHANNEL.

Zoic is an award-winning Digital Studio involved in producing lauded commercials and viral advertising as well as innovative content for episodic television, feature films and the gaming industry. From visual effects, to live action production and specialty shooting, Zoic Studio's imprint can be seen in such compelling entertainment as True Blood, Fringe and V; spots for Mountain Dew, ESPN, NASCAR, Craftsman, HP and VW, as well as innovative projects for EA, Killzone, Gamefly and Sony. Zoic Studios has offices in Los Angeles and Vancouver. www.zoicstudios.com

(...:::http://www.pixelarts.eu:::...)

CG ARTISTS CAN CREATE THEIR OWN PERSONALIZED ART AND CONTENT WEBSITES

2010-02-26T20:01:00.000+02:00

February 26, 2010 Cornucopia3D, a division of e-on software and one of the leading CG artist communities on the web, today announced the immediate availability of its new portfolio feature.

Using Artist Portfolios, Cornucopia3D users can now easily expose their work through their own artist web page.

"For several years I wanted a website to display the images I create. Cornucopia3D's Portfolio is the perfect answer! Cornucopia3D's Portfolio management tools are both precise and intuitive, but most importantly, the results are visually pleasant and professional." says Daniel Respaud - CGI artist at GESTFORM

Christian Turner – Game Art & Design Artist adds:"Cornucopia3D has traffic from people of all walks of life including some major studios. I feel this is a great way to expose my work for possible chances to get a job in a good studio. To get exposure of this magnitude is very much appreciated."

Key benefits of Cornucopia3D portfolios are:
- present custom tailored portfolios for business or friends and family,
- direct access to your portfolio using personalized URL,
- easy-to-use interface to set up portfolios and organize content,
- manage the look and feel of the page with simple one-click administration,
- built in interaction with other members through integrated networking,
- promote better visibility of your artwork and content.

Best of all, these new extended capabilities are completely free for all registered Cornucopia3D users.
Through the Cornucopia3D account page, users can access and manage their own portfolio by using the one-click administration tools to customize the look, feel and arrangement of all artistic content.

The artist portfolio is initially released as a beta program. During this beta period, comments, ideas and suggestions for improving the capabilities and usability of the Artist Portfolio are welcome and can be discussed in the artist portfolio thread in the Cornucopia3D forums.

"Cornucopia3D Portfolio is an excellent new addition to the site and really does allow artists to showcase their work, I very much like the layout and will certainly use this new feature. Many thanks to all at Cornucopia3D who made this possible." Robert Mackin - Environment Artist

More information on the new Cornucopia3D Portfolio is available at:
www.cornucopia3d.com/portfolio

About Cornucopia3D
Cornucopia3D is an online community dedicated to CG art and the Vue line of products. At Cornucopia3D, users will find all sorts of resources to improve their experience with 3D and Vue.
This community was born with a simple but important goal in mind: to provide the most comfortable, helpful, up-to-date and enjoyable online community for all Vue users.
With the above intentions in mind, we wish for Cornucopia3D to become a meeting point where experienced users can share, newbies can learn, and everybody can enjoy their stay.
Cornucopia3D is a division of e-on software.
Visit their website at http://www.cornucopia3d.com

(.....:::http://www.pixelarts.ro:::.....)

Nice Spots Collabs With UK-Artist For Underground Installation

2010-02-24T19:37:00.000+02:00

Nice Spots -the Internet-hosted collaboration, archival, approval, distribution, asset-management and presentation tool that offers a secure online environment to work with any type of media from any platform - just completed an exciting collaborative project with renowned artist Dryden Goodwin. Art on the Underground, done on commission from the London Underground, centers around 60 portraits that Goodwin sketched of workers on the subway system's Jubilee line and includes print, video and online components. The video portion features Goodwin sketching each portrait in time-lapsed super-speed beneath voiceover excerpts of the artist conversing with his subjects as he drew them. Nice Spots played an integral role in the project, supporting Goodwin's use of video by building a website to showcase the expansive collection of 60 videos (one for each portrait).

Linear, as the series of portraits is called, captures a head shot of each subject at work or at a moment of pause in their day. Goodwin drew the series in natural working environments - in train operator's cabs, signaling towers, management offices, station control rooms, ticket offices, at gates, and in other locations. The 60 accompanying films are poignant portraits capturing both the making of the sketches and the thoughts and dreams and wishes of London's blue-collar underground work force. A woman talks with conviction about the good salary and the generations of family members who preceded her in the system. A man talks about discovering his latent artistic abilities. A veteran of the system talks excitedly about the physical evolution of the Underground's many train styles. The narrative aspect of each film creates an intimacy and lends the sketches a new dimension, breathing extra life into the diverse group of workers as the viewer aligns them with the colorful personal worlds they describe.

The project reinforces Nice Spots' ability to bring any creative project to life in a customizable and stable way. The London Underground recorded Goodwin interviewing the workers as he sketched them, then edited the HD tape down to two to three minutes. The famous transit system then worked with Nice Spots to host the video portion. Nice Spots worked extensively with Goodwin to maximize the video display/playback. For maximum resolution, the artwork was shot with an HD camera turned on its side. Then the image was flipped 90 degrees, from a typical horizontal (16x9) to a vertical (9x16) canvas. Nice Spots Managing Director, John DiMaggio, then redesigned their web reel to work with the new aspect ratio. Nice Spots collaborated closely with Goodwin to make sure his work was presented in the best way, including custom encoding all 60 videos according to his wishes. When Goodwin asked to redesign the web reel page with a clean main page featuring all 60 thumbnails (as opposed to Nice Spots' customary setup of a video player above and thumbs below), Nice Spots rapidly adapted the site to his request.

"We were working with a really unique artist on a really unique project, so the last thing we wanted to do was say that we were stuck with one technological paradigm," stated DiMaggio. "So we tore up what we had and reinvented it on the spot, and the result is something really unique, memorable and interesting."

The company took their standard web reel application and customized it to fit this type of work. The videos live on the Nice Spots server, which can be accessed from the Underground's website. This project allowed Nice Spots to venture into new territory with the use of the application for public consumption, as the company has traditionally focused on B to B efforts.

In adapting to Goodwin's specific vision, Nice Spots displayed its flexibility and reinforced the competitive advantage it holds over Wiredrive, Adbeast and Beam. "Nice Spots is infinitely adaptable to meet the specific vision of an artist," noted Nice Spots head of business development in Europe Chris McKeeman. "Dryden knows exactly what he is looking for aesthetically and he really challenged us to change our normal business model to come up with something that fit the spirit of his project. The result is something cost-effective, reliable, and easy to use, which is exactly what Nice Spots strives for in all its projects."

