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New Website! -Tumblr closing, new integrated blog opening...
Sphere VFX is delighted to announce our new website has been launched. Packed full of information on all our on-line courses, the video training we offer, our free resources and much more.
One of the new features which comes with the website is a built in blog, this means we have migrated everything from here (Tumblr) over to the new site and we'll be closing this blog within the month.
For a direct link to the new blog use: http://www.spherevfx.com/blog
To visit the new website please use our normal address: http://www.spherevfx.com
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Post Magazine features Sphere VFX!
Issue: May 1, 2013
Sphere training targets VFX
NEWPORT, UK — Sphere VFX (www.spherevfx.com) has been providing training services since 2006. The company offer training both online and in a classroom setting...
Read the full article here.
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Reduced price on Legacy Series videos
spherevfx is delighted to announce the reduction of some of our older DVD's.
These have now been made avalible as online downloaded and at the reduced price of £10 each.
Titles include:
Nuke 6.1 New Features (199 mins)
Nuke 5 In-Depth 3D (392 mins)
Fusion 6 Foundations (226 mins)
Fusion 5 In-Depth 3D (252 mins)
All video series come with assets and project files, and are available for immediate download.
To buy now visit: http://www.spherevfx.com/html/trainingDVD_01.htm
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VFX Pioneer Ray Harryhausen Dies At Age 92
Visual effects master Ray Harryhausen, whose stop-motion wizardry graced such films as JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS and CLASH OF THE TITANS, has died aged 92. The American animator made his models by hand and painstakingly shot them frame by frame to create some of the best-known battle sequences in cinema. His death was confirmed to the BBC by a representative of the family. "Harryhausen's genius was in being able to bring his models alive," said an official statement from his foundation. "Whether they were prehistoric dinosaurs or mythological creatures, in Ray's hands they were no longer puppets but became instead characters in their own right." Born in Los Angeles in June 1920, Raymond Frederick Harryhausen had a passion for dinosaurs as a child that led him to make his own versions of prehistoric creatures. Films like 1925's THE LOST WORLD and the 1933 version of KING KONG stoked that passion and prompted him to seek out a meeting with Willis O'Brien, a pioneer in the field of model animation.
Harryhausen went on to make some of the fantasy genre's best-known movies, among them MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. and a series of films based on the adventures of Sinbad the sailor. He is perhaps best remembered for animating the seven skeletons who come to life in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, a sequence which took him three months to film, and for the Medusa who turned men to stone in TITANS. Harryhausen inspired a generation of film directors, from Steven Spielberg and James Cameron to Peter Jackson of the Lord of the Rings fame. Peter Lord of Aardman Animations was quick to pay tribute, describing him as "a one-man industry and a one-man genre" on Twitter. "I loved every single frame of Ray Harryhausen's work," tweeted Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright. "He was the man who made me believe in monsters." The veteran animator donated his complete collection - about 20,000 objects - to the National Media Museum in Bradford in 2010.
Text from BBC News.
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Industrial Light and Magic: Hao Li
A few interesting videos have appeared recently on the internet by Hao Li (Researcher, ILM).
The first one is looking at 'Realtime Facial Animation With On-the-Fly Correctives' based on the Siggraph paper by Hao Li, Jihun Yu, Yuting Ye and Chris Bregler.
The video link is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7y2RZdyZK0
and the Siggraph paper link is:
http://www.hao-li.com/publications/papers/siggraph2013RTFAOC.pdf
The second video is a Faculty Interview from the Department of Computer Science, Columbia University earlier this year. It's title is 'Geometric Capture of Human Performances' and the link can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQfiGUhMaeQ
The final video is entitled 'Structure-Aware Hair Capture' and is again based on a Siggraph paper coming this year.
The link for the final video is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCgWMIYGbV8
Enjoy.
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FMX 2013
Matt Leonard (Head of Training) and Ben Greasley (Senior Training) from spherevfx were delighted to have attended this years FMX is Germany. Among the presentations we attended were:
Cloud Atlas with RISE
The Art of MPC – 9 Years of Movie Visual Effects Design
Le Big Shift in VFX
An Interview with Kim Libreri
The "unfilmable" Life of Pi with Rhythm & Hues
Panel Discussion on the Future of the VFX Industry
The Evolution of Katana
Hair Rendering in Tomb Raider
Physically Based Shading in Game Engines
Art & Design of Pacific Rim
Skyfall Title Sequence: The journey from Concept Art to Final Picture
VFX: What Is Broken, And What Can Games Do to Fix It?
"Iron Man 3" at Trixter
Weta Digital: VFX for Iron Man 3
The Blue Umbrella
During the week we were able to catch up with a number of friends in the industry including Rob Bredow and Steve LeVietes (Sony Picture Imageworks), Don Parker (Shotgun Software) and Kim Libreri (Lucasfilm).
