Tag Archives: pixel nerd stuff

Online VFX Software Demos

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Staying on top of the latest software developments and additions to our VFX tools can be a tall order.  It’s one of the primary missions of VFX/PDX – to make sure Portland isn’t left out or behind when it comes to the latest and greatest, and that our high end workload continues to be demolished with high end tools.  VFX/PDX is your man out on I-5, flagging down would-be software company passerbys as they roll up from San Fran on to Vancouver.  Hey – VFX ovahh heaaaahh!

Recently some software co’s are experimenting with taking demos online.  Where these types of presentations used to be only relevant to the “decision makers,” it’s becoming more relevant to the good folks like us working in the trenches as well.  The game changes fast.  Why not check one out?  Some artists swear by the ol’ “life drawing” lunch hour to exercise a different side of their brain, why not take a look at a different compositing package or modeling program?

Nothing beats an in-person demo with a demo artist who knows what they’re doing and can answer questions tailored to our specific problems. It’s not as good as in person, but online still allows for questions and some amount of interactivity.

At the moment – The Foundry is offering occasional presentations on their latest tools and how they connect with each other, which is especially cool given the acquisition of modo.  They most recently ran a round in November and are gearing up for more.  Watch The Foundry News page for more info or create an account and sign up for news emails.

In a few short days, Autodesk will be showing off the latest improvements to Flame, which is always something to keep an eye on for it’s superior commercial centric compositing workflow.  Check out the presentation details here, and get signed up.

The Mayans Were Right

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Oh yeah, it’s going to go down all right.  Those crackpot Apolcalyptos were, in fact, right about something.  Something big. Just hold your loved ones close and try to think happy thoughts:

Stay calm… and puft.

 

Ok, truth serum.  It’s actually something really small that’s about to go down, and I doubt the Mayans had foretold this although granted they do a better job than whoever’s doing the fortune cookies at Sweet Lemon.

Yeah, the building block of images as we know it is about to change.  That’s all.

He was a lover, not a fighter…

It’s flying pretty low under the radar so I thought I’d mention it.  A group of UK academics have finally cracked the code(c) that will allow vectors to be encoded as resolutionless video files.

Anyone who’s used Adobe Illustrator knows the power of the vector. Nice sharp edges at any size, unlike in Photoshop when you scale something up, cringe, and turn to the person next to you and ask if it looks too blurry?  Yeah, but I mean, I really want to use this 320×240 google image in my shot…  think I can blow this up 400% and it’ll fly?  ha ha.

A better example might be the old video game Star Wars.  That one’s chock full of vector technology circa 1983(?), and don’t you sleep better at night knowing that you could blow the death star up on a jumbotron if you wanted, and it would remain as razor sharp as sharp can be.   But honestly, Red 5, don’t even waste your time standing by at Ground Kontrol downtown, because Adam Yoder has all of the high scores locked up until the end of time. Which might be next week.

It’s the end of images as we know it… and I feel fine.

They promise more info on these outlandish claims to go along with their images, but some preliminary bits and bobs are posted up here – check ’em out:

http://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/vsv/

Eat Your Greens

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…and your reds and your blues too .  Thank you very much, Portland Farmer’s Market!

As digital artists, color is something we deal with every day.  You can bank on that when you walk in the door each morning.  There will be color!  Yet few take the time to understand how the color pipeline works in our VFX tools.

Mostly because the science behind it has historically been hard to digest.  Like broccoli.  What, you don’t like peas?  Digesting how a pixel gets from VFX software to your eyeball is going to take a lot of graphs and pie charts.  Mmmm, pie!  Now that’s something worth digesting.  Brussel sprouts?  Not so much.  But they’re good for you, and you gotta occasionally gag them down.

Luckily for us, genius-type Jeremy Selan (the Godfather of Katana over at Sony Imageworks) has picked up the torch from Steve Wright and made things more towards pie rather than sprouts.  Yes, Steve “The Guy Who Wrote the Book I Throw at My Comp Class and Jr Compositor’s Heads And Hope it Knocks Some Sense Into Them” Wright.  Or maybe just Steve “The Blue Book Guy” Wright is easier to digest?   …and this is all about easy digestion today as opposed to concussions.  But what this isn’t about is Steve.  Still a must read, his book did a very good thing and explained part of the puzzle, which is kind of the “how a pixel becomes law” approach to end to end gamma down the chain.

Jeremy raises the bid so much I think he just went all in, Texas Hold ‘Em style.  He’s just unleashed a white paper called Cinematic Color:  From Your Monitor to the Big Screen that is pure, unadulterated, Grade A certified gold.  Nah…  platinum.  It doesn’t get any better than this.

Obscure bits like CIE colorspace – that of your own human eyeballs?

In there.

Linear workflow?  Covering both display-linear and scene-linear?

Check!

Macbeth charts?  Marcie?  3D Color Polyhedrons?

Oh yeah.  And more.

Ah Marcie, makin’ hair highlights look good (since 1994)

Sure, it’s both dorky AND nerdy.  I’d darn near call it nerky!  But it also accounts for why things occasionally look right or wrong on your screen, and is an essential step in tracking gremlins down when things get messy and color nodes and lighting tools stop doing what you expect them to.

This is the de facto color pipeline document to end all color pipeline documents, fully vetted by the VES brain trust and free for mass consumption.  Pick yourself up a copy and more info here.

And 1000 thank yous to Jeremy for putting this together and putting years of research and expertise out there.  Hats off to ya.  By the way, nice black and white website.  🙂

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