The films for the yearlong exhibit went live online on Feb. 5. The drawings themselves are displayed on poster sites (which contain the Nice Spots logo as part of a semi-sponsorship) across the London Underground.

About Nice Spots
Nice Spots enables seamless collaboration, distribution, archiving and asset management on a global scale through its proprietary technology and intuitive user interface. Launched in 2005, the application offers the most comprehensive collection of utilities and features on the market and has amassed a significant following. Boasting a user base in more than 80 countries, satisfied clients include major brands, agencies, studios, filmmakers and creatives.

(.....:::http://www.pixelarts.eu:::.....)

DUCK Floats Over the Pond for Latest Hire

2010-02-24T19:22:00.000+02:00

DUCK has signed Paris, France-based directing collective UFO, a group of highly skilled creative directors, animators, illustrators, CG designers, and motion design pros who thrive in an atmosphere of unbridled creativity at the convergence of art direction, design and VFX. The eclectic group brings with it a multitude of international clients and gives DUCK a permanent and well-respected presence in continental Europe that is capable of blending traditional and new media from concept to final cut.

UFO's artists draw on a broad range of influences, from Blade Runner-type films to Japanese anime to the electro-quirky music of Daft Punk and the Broken Beat funk fusion of the Gorillaz. "UFO is a really unique entity, capable of doing almost anything in the studio, from creative to production to post," noted DUCK EP Mark Medernach. "They bring so much to DUCK, from an international foothold to a really unique attitude and style. Now that they're joined with DUCK's ever-growing talent and technical resources, I think we're going to see some really great work emerge."

A group of self-described creative luminaries launched UFO in 2006 as an offshoot of Mathematic, a unique postproduction house. With a goal to assert themselves as creative luminaries providing thought-provoking, stimulating visuals, they have compiled an international client list that includes Nike, NYSE, MTV, Asics, Lacoste and Sony Music, for agencies the likes of Young & Rubicam, Lowe, TBWA, Publicis, DDB, and Saatchi.

About DUCK:
Los Angeles-based DUCK is a continually evolving creative studio producing commercials, music videos, short films and web content. DUCK offers a wide range of services, including live action and integration, character design, film title design, 2D and 3D animation, digital compositing, digital/traditional ink & paint. In recent years, the studio has expanded, adding an original content division that works with writers and animators on unique ideas for film and TV.

Xsens Workshop at GDC San Francisco

2010-02-16T20:54:00.000+02:00

GDC is the official trade event "by developers for developers" of computer, console, mobile, arcade, online games, and location based entertainment.

Xsens will be hosting a motion capture workshop at GDC. The workshop will introduce you to the Xsens MVN Motion Capture system. You will experience the whole pipeline from the actual motion capture (at your desk) to the integration into 3D editors such as MotionBuilder.

Workshop details:
Friday March 12th, 9-10 AM at Room 302, South Hall
See details at the GDC website

Xsens will also be exhibiting as a partner of Image Metrics at booth 1910, March 11-13.

(.....:::http://www.pixelarts.eu:::.....)

Xsens: 10 Years in Motion

2010-02-16T20:50:00.000+02:00

Founded in 2000, Xsens has evolved into a leading supplier of 3D motion tracking products. Various awards and listings underline the success of the company and the importance of our products for the marketplace. More important though, hundreds of customers worldwide successfully utilize our technology and count on the performance and quality that Xsens stands for. We are grateful to our customers and wish to celebrate our anniversary with them!

We will celebrate our 10^th anniversary with a series of (customer) events worldwide. The kick off is a lunch session at Oceanology International in London (March 9 - 11), the world’s leading event for marine science and ocean technology. It is followed by an afternoon session at JEGM, the joint meeting of the Gait and Clinical Movement Analysis Society (GCMAS) and the European Society of Movement Analysis in Adults and Children (ESMAC), in Miami (May 12 - 15). The last session is at Siggraph in Los Angeles (July 27 - 29), the International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. On April 9^th and 10^th we are celebrating with suppliers, academic and business partners and of course family and friends at our headquarters in The Netherlands.

http://www.xsens.com/en/news/general-news/xsens-10-years-in-motion

(.....:::http://www.pixelarts.eu:::.....)

Planar tracking

2010-02-16T16:08:00.001+02:00

Perspective planar track made with Monet. After I do the track I used Adobe After Effects for compositing.

logotrack from mihnea prefit on Vimeo.

Path to Castle

2010-02-16T16:03:00.002+02:00

Photoshop work. Start from the picture below.....

Then I start to modify this picture until I reached this final composition

Hope you like it. Feel free to comment

This Is Where We Live

2010-02-14T19:51:00.000+02:00

Welcome to our city - to our world - of books. This is where we live.
A film for 4th Estate Publishers' 25th Anniversary. Produced by Apt Studio and Asylum Films.
The film was produced in stop-motion over 3 weeks in Autumn 2008. Each scene was shot on a home-made dolly by an insane bunch of animators; you can see time-lapse films of each sequence being prepared and shot in our other films.
by 4th Estate

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

3D animation film Big Buck Bunny (2008 but very nice)

2010-02-10T20:39:00.001+02:00

The Amsterdam based ‘Blender Institute’ announced today the premiere of the short 3D animation movie 'Big Buck Bunny'. After a production period of over six months, the short film will premiere with a grand party on Thursday 10th of April, in the hip new Amsterdam cinema ‘Studio K’.
“The primary intent of the movie was to stimulate the development of open source 3D software” said producer and Institute director Ton Roosendaal, “But the result equals on artistic level as well as on technical ingenuity the quality of what you would expect from large animation studios”.
The movie differentiates itself mostly by its totally open character. Not only open source tools such as the 3D suite ‘Blender’ were used to create the movie, but also the movie itself - including all materials as used in the animation studio - will be freely accessible for everybody to reuse, to learn from it or just to enjoy it.
The promotion of Open Content creation and distribution is one of the main goals of the Creative Commons, the organization that created the 'Creative Commons' licenses, which have been widely adopted by artists, musicians, and other creative individuals who wish to freely share their creative endeavors.

