Architosh Staff (info@architosh.com)

7 Aug 2005

 

SIG: Architosh Report on SIGGRAPH - Part 4

REALVIZ

Architosh met with Liz Tjostolvsen of REALVIZ to talk about the company's show attendance and what was new. Liz said they were showcasing current or updated versions of MatchMover Pro, MatchMover Pro MoCap, and MMTrack for 3ds and Maya. These programs help 3d artists track motion and 3d camera data from video and animation sequences. MatchMover Pro is considered in the industry a key post-production tool and is used by such studios as Sony Pictures, ImageWorks, Warner Brothers Animation and Electronic Arts.

Essentially what you can do with MatchMover Pro is shoot a scene in video -- say an environmental scene missing a future CG element -- and then develop that CG element and fully integrate the CG element into the scene. There is a great example of that here on the REALVIZ site.

MMTrack for Autodesk 3ds Max and MMTrack for Maya are completely new automatic tracking products which work as plugins for 3ds Max or Maya.

Regarding ImageModeler, a program Architosh has reviewed previously, Liz said the company was planning to release an updated version early next year.

MAXON

At SIGGRAPH MAXON announced the upcoming release of CINEMA 4D Release 9.5 and BodyPaint 3D 2.5. Additionally, the company has a new production bundle specifically aimed at visual effects studios. New in CINEMA 4D 9.5 are improvements to its user interface, lighting, rendering and additional features.

The program adds a brand new Content Browser that reads and writes files on the fly. There are also improvements to its HUD (head's up display) technology. Major improvements in lighting include better dialogs, four times faster rendering of shadows and Ambient Occlusion to simulate the shadowing of a radiosity render with dramatically reduced render times.

Other improvements include more rendering options, including output to 32-bit color using HDRI or OpenEXR format. You can now render in multipass channels for normal maps, UV maps or straight alphas; and there is new support for Apple's Final Cut Pro and Motion and you can open multi-pass renders directly in Apple's Shake.

Moreover, a new Baker allows you to easily generate your own maps based on the shading, illumination and normals of any object and can save to your own HDR textures or normal mapped models.

E-On

E-On Software was at SIGGRAPH showcasing their new Vue 5 Fusion application. Vue 5 is one of the most amazing pieces of software we have seen in a long time. The product allows you to create stunning, beautiful worlds in which to utilize in your 3d work. With Vue 5 you create environments containing everything from mountains to grass to stars. You can generate terrain using a number of different methods, including using USGS DEM elevation data. Vue 5 supports "procedural terrain" thereby allowing an unlimited degree of detail depending on how close you are to the data.

Supporting the capability to paint geological features and interactively manipulate (sculpt) terrain, the formation of land is nearly infinite in terms of possibilities. One of the most unique technologies in Vue 5 is the SolidGrowth™ technology which grows plants and trees directly inside the software. No two trees will be exactly alike. And for those doing more sci-fi work, you can edit existing species or create your own.

A motion designer allows beginning animators to create sophisticated animations by adding in secondary motion effects like banking, vibration and spin effects. Vue 5 supports wind and breeze effects for vegetation as well as atmosphere and water animation.

Vue 5 includes support for complete Poser animations, including hair and cloth effects, and this can be added to Vue's own animation capabilities. Vue 5 supports global illumination and Radiosity and has support for HDR (High Dynamic Range) images for superb realism.

Vue 5 is designed to integrate into various pipelines. The program supports nearly all major 3D and 2D formats (import) and you can export out complete scenes to other 3d programs. HyperVue Network Rendering allows you to render large projects across an array of various machines (Mac or Windows). Vue 5 retails for $599 US.

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