HDRI 3D

Reel FX, a small start-up company in 1993, is now tackling some of the biggest and best long-form and short-form animation, visual effects, and design work around; their credits are pretty impressive. With several new and exciting projects due out in 2009, the Reel FX team open up about their unique studio, which they feel is ready to take the CG world by storm.

Producing quality VFX work for episodic television is a challenge for any effects house. At EdenFX, the normal pipeline is often set aside, as talented artists specializing in their own fields of 3D, compositing, and roto work frequently have to act as CG Generalists in order to solo on entire shots, all of which have to be completed in 10 days. See how they pulled it all together for the show Ghost Whisperer.

Roger LA has been a force to be reckoned with in the creative world, working with studios such as Nickelodeon, Lifetime, BMW, and Comedy Central. When Roger was awarded the job of creating the promo package for the Oscars, ABC wanted the spot to feel magical and also stay within their network branding, which consists of liquids flying around the screen. You’ve just got to see how they did it! 

A spiraling spear emerges from a fluid sea of blood, growing larger and piercing the character’s back. Javier goes through the workflow for a difficult shot for the film Estigmas. Instead of using simulations, traditional techniques saved the day!

All VFX crews invariably face the possible disaster of a missed deadline and angry client. Take a look at these strategies that are sure to save you, your crew, and your production from imminent doom by shifting your production pipeline to warp speed. 

Follow along through the development of a digital caricature illustration in Photoshop, with a focus on Court’s artistic strategies and priorities in the creation of a typical caricature painting.

Nothing does destruction like a large, fiery, roaring meteor! This introduction to AfterBurn takes you through the process of creating a volumetric meteor using PFlow to set up the particle animation and shape, then add it to the AfterBurn system for color and rendering.

Together at Last: Part 2: Explore the OpenEXR module, finding ways to integrate it into a pipeline and learning some things to avoid in the process. Take a walk through a new script that copies channels from one EXR file to another, giving the script additional production qualities with the handy optparse module.

Follow along as Aaron shows how to use Softimage’s new ICE interface to create objects that track for complex animations. You’ll be amazed at how much quicker this is than traditional scripting.

Stephen brings together 3D objects and a dynamic matte to take you through the process of applying animation to any or all layers of a scene by effectively using CS4’s Animation timeline. 

Rocco Tartamella takes on the challenge of sculpting an icon. Drawing inspiration from a man who forever changed the scope of animation, Rocco uses traditional hand sculpting to recreate Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse. 

For those digital artists or tech geeks who have drives full of photos, videos, music, sound FX, etc. Transferring everything to CDs or DVDs is such a pain. Western Digital’s WD TV to the rescue! You’re going to love it! 

Lunch Meat

I'm a 3D Artist. Why Math?