Blender Institute in Amsterdam is one of the first companies worldwide exploiting Open Content professionally and commercially. Currently 14 people are working full-time in the Institute, wrapping up Big Buck Bunny and working on an Open Game based on the characters from the movie.
Big Buck Bunny is a comedy about a well-tempered rabbit “Big Buck”, who finds his day spoiled by the rude actions of the forest bullies, three rodents. In the typical 1950ies cartoon tradition Big Buck then prepares for the rodents a comical revenge.
The creative team for the movie were brought together by the Blender Institute from all over the world, including the USA, Denmark, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Australia. The music has been composed by Jan Morgenstern, who also provided the sound track for the previous Blender production; “Elephant's Dream”.
Big Buck Bunny will be released on 35mm film format, on DVD and Blu-ray. The latter will be available by the end of April. Shortly after the DVD release the film will be freely downloadable for everyone in various formats.

“The Big Buck Bunny movie project demonstrates that the barriers to entry in the 3D animation world can be lowered tremendously using on-demand computing platforms. Even though the Blender team did not have support of a big studio, they succeeded with the community support, an open source rendering software and an on-demand computing platform,” said David Folk, Group Manager of Network.com Marketing, Sun Microsystems, Inc. “With a growing collection of applications, a host of new developer tools and worldwide availability, Network.com is attracting more developers and end-users to use, build and share new services for a wide range of industries.”

The movie promotes open content creation as it is not only developed using open source software but also distributed under an open license that gives artists free access to the entire studio database of assets and files used to make the movie. “The primary intent of the movie was to stimulate the development of open

source 3D software, but the quality of Big Buck Bunny on an artistic level as well as on technical ingenuity is what you would expect from large animation studios,” said Ton Roosendaal, producer and Blender Institute director. “We needed over fifty thousand CPU-hours of compute time, and Sun's Network.com grid service provided us a very powerful platform where we could use hundreds of CPUs simultaneously to significantly speed up the movie rendering process without needing to own the compute infrastructure.”

Project team:
Script and direction by: Sacha Goedegebure (Netherlands)
Art direction: Andreas Goralczyk (Germany)
Lead Artist: Enrico Valenza (Italy),
Animation: Nathan Vegdahl (USA), William Reynish (Denmark)
Technical directors: Brecht van Lommel (Belgium) en Campbell Barton (Australia)
Music by: Jan Morgenstern (Germany)
Produced by: Ton Roosendaal (Netherlands)

About “Big Buck Bunny”

Big Buck Bunny is a comedy about a well-tempered rabbit “Big Buck,” who finds his day spoiled by the rude actions of the forest bullies, three rodents. In the typical 1950s cartoon tradition, Big Buck then prepares for the rodents in a comical revenge. The creative team for the movie was brought together by the Blender Institute from all over the world, including Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and USA. In addition to the online release, Big Buck Bunny has been released in 35mm film format on DVD and Blu-ray. For more information, please visit http://bigbuckbunny.org

About Network.com
Sun's Network.com provides access to compute infrastructure on a pay-per-use basis via its Sun Grid compute utility at $1/CPU-hr. It is powered by the Solaris(TM) 10 Operating System (OS) and Sun(TM) Grid Engine running on Sun's x64 hardware. CPU-hr is defined as the aggregate time spent across all CPUs and rounded up to the next hour. For more information, please visit http://www.network.com.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Sun Microsystems develops the technologies that power the global marketplace. Guided by a singular vision -- "The Network is The Computer"(TM) -- Sun drives network participation through shared innovation, community development and open source leadership. Sun can be found in Sun Microsystems, Inc. more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.

Blender Institute: http://blenderinstitute.nl
Blender: http://blender.org
Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org

Elephants Dream, internet release of the first 3D ‘Open Movie’

2010-02-10T20:37:00.001+02:00

Elephants Dream is the story of two strange characters exploring a capricious and seemingly infinite machine. The elder, Proog, acts as a tour-guide and protector, happily showing off the sights and dangers of the machine to his initially curious but increasingly skeptical protege Emo. As their journey unfolds we discover signs that the machine is not all Proog thinks it is, and his guiding takes on a more desperate aspect.
Elephants Dream is a story about communication and fiction, made purposefully open-ended as the world’s first 3D animated “Open movie”. The film itself is released under the Creative Commons license, along with the entirety of the production files used to make it (roughly 7 Gigabytes of data). The software used to make the movie is the free/open source animation suite Blender along with other open source software, thus allowing the movie to be remade, remixed and re-purposed with only a computer and the data on the DVD or download.,

Project Orange
‘Elephants Dream’ is the result of almost a year of work, a project initiated and coordinated by the Blender Foundation. Six people from the Blender user/development community were selected to come over to Amsterdam to work together on an animated short movie, utilizing Open Source tools only.
Below you can find the text describing the original motivation and background for Project Orange

Motivation
With Blender originating as an in-house creation tool, the day-to-day feedback and interaction of both developing and using the software was one of its most outstanding features.
In the past 2.5 years of open source development, it was especially this uniqueness of Blender that has proven to be difficult to organize and maintain. The Blender Foundation itself has no intention to grow or expand into a company or studio; such a development would conflict with the public benefit goals. Instead, the Foundation aims at endorsing and supporting activities within (educational) institutes, universities and companies.
It is our conviction that establishing - content targeted - incidental, independent and temporal projects will be a strong boost for open source development strategies in general. Daily interaction of artists and developers can not only result in proof of concepts, but also in research of innovative solutions for the whole range of tools artists can deploy.

By keeping such projects content focused and temporal, it also is possible for a wide range of currently active volunteers to participate. Not many people are in a position to give up a career (study, job) to become full-time employed on the projects of their interest. But there are many active volunteers prepared and motivated to do this incidentally for shorter time spans.
Whilst Project Orange’s prime target is to create an outstanding movie short, the secondary goal is to research efficient ways to increase quality of Open Source projects in general.

Producers
The project has been a co-production of Montevideo and Blender Foundation, both sharing financial responsibility on equal basis. Both producers will decide and agree together on the Milestones A) Creative Concept and B) Final Project Plan.

All production related internal staff costs of the producers are excluded from the financial plan. The producers jointly will further define their respective tasks for this.

Overall project coordination
The Blender Foundation will be responsible for establishing and coordinating the team, making a project plan, coordinating the concept/scripting/story-boarding, tools development, post-production & audio, and project deliverables.

(Blender Foundation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - The 3D animated short ‘Elephants Dream’ will today be released as a free and public download. This is the final stage of a successfully completed Open Movie project which has been community-financed, using only Open Source tools, and opening up the movie itself as well as the entire studio database for everyone to re-use and learn from. The movie and production files are licensed as “Creative Commons Attribution 2.5″, which only requires a proper crediting for public screening, re-using and distribution.