Also Ben was delighted to have demonstrated Arnold for Maya on behalf of Solid Angle alongside Founder, Software Architect Marcos Fajardo.
Finally Matt was also able to contribute to a number of fxguide stories during the week which can be read here:
Day 1 at FMX 2013 – Pixar, Cloud Atlas, Life of Pi, Katana, V-Ray
Day 2 at FMX 2013 – Lara Croft’s hair, Arnold, MPC’s FX tools, OpenSubdiv
#fmx#ilm#mpc#vfx#autodesk#lifeofpi#katana#tombraider#skyfall#ironman3#blueumbrella#weta#trixter#pacificrim#imb#hdri#imageworks#fxguide#rhythm and hues
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'arnold for maya' video series goes live!
The Arnold for Maya training series is now available for purchase! Included is 6 hours 30 minutes of step by step HD video training, taking you through the whole of Arnold for Maya. And all the assets, textures, and models to follow along.
The video series covers:
Introduction
File Structure
Arnold as a Render Engine
Sampling
Ray Depth
Environment
Motion Blur
Light Settings
Gamma Correction
Texture Settings
System Settings
AOV's (Arbitrary Output Variables)
Diagnostics
Overrides
Shadows and Visibility
Export Option
SSS (Subsurface Scattering) Option
Subdivision Options
Displacement Option
Render Curves
Point Lights
Stop Lights
Directional Lights
Area Lights
Arnold Area Lights
Mesh Lights
Skydome Lights
Shader Compatibility
Standard Shader
SSS (Subsurface Scattering) Skin Shader
Hair Shader
Ray Switch Shader
AO (Ambient Occlusion) Shader
Wireframe Shader
Utility Shader
Shader Catcher Shader
Displacement Mapping
Perspective Cameras
Cylindrical Cameras
Spherical Camera
Fisheye Cameras
Orthographic Cameras
Volume Fluids
Particles
Stand-Ins
Make .tx
Kick .ass
Sign Off
To purchase, click here...
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What's new in Nuke 7.0v2
Nuke has been updated to use OCIO version 1.0.7.
ModelBuilder: The Bake scene selection button has been split into a Selected geometry dropdown and Bake button.
Nuke now automatically discards any channels that are not referenced in the script when it is saved.
The DPX reader now supports infra red (IR) passes produced using FilmLight’s Northlight film scanner.
Nuke now reads R3D file metadata and converts the gamma space setting to Linear automatically.
Nuke now supports ARRIRAW files.
The Create Points button has been reverted to the Nuke 6.3 name, Create Scene, and now creates a Camera, PointCloud, and Scene with a single click.
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Nuke and Hiero News from NAB 2013
Now everyone is back from NAB in Las Vegas we thought we'd post about one of the exciting tech demo The Foundry showed.
First off it's worth noting this is just a tech demo and not something thats going to be released next week, but what we saw was an embedding of Nuke into Hiero, working as single entity.
Jon Wadelton (Nuke Product Manager) and Matt Plec (Product Designer) ran the demo and showed a number of exciting developments in what could be.
First off the ability to create a 'new comp' effects track which is based off an existing video track inside of Hiero. This created an embedded Nuke comp directly inside of Hiero where normal Nuke nodes can be added into the composite which directly feeds back into Hiero. This enables everything from advanced color correct to keying to full 3D compositing to be achieved without leading the Hiero UI. From what we saw no pre-rendering was needed and the new comp flowed back into Hiero seamlessly. During the demo Jon also showed off a new Text tool for Nuke and a new 'MatchGrade' node which was demoed along side OpenColorIO (http://opencolorio.org).
Towards the end of the demo Matt Plec talked about the new Hiero integration with ftrack (http://www.ftrack.com), a collaborating to introduce a next generation, ease-of-use workflow between ftrack and Hiero. This will allow Hiero customers to benefit from a modern asset and production management system from the outset. Hiero will continue to play well with other products on the market, but will be prepackaged with ftrack integration out of the box.
What we saw was pretty phenomenal and shows The Foundry continuing to listen to its customers needs and the ongoing production of some amazing visual effects tools.
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In fxphd's 'Intermediate KATANA' course we'll take everything we learnt in KAT101 and put it into practice by adding a CG character into two live action plates. During the term we'll be working with 3D tracking data and building stand-in geometry for the environments using MAYA. We'll be completing look development within KATANA for an entire character along with various environment assets as required. When it comes to lighting the scenes we'll be utilizing 'localized HDR lighting' with KATANA using RenderMan's Global Illumination technology and then setting up various render-passes. Finally we'll move into NUKE to complete the final compositing. This course is a natural progression from our first 100 level KATANA course and fantastic for anyone interested in state-of-the-art Look Development and Lighting techniques.
