I’m a big fan of the class of ‘unbiased’ render engines, the look of them is just something cool. The caveat as we know is the render times can be huge but the concept is the setup time is where you’ve saved and won. Meindbender has done a bunch of work for Cartoon Network and while their pieces are witty on their own the use of Maxwell to simulate plasticine models is extraordinary. Very cool stuff and story.

There seems to be a lot of dodgy operations out there and as a freelancer, what are you to do to protect yourself. There are many answers to a myriad of circumstances and it can range from doing things yourself or involving lawyers. However, perhaps there are things you can do proactively to help yourself and as this writer has evidenced is it can work in your favour. I present the story of Epilogue Eight, how the artist protected himself.

Please, give it a read.

Big kudos to 3D World magazine for releasing the Tim Clapham mograph video. Asset files and tutorial are available.

Download link.

3D World from Tim Clapham on Vimeo.

A great post at AE Tuts, presents 42 VFX breakdowns. Head on over and have a look!

Linear workflow is a way of handling digital imagery at the proper linear math level where there is no gamma correction due to the fact that our digital image displays are non-linear devices.

FXPhd has a podcast that demystifies this thing called linear workflow. Browse to the page and click the link for “Compositing in Linear”

http://www.fxguide.com/fxpodcast.html

Ray tracing gets faster, yet still today it’s an ‘offline’ process, meaning you still click a render button and wait. Some applications like fprime for Lightwave and  modo’s interactive renderer have made strides to use sampling tricks and clever programming to simulate interactive ray tracing, the concept isn’t quite there.

Enter Caustic Graphics who think they have a solution combining hardware and software. With 16 patents and probably more on the way, we may see some fruition to the concept of ‘real-time’ ray tracing but I am sure for now that would still be reserved for the largely elite producers.

Here’s a quick look behind the scenes of an indie HD music filming project using a variety of gear like a RED One, Panasonic HVX… and hell through in an RC Helicopter too.

NurbsAndPolys.com has republished the original subdivision modeling primer originated by Glen Southern and is open for viewing at NaP wiki. As a wiki resource, this publication should flourish and be maintained with current techniques.

http://wiki.nurbsandpolys.com

Milo is a technology preview of Natal, presented by Lionhead Studios. The implications of the technology are astounding, and the interactivity between person and machine becomes almost second nature.

Go ahead, meet Milo.

In the previous segment I outlined the issues that we are faced with moving geometry from a CAD application to a rendering application. In this segment, I am going to cover the topics related to preparing your CAD models to be export ready for a rendering application.

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