In the past weeks, the donating sponsors have received the dual DVD set of this project in their mailbox. This DVD set remains for sale via the blender.org e-shop as support product for future Open Movie projects. The Blender Foundation is committed to start working on similar projects soon.

The movie files and download mirrors can be accessed here: http://www.elephantsdream.org/download

Elephants Dream is the culmination of the Orange Open Movie Project, produced by the Blender Foundation and the Netherlands Media Art Institute. The project was conceived to help develop and establish the capabilities of the Blender 3D open source tool for the creation of cinema quality animation.

The film tells the story of Emo and Proog, two people with different visions of the surreal world in which they live. Viewers are taken on a journey through that world, full of strange mechanical birds, stunning technological vistas and machinery that seems to have a life of its own.

‘Elephants Dream’ features the voice talents of renowned Dutch movie actors Tygo Gernandt and Cas Jansen, as well as an original score by German composer Jan Morgenstern. The short brought together the talents of a team of artists from countries as diverse as Syria, Germany, Australia, Finland, and the Netherlands. In addition to the performances of the cast and creative efforts of the lead artists, Elephants Dream has had the assistance of hundreds of individuals across the world who contributed a variety of work such as programming additional functionality for Blender, creating textures used in some of the scenes, and providing international translations for the DVD release.

The files have been released on two DVDs with the movie in PAL, NTSC and HD formats, a making-of documentary, and all of the studio files. The DVDs were shipped in early May 2006. As promised, shortly after, the movie and database of source material is now available for public download as well.

Studio Orange team:
Director: Bassam Kurdali (Syria /USA),
Art Director: Andreas Goralczyk (Germany)
Lead Artists: Matt Ebb (Australia), Bastian Salmela (Finland), Lee Salvemini (Australia)
Technical Director: Toni Alatalo (Finland)

For more information:

http://www.elephantsdream.org
http://www.blender.org

Contact:
Ton Roosendaal
Chairman, Blender Foundation
Email: ton(at)blender.org

Behind the scenes
Making of Elephants Dream part1

Making of Elephants Dream part2

Making of Elephants Dream part3

Making of Elephants Dream part4

Employment issues
For those who will be part of the “core” team, Montevideo will do the legal/taxes stuff, housing arrangement, and actually will hire the team.

Subsidy/Funding
Montevideo will take the lead for applying subsidy grants with funds like The Dutch Film Fund, the Mondrian Fund or the VSB Fund. The Blender Foundation will finance their contribution via an internet community based donations campaign, based on pre-sale of the “extended DVD edition”.

Blender Foundation
Frederiksstraat 12-2
1054 LC Amsterdam
the Netherlands foundation (at) blender.org

Producer: Ton Roosendaal
Project management/finances: Angela Plohman

Montevideo
Netherlands Media Art Institute
Montevideo / Time Based Arts
Keizersgracht 264
1016 EV Amsterdam
the Netherlands

T +31 20 623 7101

Producers: Gaby Weijers and Annet Dekker

Luxology Unveils New Studio Lighting & Illumination Kit

2010-02-09T21:27:00.002+02:00

Luxology®, an independent technology company developing next-generation 3D content creation software, is today introducing a new Studio Lighting & Illumination Kit (SLIK) created by Yazan Malkosh, an extensive collection of presets, scenes, items, materials and video tutorials to help customers light computer-generated (CG) creations. Designed specifically for users of modo®, Luxology's modern 3D modeling, painting and rendering application, SLIK provides realistic lighting of scenes that mimics those found in the real world of photography.

"CG artists and designers often spend a fair amount of time refining lighting solutions to bring out the best in their models," said Brad Peebler, president of Luxology. "With SLIK, artists are easily able to bring the realism of a studio shoot into a CG-based production and create amazing 3D renderings that are vivid and believable."

The kit includes an extensive collection of accurately modeled lights, tripods, booms, cameras, reflectors and platform backdrops, all of which have been modeled to a high level of detail to bring studio-quality production values to customers' scenes. The kit also includes pre-built lighting set-ups that support small-scale, medium-scale, large-scale and portrait studio photography.

"The staging and lighting of a subject can be time-consuming and frustrating without the proper tools, but SLIK allows me to stage and light a scene quickly and painlessly," said freelance illustrator Warner McGee. "Making small or even large adjustments to the scene is simple and straightforward with these precise and flexible tools."

Pricing and Availability
The Studio Lighting & Illumination Kit is available immediately for the suggested retail price of USD $125. modo 401 is required to use the kit and is sold and supported by a network of authorized Luxology resellers around the globe.

Learn more about Luxology's Studio Lighting & Illumination Kit by visiting http://www.luxology.com/store/SLIK.

About Luxology
Based in Mountain View, Calif., Luxology® LLC is an independent technology company developing next-generation 3D content creation software that enhances productivity via artist-friendly tools powered by a modern underlying architecture called Nexus®. Founded in 2002 by Allen Hastings, Stuart Ferguson and Brad Peebler, Luxology is home to some of the top 3D engineering expertise in the industry. More information on the company, its licensable Nexus technology, its flagship product modo® and a gallery of artists' images from the active modo community is available online at www.luxology.com.

(.....::: http://www.pixelarts.ro :::..... )

Nice Shoes hires Travis Taylor to oversee sales & marketing

2010-02-09T11:21:00.002+02:00

Nice Shoes has brought on advertising sales and marketing pro Travis Taylor to unify its U.S. sales force, grow its core business, and expand into new realms. Taylor, who will hold the title Vice President of Sales & Marketing, has extensive experience in sales management, print advertising, event marketing, rebranding, and implementation of innovative and automated systems to overhaul ingrained corporate sales cultures. Prior to joining Nice Shoes, Taylor held similar positions at MetroMedia Company, Clear Channel Communications, Centra Software, and the Buxton Company.
The new hire is part of a massive overhaul of Nice Shoes' operations that has included the merger of sister companies Guava and Freestyle Collective, a move calculated to consolidate their various services -- design and animation, high-end visual effects, and world-class color grading - and become a more powerful creative solutions provider. Taylor, a proven sales professional who has raised sales and helped to reorient the culture of every company he has been a part of, will be key to this restructuring.

"A good salesman can sell anything," noted CEO and Partner Dominic Pandolfino. "Travis comes to Nice Shoes with a very diverse background and is the rare type of person that just gets it - he understands the art of sales. His experience and personality make him the perfect fit to reorganize and build upon Nice Shoes' sales and marketing efforts. He's smart, likeable, ambitious and a very quick study."