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Welcome to the SphereVFX video series on Arnold for Maya!
In this 6 hour series we are going through all the knobs, buttons, and options available to us in Arnold for Maya and get to grips with the workflow and methods of Arnold.
Download page now live!
http://spherevfx.com/html/video_01_ArnoldForMaya.htm
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An extensive behind the scenes look and the new Tom Cruise film "Oblivion". From a visual effects stand point, it's very interesting to see the use of full size vehicle props, and rear projected backdrops filmed in camera rather than green screen.
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Their coverage is divided into two parts, which can be viewed on Ustream. They've be posting individual segments later this week, but in the meantime enjoy these.
Also sure to register below to win cool prizes in The Foundry’s giveaway.
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The Foundry has released updates to Hiero and Hieroplayer, its family of shot-management, conform and review tools, and announced a new collaboration with production-tracking software developer ftrack.
New features in version 1.7 of the software largely affect editing workflow:
Modal editorial tools
The addition of select, select track, slip and slide, roll, retime, razor, razor all, join and popular ripple functionality.
Source/record 3-point editorial layout
Provides familiar editorial feel and the ability to insert and overwrite clips from the source view directly into the timeline through the use of three point editing techniques.
Extended keyboard editorial interface
Improves editorial workflow with in-depth precision clip or edit selection and nudging, playhead shuttling from timecode, extended JKL and more, all directly from the keyboard.
Audio
Hiero and HieroPlayer now support stereo audio output/export and the ability to switch tracks between left, right, and mono.
In-viewer jog and shuttle controls
Offers fast and intuitive control of frame shuttling directly in the viewer through the mouse for precision playback and review.
Improved playback
Hiero now has an improved playback system with audio enhancements that include stereo bounce down and latency adjustments.
Exports
A new option has been added to the Preference > Colour Management submenu, Use OCIO nodes when exporting in Nuke.
Performance improvements
Improvements come in the form of a faster viewer render pipeline, cache dumping, JPEG performance tweaks and audio waveform caching for better performance.
File format support
Where possible, R3D and ARRIRAW files are now linearised after their respective SDK outputs.
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For this you need to edit your ‘menu.py’ script which is found in…
OSX - /Applications/Nuke [version number]/Nuke [version number].app/Contents/MacOS/plugins
Windows XP - \Program Files\Nuke [version number]\plugins
Scroll down to approximately line 185 and you will find ‘#Layout menu’ and the code shown below…
# Layout menu m = menubar.addMenu("&Layout")
m.addCommand("Restore Layout 1 (startup default)", "nuke.restoreWindowLayout(1)", "+F1")
m.addCommand("Restore Layout 2", "nuke.restoreWindowLayout(2)", "+F2")
m.addCommand("Restore Layout 3", "nuke.restoreWindowLayout(3)", "+F3")
m.addCommand("Restore Layout 4", "nuke.restoreWindowLayout(4)", "+F4")
m.addCommand("Restore Layout 5", "nuke.restoreWindowLayout(5)", "+F5")
m.addCommand("Restore Layout 6", "nuke.restoreWindowLayout(6)", "+F6")
Edit and save as needed, my version is show below as an example.
# Layout menu m = menubar.addMenu("&Layout")
m.addCommand("Restore Sphere VFX Layout (startup default)", "nuke.restoreWindowLayout(1)", "+F1")
m.addCommand("Restore Original Layout", "nuke.restoreWindowLayout(2)", "+F2")
m.addCommand("Restore Layout 3", "nuke.restoreWindowLayout(3)", "+F3")
m.addCommand("Restore Layout 4", "nuke.restoreWindowLayout(4)", "+F4")
m.addCommand("Restore Layout 5", "nuke.restoreWindowLayout(5)", "+F5")
m.addCommand("Restore Layout 6", "nuke.restoreWindowLayout(6)", "+F6")
This code can also go in your custom .nuke folder within menu.py
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Working along side Ian Murphy (Compositing Coach) spherevfx was again pleased to have trained artist at Factory Pictures in NukeX. Factory Pictures is Northern Ireland’s leading VFX facility, located a stone’s throw away from Titanic Studios and specialise in environments, digital matte paintings and CGI.
During the course we covered:
Multipass Compositing
Coverage Mapping
Photo Accurate Pan and Tile
Multipass Compositing
2D / 3D Tracking
Camera Effects
Deep Compositing
Maya - Nuke: Alembic Cache Pipeline
spherevfx was also able to provide consultancy on some live projects running through the studio.
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Maya 2014 New Feature
Autodesk have finally added a way of creating a new camera from the perspective viewport in Maya 2014, "ctrl+shift+C" in any perspective view will create a new camera from that perspective.
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