Intermediate Nuke Course for FÁS Screen Training Ireland

spherevfx was delighted to have worked with FÁS Screen Training and Windmill Lane Pictures in running an intermediate Nuke course in Dublin. The course was attended by professional artist with various compositing backgrounds including Flame, Shake and After Efects. The course covered:

• Compositing theory including:
  • Premultiplied images
  • Colour management
  • LUT's
  • CG file formats, Colour Depth's and Channel.
• ChannelSets and Channels
• Concatenation
• Tracking
• Colour correction
• Rig removal
• Element intergration
• 3D
• Camera tracking
• and Coverage mapping

The History of VFX - Presented at Bournemouth University

spherevfx was delighted to have been asked to present our lecture on the history of the visual effects industry to students and staff at Bournemouth University. The 400 slide presentation covers 136 years of VFX history including:

• Historic evening in Computer Graphics, 3D and VFX.
• Historic VFX films (and why they are historic).
• Oscar nominations and winners for VFX, 1963-2012
• Technology which relates into the VFX industry.
• Software releases (1969 to present).
• VFX Studios (when they opened, what they worked on, etc)
• and lots and lots of pictures and video.

To book this lecture please contact us on +44 1633 790-211 or eMail talk@spherevfx.com

spherevfx Adopts Tweak Software's RV.

spherevfx has joined the likes of Industrial Light and Magic, Weta Digital and Digital Domain in adopting RV, Tweak Software's Academy Award winning sequence viewer.

RV is a cross-platform, real-time, film resolution, high dynamic range, image and sequence viewer. It can play back industry standard DPX, Cineon, OpenEXR film and HD resolution sequences, QuickTime and mp4 files, (and many more formats) on a computer, through a projector, and in stereo. RV can work with RVIO, a standalone batch image processing tool which combined with RV gives users a powerful and adaptable platform for working with still and moving images. RV and RVIO were created in a high-end visual effects production environment by artists and engineers with deep roots in digital visual effects production.

Nuke Training in Rome, Italy

spherevfx was very pleased to have trained artist and senior staff Nuke at Italy's largest television company, Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.A. The custom Nuke course was designed to help artist transition from After Effects to Nuke while working live on an inhouse project. Subjects covered included:

• Project Settings
• Working with Time
• PreMult Workflow and BBox Control
• Color Management
• General Compositing (Roto, Color Correction, Tracking, Keying, etc)
• Multi-Channel Workflow and Control
• 3D for Cleanup
• RenderMan for Nuke
• .fbx I/O for Maya and Nuke
• .abc (Alembic) I/O for Maya and Nuke

Bespoke Nuke Training for the BBC

spherevfx was delighted to have trained staff from the BBC, London. The bespoke Nuke course covered a range of topics which were taught alongside a live project running through the studio. Subjects included:

• Planar Tracking
• Multipass openEXR workflow
• Lens Distortion Workflow
• Camera Tracking
• Overview of Deep Compositing
• Roto and Paint
• Keying and Matte Creation
• and much more...

January 2012

Pixologic has released ZBrush 4R2b, new features include:

• FiberMesh to create real 3d fiber, fur and hair geometry with export capabilities.
• New set of dedicated FiberMesh "Groom" brushes and corresponding Brush settings.
• MicroMesh support to render fibers or single polygons as separate 3D objects.
• New set of BPR filters and operators to greatly improve your final ZBrush renders
• BPR Global Shadow and Ambient Occlusion settings simplifying shadow management.
• New Cavity Mixer used to define different material shaders based on the mesh cavities.
• Improved small details creation through Alpha and Mask. Alphas may be placed using TransPose.
• Surface Smoothness feature detects mesh curvature for Mask creation.

January 2012

ILM visual effects supervisor Ben Snow shares his insights on turning sultry underwater vixens into vicious battling mermaids, all in stereoscopic 3-D

To read the full article from AWN.com, click here....

January 2012

Nominees have been announced for the Orange British Academy Film Awards. Winners will be announced on February 12th at London’s Royal Opera House.

The nominees for 'Special Visual Effects' are:

• The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn - Joe Letteri
• Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows - Tim Burke, John Richardson, Greg Butler, David Vickery
• Hugo - Rob Legato, Ben Grossman, Joss Williams
• Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes - Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White
• War Horse - Ben Morris, Neil Corbould

To see the full list of nominees click here....

January 2012

The Foundry's desktop application for collaborative VFX workflow, Hiero, has been released as an open beta.

For more information and to download, click here....

January 2012

Pixar Animation Studios today launched a new cloud rendering service called “RenderMan® On Demand™.” Developed in collaboration with pioneering cloud services provider GreenButton, this service is now available on Microsoft’s Windows® Azure with Linux availability following later in 2012. “RenderMan On Demand” offers nearly instantaneous burst rendering access to hundreds and even thousands of additional cores, enabling artists and studios to deliver the highest-quality cinematic imagery with unprecedented economy and efficiency.

Today’s announcement is the result of an extensive development effort incorporating the expertise and feedback of both RenderMan users and GreenButton technical personnel with production experience. The initial phase of “RenderMan On Demand” is targeted at small to medium-sized studios based on Microsoft Windows environments. Over the next two years “RenderMan On Demand” will be expanded into a comprehensive solution for users of all levels and studios of all sizes.

For more information, click here....

January 2012

Los Angeles, January 9, 2012 - The Visual Effects Society (VES) today announced the nominees for its 10th Annual VES Awards ceremony recognizing outstanding visual effects artistry in 23 categories of film, animation, television, commercials, special venues and video games. Nominees were chosen Saturday, January 7 by distinguished panels of VES members who viewed submissions at the FotoKem screening facilities in Burbank and New York, FotoKem’s Spy in San Francisco, and other facilities in London, Sydney, Vancouver and Wellington, NZ.

As previously announced, Stan Lee will be honored with the VES 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award and Douglas Trumbull with the Georges Méliès Award. The 10th Annual VES Awards will take place on Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel and will air exclusively on ReelzChannel.

To see the full list of nominees click here....

27th January 2012

This week the guys discuss the Oscars, Kodak and are joined in the RED Room by ARRI's Stephan Ukas-Bradley to discuss the ARRI Master Primes.

27th January 2012

fxguide talks to Kimball Thurston from Reliance MediaWorks about Lowry Digital's Sci-Tech Oscar - and they pay tribute to film restoration pioneer John D. Lowry who sadly passed away this week.

23rd January 2012

Mike Seymour sits down with Animation Supervisor Paul Kavanagh to talk about ILM's work on Red Tails.

12th January 2012

Mike Seymour, Matt Leonard and Jason Diamond discuss the story and visual effects of Brad Bird's live-action feature film directorial debut, Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol.

15th November 2011

American Cinematographer’s Jean Oppenheimer hosts a wide-ranging discussion with Conrad Hall, Jr. about the challenges and happy accidents of shooting OKA! in a remote pygmy village in the Central African forest. He details his approach to lighting the film, attempting to capture the natural beauty of the people and the locale with a limited equipment package, as well as working with the local Bayaka tribe as both actors and crew.