"I am really excited to get started at Nice Shoes," stated Taylor. "Up to this point, the company has found major success by word-of-mouth advertising alone, so I can only imagine how successful they will be once we merge the in-house and independent sales teams and really start pushing the brand. I have been impressed with Nice Shoes reorganization efforts so far, and I plan to be very hands on and work diligently to help them overhaul their operations completely."
In addition to Nice Shoes' in-house reps, Taylor will also oversee the current independent team.

About Nice Shoes

NYC-based Nice Shoes is a full service, artist-driven design, animation, VFX and color grading studio specializing in high-end commercials, web content, film, TV and music videos. Since its inception in 1996, the studio has prided itself on consistently reinvesting in its talent, technical backbone, and client experience to set the standard of excellence both creatively and technically. Key company principals include: CEO/Partner Dominic Pandolfino, Partner Joe Bottazzi, Managing Director Mike Donovan, CD Aron Baxter, Colorists/Partners Chris Ryan and Lez Rudge, EPs Pat Portela and Maribeth Phillips, VFX Artist/Partner Rich Schreck, CFO / COO Julia Kisla, CTO Bob Keske, and VP of Sales & Marketing Travis Taylor.

(.....:::http://www.pixelarts.ro:::.....)

Artbeats Offers Stock Footage That's Not Just Royalty-Free, But ACTUALLY Free

2010-02-03T19:57:00.001+02:00

Artbeats, a 20-year veteran in the stock footage industry, announced today that they are offering a FREE, downloadable HD clip every day at artbeats.com. In this "no strings attached" program, visitors to the Artbeats home page can access a different free clip every day simply by registering or logging-in to their online account. The clips, valued at up to $299 USD each, are pre-selected directly from the Artbeats and Artbeats FootageHub libraries and are available as a free download for 24 hours. Those who take full advantage of the Daily Free Clip program can quickly enhance and build their stock footage cache with over $8,000 USD in royalty-free HD content each month.

So why is Artbeats taking such a revolutionary approach in giving away HD footage? "It's simple, we are proud of our footage," says Artbeats President and Founder Phil Bates. "We believe that when visitors start collecting Artbeats clips and using them regularly, they will experience the quality and value of our footage first hand. This is the core foundation of the program. Our goal is to become top-of-mind for these users when they need to purchase specific clips for their projects."

For complete details, and to begin downloading your free footage, look for the Daily Free Clip banner on the Artbeats home page at www.artbeats.com.

About Artbeats
Artbeats, founded in 1989, is an award-winning provider of royalty-free stock footage for broadcast, feature films, commercial, multimedia, game development and independent producers. The Artbeats library encompasses an extensive array of royalty-free NTSC, PAL, HD and RED high-resolution clips in a variety of subjects including aerials, cities, nature scenics, special effects, medical animations, international locations and much more. Introduced in 2009, Artbeats FootageHub is a diverse, ever-growing online conglomeration of over 50 unique brands of stock footage that expands creative possibilities for any project or budget.

Artbeats is headquartered in Myrtle Creek, Ore. with a staff of artists, producers, technicians and marketers. Some of Artbeats' clients include Dreamworks, Comedy Central, BBC, DirecTV, American Idol, Pixar, CNN, Activision and many more.

(.....:::http://www.pixelarts.ro:::.....)

SolidWorks PhotoView 360 and Luxology's modo 401 Open New Doors for Mechanical Engineering Designers

2010-02-03T19:51:00.001+02:00

Industrial designers are achieving photorealistic imaging results from designs modeled in Solidworks 2010 and visualized in Solidworks PhotoView 360 and Luxology®'s modo® software. PhotoView 360, which is bundled with the SolidWorks Premium and Professional 2010 editions, offers ease of use for rapid design visualization while modo offers maximum control over design visualization parameters with advanced features like animation.

SolidWorks users Stuart Brown and Paul McCrorey have recently tapped the capabilities of both PhotoView 360 and modo 401 to radically improve the quality of client presentations.

Based in Dorset, England, Stuart Brown is the owner of 3D Engineers, a specialty design firm that applies computer visualization tools to the process of classic car restoration. Stuart's work straddles the worlds of mechanical engineering and design, and he was enthusiastic about how the rendering features of PhotoView 360 enhanced his SolidWorks experience.

Recently, a client who wanted a custom car asked Stuart to create a virtual wooden render of a buck, which is a wooden rig used to help make automobile bodies. After using Solidworks 2010 and PhotoView 360 to realize the buck and then modo 401 for final visualization, Stuart says, "The results showed an incredible visual performance increase, to the extent that I am often asked whether the picture I am showing a client is real or computer-generated."

Paul McCrorey, also a designer and mechanical engineer, is based in Louisville, Ky., where he runs McCrorey Digital. He recently concluded a project using SolidWorks 2010, PhotoView 360 and modo 401 to create realistic images plus an animation of a unique Merlexi Chair wheelchair design. Like Stuart, Paul is very pleased with how this new generation of visualization tools has extended his SolidWorks modeling and design capacity.

"I was surprised by PhotoView 360's extreme ease of use, coupled with the outstanding output quality," Paul says. "It has helped me save both time and money, by allowing me to get very high quality images in a short time."

Later importing his model into modo 401 for finishing, Paul says modo's range of control was much greater than he expected: "For texturing, I used UV mapping to establish the fabric pattern on the back seat of the wheelchair. Displacement mapping was used to generate the treads on the tire. With the rich visualization and animation toolset provided in modo, the possibilities are truly endless. Features like morph maps and vertex weight maps were new to me but proved critical for realistic cloth movement. I used the constraint tools to precisely define the wheelchair's folding action. Finally, the gradient editor provided extreme flexibility in timing of the animation."

Another recent project of Paul's led to a computer graphics modeling contract after the final image was posted publicly.

"As a result of my image of the 'AMC module' appearing on the Luxology image gallery, I landed a contract providing CG modeling assets for a short film directed and produced by Marc Leidy from Lightdog Films," Paul says. "Using my engineering background and artistic capabilities, we are working together to interpret artistic conceptual drawings and model them in SolidWorks and modo."

Stuart Brown and Paul McCrorey are but two of the thousands of designers finding new creative possibilities in the creation of breathtakingly realistic models produced with SolidWorks 2010 and visualized in PhotoView 360 and modo. This potent combination of tools from SolidWorks and Luxology is pioneering a crossover discipline between mechanical engineering and advanced design visualization that is allowing designs to be presented with greater accuracy and appeal than ever before.

About Luxology

Based in Mountain View, Calif., Luxology® LLC is an independent technology company developing next-generation 3D content creation software that enhances productivity via artist-friendly tools powered by a modern underlying architecture called Nexus®. Founded in 2002 by Allen Hastings, Stuart Ferguson and Brad Peebler, Luxology is home to some of the top 3D engineering expertise in the industry. More information on the company, its licensable Nexus technology, its flagship product modo® and a gallery of artists' images from the active modo community is available online at www.luxology.com.

(.....:::http://www.pixelarts.ro:::.....)

Creating the world of Pandora

2010-02-02T21:01:00.000+02:00

The cast and crew take you on an in-depth look at the making of James Cameron's epic.

ADOBE and AVATAR

2010-02-02T10:26:00.000+02:00

A video featuring Jon Landau, Producer of "Avatar", describing how Adobe software was used throughout the production of the film.

Barbara Kruger's "Silent Writings" Fine Art Installation Appears in Louis Vuitton Cultural Center

2010-01-29T12:00:00.009+02:00

Barbara Kruger's "Silent Writings" Fine Art Installation Appears in Louis Vuitton Cultural Center with Key Support from Brand New School Director Ludovic Schorno

The artists and producers from bicoastal U.S. directing collective Brand New School are very proud to detail the recent collaboration of director Ludovic Schorno with celebrated American artist Barbara Kruger (www.barbarakruger.com). The resulting fine art installation formed a key element in the Louis Vuitton Cultural Space in Paris, where Kruger's bold statements and evocative imagery were part of a group show entitled "Ecriture Silencieuses," or "Silent Writings." The show debuted in March and ran through late August.

"I was simply delighted to have the chance to work with Barbara Kruger," said Schorno. "I've been an admirer of her work for a long time, and this was a chance to step out of the commercial mindset for a little bit. Basically, the Louis Vuitton Cultural Space is a building near the Champs-Elysees which is now being repurposed as a gallery. Louis Vuitton commissioned many artists to create pieces for this show, and each artist chose a specific space within the gallery. Barbara's space is a very tall rotunda within the space, and we had to conform her ideas to that specific architecture. It was a fascinating challenge and a wonderful collaboration."

Kruger's works use a combination of insightful text and evocative imagery to convey often unsettling messages, specifically concerning "how we are to one another." She has said in the past that she works "with pictures and words because they have the ability to determine who we are and who we aren't."

"Barbara came to us with an extremely clear vision of what she wanted," Schorno explained. "Our collaboration grew out of the fact that Barbara needed help with certain technical aspects of her idea. As the project evolved, however, she realized that we had a keen sense of how her idea could best be conveyed."

Drawing its inspiration from short aphorisms from several famous writers, Kruger's installation makes use of the rotunda's cyclical effect and immense wall space, to heighten the effect of the insightful words. For instance, a quotation from Mary McCarthy, asserts that "In violence we forget who we are." Projected in huge white letters on a brightly colored wall, the word "violence" suddenly explodes into shards. The word then reassembles itself and "we forget who" slowly disappears, leaving only, "in violence we are." After a moment, a loud thump is heard throughout the space and an image of a protester in Northern Ireland is superimposed over the text, further emphasizing McCarthy's message.

Another sentence reads, "Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictory word, promotes contact. It is silence that isolates." Using the round architecture of the rotunda, the passage itself travels along the walls to surround and embrace the viewer. Still another aphorism, this time from Voltaire, warns, "Those who make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." The two assertions gradually grow to dominate the wall, before colliding violently with one another. An image of a person screaming then superimposes itself on the scene.

"Barbara is understandably very precise about her typography and her imagery," Schorno continued. "Some images come from pulp magazines, others from newspapers, and other media outlets. Her highly evocative technique is to divert commercial imagery towards a juxtaposition with poetic, insightful sentences that she either writes or borrows. In this case, the impact could not be stronger or more visceral. The text and images are 14 feet wide and 35 feet high, and they literally surround the audience."

As the project and relationship evolved, Kruger and Schorno began meeting on a weekly basis just to talk about the potential and possibilities of the piece. Those meetings sometimes lasted for as long as four hours.

"It was a great collaboration," Schorno concluded. "Once we got to know each other, Barbara could tell that we got where she was coming from. From that point on, she was incredibly generous with her feedback and appreciation. We aspire to do more of this kind of work, because we feel it has a different relevance."

More information on "Silent Writings" and the Louis Vuitton Cultural Space is available online at www.louisvuitton.com/espaceculturel.

Project Credits:
Artist: Barbara Kruger
Fabricator: Brand New School
Production & Post Production: Brand New School, Bicoastal, USA
Art Director: Ludovic Schorno
Animator: Richard Trix Taylor
3d Pre-Vis: John Sadler
Post Production Producer: Darren Jaffe

About Brand New School
With offices in New York and Los Angeles, Brand New School is a bicoastal directing collective working in all fields of commercial art. Ever evolving, the studio continues to cultivate a sense of wonder and exploration. For its artists and clients alike, BNS represents an opportunity to play at work, to conduct experiments in image-making, and to feed the inspiration that drives the industry. For more information, please visit www.BrandNewSchool.com.
(.....:::http://www.pixelarts.ro:::.....)

Champagne Valentine for Tate Online

2010-01-29T11:53:00.004+02:00

Nexus Productions’ recent directorial signing, Champagne Valentine, have created a beautifully realised, fully interactive website for the tenth commission in The Unilever Series for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, How It Is by renowned Polish artist Miroslaw Balka.

Working in close collaboration with the Tate and the artist himself, Champagne Valentine have designed the site to allow the online visitor to experience the concerns of the work via a unique 3D interface. By exploring a series of dark and abstract spaces, mirroring the vast black void Balka has constructed in the Turbine Hall, the visitor encounters visions and sounds inspired by notes made by the artist, with these notes themselves suspended in the darkness. Also scattered around the site are cleverly integrated films of Balka explaining and describing the work and its inspiration.

Demonstrating both their complete understanding of the multi-media interactive format and their artistic flair, the Champagne Valentine How It Is site combines Flash and Papervision technologies to create the essence of darkness, using complex shading algorithms to give the user the experience of an infinite landscape of audio and visual content

Champagne Valentine have also developed a How It Is iPhone application that will shortly be available at Apple’s iTunes store. Based on the website’s design the app again offers the user the opportunity to explore a 3D world, this time via a custom made ‘thumpad’ joystick and the Unity 3D engine. A special component of the app is the ‘location based gameplay’, which launches a new level of experience when users are detected, using the phone’s GPS system, in the physical vicinity of the Tate Modern gallery.

Through thoughtful design and expert technological knowledge Champagne Valentine have realised an immersive experience that successfully communicates the power of Balka’s work.

Click here to explore the site:http://www.tateorg.uk/modern/exhibitions/unilevermiroslawbalka/explore/

Credits:
Site by: Champagne Valentine
Production Company: Nexus ProductionsExec. Producer: Cedric Gairard
Producer: Luke Youngman
Programming: Dominic Graefen @ Random
iPhone App Development: Mike Pelletier
Sound: Luke Ilett
Voices: Sara Kewly, Luke Youngman
Voice Record: Brains & Hunch
Engineer: Chris Branch

Exhibitions Editor: Kirstie Beaven
Head of Tate Online: John Stack

(.....:::http://www.pixelarts.ro:::.....)

Luxology Announces Free modo Training from Pixel Corps

2010-01-27T13:49:00.000+02:00

Bi-weekly Podcast Training on Luxology's modo Premiers Today on PixelCorps.tv and iTunes

Luxology® LLC, an independent technology company developing next-generation 3D content creation software, today announced a free bi-weekly podcast on the company's 3D modeling and rendering software modo®. Created by Pixel Corps, a worldwide guild of content creators, each podcast will be hosted by Pixel Corps founder and Chief Architect, Alex Lindsay, with Pixel Corps digital effects artist McKay Hawkes as the show's first guest.

Beginning today, the first podcast will focus on realistic rendering and examining the integration of CAD files in modo. Future podcasts will explore additional features within modo and how the software fits into larger visual effects pipelines in a variety of industries. While Pixel Corps has always centered heavily on training and education, this will mark a new initiative to provide software training to the public for free. For more information or to download the complimentary podcast, please visit http://www.pixelcorps.tv/modoshop.

About Pixel Corps
Joining together professional digital artists and enthusiasts alike, Pixel Corps is a worldwide guild offering extensive training, access to the industry's most advanced applications, professional-quality field assignments and community participation unlike anything else available. Through the Pixel Corps, members have the opportunity to participate in a variety of projects ranging from podcast and feature film production to advancing their skills through specially designed challenges and seminars. Founded in 2002 by industry veteran, Alex Lindsay, Pixel Corps has grown to more than 1,500 members in over 36 countries. For more information, visit www.pixelcorps.com.

(.....:::http://www.pixelarts.ro:::.....)

Nola's Hartwill Goes On Cultural Adventure In Istanbul

2010-01-26T21:59:00.007+02:00

Working via production studio F-Stop Istanbul, Nola Pictures' Chris Hartwill directed a stunning :90 spot promoting Turkey's largest city as a 2010 European Capital of Culture, an honor bestowed upon select cities each year by the European Union. The remarkable commercial packs the entirety of Istanbul's art, architectural, religious, industrial, and social history and vibrancy into a thrilling sequence of just over a minute and a half.

The Most Inspiring City begins with a globetrotting, sailboat-bound couple staring in stunned awe as they approach the city's soaring minarets in the hazy sea spray of dawn.
The ensuing narrative weaves the couple's explorations of Istanbul's dynamic museums, religious monuments, shopping, and nightlife with soaring panoramas of the city's towering skyscrapers, blazing superhighways, towering bridges, frenzied pedestrian plazas, beautiful green hills, and endless bodies of water. The result is a portrait of a bustling city of affluence and excitement, with centuries of life colliding to produce an unmatchable epicenter of world culture.

To capture the awesome scale of the city, Hartwill shot day and night, from a helicopter and on the ground, burning through 100 cans of 35MM film. "I wanted to portray Istanbul as a city of history and progress, friendship and adventure, great natural beauty and stunning human architecture," Hartwill noted. "Conveying the spirit of such a rich cultural center in such a short film was challenging on many levels, but the pros at F-Stop came up with great creative solutions, and Cut and Run London did a phenomenal job cutting the heaps of footage."

The campaign debuted Dec. 11 in Turkey and will run in several other countries in 2010 as part of a comprehensive worldwide print, TV and Internet campaign promoting the city's yearlong cultural designation.

The Creds:

Client: Istanbul: European Capital of Culture 2010
Spots Title: The Most Inspiring City
Air Date: December 2009 in Turkey, Jan 2010 Abroad

Agency: RPM/Rapier Istanbul
CD: Paul McKenna
Producer: Idris Ozgul
Prod Company: F-Stop Istanbul
Director: Chris Hartwill (represented by Nola Pictures in the U.S.)
EP (F-Stop Istanbul): John Spary
EP (Nola Pictures): Charlie Curran

Editorial: Cut and Run London
Editor: Piers Douglas

Telecine: Prime Focus London
Colorist: Douglas

Post/Effects: Prime Focus
Composer: Omer Ahunbay
Shoot Location: Istanbul, Turkey

About Nola Pictures:

Founded in 2005, NYC-based Nola Pictures is a full-service, multi-disciplined media services company with affiliate offices in France, Canada and Chile. Nola features a diverse roster of multi-dimensional directors, designers and producers who have created award-winning content for ad agencies, film and TV studios, and corporate clients.

Nola offers turnkey production solutions from shoot through editorial and post; including animation, design and VFX. Nola's mandate is to provide a supportive creative environment with production flexibility and efficiency for our artists and clients. The Nola team has contributed to projects for brands such as Dell, Pfizer, Budweiser, Givenchy, Phillip Morris, Kraft, Proctor & Gamble, Wyeth, Pro Health, McDonald's, Sundance, Cadillac, Ford, Carolina Herrera, Samsung, Umbro, Nike, ESPN, QNB, Bank of America, UPS, and Jet Blue among others. http://www.nolapictures.com
(.....:::http://www.pixelarts.ro:::.....)

Get on board the Nexus double dutch bus

2010-01-25T10:53:00.005+02:00

Transports of delight with Roel Wouters at BUG and Minivegas Dutch Embassy creative double bill

Make the most of two creative events in one evening, this Thursday 21st January. Take in a dedicated exhibition of Dutch creative talent with recent Nexus signing, Minivegas and then head off to a Roel Wouters special at BUG. Nexus Productions are laying on a special ‘Double Dutch’ shuttle bus to whisk BUG ticketholders off to the venue.

First, kick off the night with the Dutch creative talent exhibition, run in collaboration with the Dutch Embassy at their West End cultural pop-up at 40-42 Riding House Street. Look out for exciting interactive installations from new Nexus signing and international directing collective, Minivegas, who will be featured in the "Commercial Creativity" exhibition, a showcase of Dutch creative talent.

Then, BUG ticket holders can leap onto our shuttle bus to make the short ride to the Roel Wouters special. It’s a great chance to hear from Roel himself about how came up with the unique and trippy experimental video concept for the new Hot Chip single , “One Life Stand.” The band were left alone to explore and develop their own music video. With the rest of the crew closed off from the set and crew.

Roel will also be discussing his latest interactive crowdsourcing promo for Dutch band ‘Cmon & Kypski’. The band perform a series of bizarre dance moves straight to camera. All you have to do is use your webcam which will automatically send in the still of yourself mimicking one of the bands' poses. You can even send out links of your frame of fame to your friends and Facebook profile!
Have a go now and you may see yourself on the big screen on Thursday night!' http://oneframeoffame.com/

The private view at the Dutch Embassy will be held on Thursday, 21st January from 6-9pm, with the shuttle bus leaving their Pop Up space and heading off to Bug at 7.45pm. Please email Beccy by Thursday morning at beccym@nexusproductions.com to RSVP and ensure entry to these exclusive events and reserve your place on the shuttle bus.
(.....:::::http://www.pixelarts.ro:::::.....)

Luxology modo Utilized in BBC Television Series James May's Toy Stories

2010-01-25T10:47:00.001+02:00

modo's 3D Modeling and Rendering Software Tools Help Design Team Create and Visualize Full-size House Made of LEGO Bricks

One of the most popular children's toys of all time, LEGOs, were used in a new and innovative way when Barnaby Gunning Architects leveraged Luxology's modern 3D software modo® to model and visualize a full-size house made entirely out of the building bricks. The LEGO house was created for the series finale of the BBC's James May's Toy Stories television show, where each episode focused on the creation of ambitious projects using classic toys.

With an army of construction workers waiting in the wings, Barnaby Gunning, principal at Barnaby Gunning Architects, had only two weeks to finish the two story, single bedroom home design before over 2,000 members of the general public and a dedicated team of volunteers were brought in to physically build the structure using nearly 3 million standard sized LEGO bricks. In order to meet the tight deadline, Gunning used Luxology's 3D content creation software, modo 401, to create a virtual LEGO set using the LEGO pieces to build models of each basic component.

"modo 401 gave us a feel for the material quality of LEGOs as a large-scale building material long before we were actually able to put any of the components together," said Gunning. "It made it easy for us to lay out exactly what we needed to build this structure and helped keep tabs on the number of bricks being used for each piece."

A textured virtual model of the entire LEGO house was also made and used to explore the layout and overall design of the final product. Gunning explained how using modo helped speed up his design process, saying, "Creating the instructions for building each component could have been very time consuming. Instead, we were able to write a simple script that created the various pyramids quickly from our virtual LEGO set, which was a major added benefit."

The James May's Toy Stories television series also included the construction of a Spitfire model aircraft, bridging a canal using only Meccano, recreating and racing on a full-sized motor racing circuit in Scalextric and reinstating a 10 mile railway line using Hornby 00 gauge tracks. For more information about Barnaby Gunning and the LEGO house, please visit http://www.luxology.com/community/profiles/barnaby_gunning/.

About modo
modo is an innovative 3D modeling, painting and rendering software designed to accelerate the creation of world-class models, associated color and normal maps, and ultra high-quality renderings. modo's modern workflow and advanced toolset easily deliver enhanced productivity for 3D artists working in design visualization, package design, game development, film visual effects, vdeo production and graphic arts. A favorite tool among many designers and artists, modo's innovative toolset offers one of the fastest paths to content creation on the PC and Mac.

About Luxology
Based in Mountain View, Calif., Luxology® LLC is an independent technology company developing next-generation 3D content creation software that enhances productivity via artist-friendly tools powered by a modern underlying architecture called Nexus®. Founded in 2002 by Allen Hastings, Stuart Ferguson and Brad Peebler, Luxology is home to some of the top 3D engineering expertise in the industry. More information on the company, its licensable Nexus technology, its flagship product modo®, and a gallery of artists' images from the active modo community is available online at www.luxology.com.
(.....:::::http://www.pixelarts.ro:::::.....)

DUCK's Chouinard Illustrates Holiday Book for Saks Fifth Avenue

2010-01-24T20:00:00.001+02:00

In an acknowledgement of his uniquely dazzling artistic skills, luxury specialty chain Saks Fifth Avenue selected DUCK cofounder Roger Chouinard to illustrate the latest edition of its iconic Christmas Book. His illustrations will be transformed into the chain's legendary animated Christmastime window displays at its New York City flagship location.
"The Saks Fifth Avenue window displays are a really big deal, and it is a testament to Roger's skill and vision that such an important cultural icon

would single him out to create something that is central to their whole image," noted DUCK EP Mark Medernach. "The book looks fantastic and we are very eager to see the artists at Saks put them on display for New York's holiday millions to see."

The book, Twinkle Twinkle Little Flake, written by Emmy Award-winning television comedy writer and children's book author Mike Reiss, is the imaginative story of an anthropomorphic snowflake named Twinkle who falls from her cloud onto the adventure-filled streets of New York City.
To create the illustrations, Chouinard, who has previously worked as a writer and illustrator of children's books, pushed his trademark combination of real materials and simple ink line to a more complex level, working with more color and texture than ever before. The result is a series of stunning illustrations, portraying a surrealist vision of New York in full holiday décor, its bustling streets, towering buildings, and thronging street life the backdrop for the adventurous snowflake's explorations of the city. Chouinard incorporates a dazzling color scheme and his well-known humor to make each panel a memorable piece of art.

"I was honored to hear that I had been selected from among several other artists to create Saks' yearly Christmas book which is used to create their famous window displays," stated Chouinard. "The main challenge was to make the book different from their previous Christmas books, especially the 2008 edition, which was written by the same author and was also about a snowflake, but I worked closely with HarperCollins Art Director Kathleen Servidio throughout the creative process and we were able to come up with something really special."
Twinkle Twinkle Little Flake will be published exclusively for Saks by industry giant HarperCollins.

About DUCK:
Los Angeles-based DUCK, is a continually evolving creative studio producing commercials, music videos, short films and web content. DUCK offers a wide range of services, including live action and integration, character design, film title design, 2D and 3D animation, digital compositing, digital/traditional ink & paint. In recent years, the studio has expanded, adding an original content division that works with writers and animators on unique ideas for film and TV. (http://www.duckstudios.com)
(.....:::::http://www.pixelarts.ro:::::.....)