OINKFROG blog

Novina Works

2012-02-06T22:03:00.000+11:00

I found the work of the Novina studio via their most recent 3d CG animation for the Warsaw Royal Castle destruction and reconstruction. Their website is kinda fun (if a little overdone), but they have extra vids and works to explore. Anyhow here are their videos for the Polish castle and the international violin competition. Both have a playful pulsing dynamic that brings an interesting character to these topics - cool.

Colossal Site

2012-02-06T08:51:00.003+11:00

I dont often cover a site per-se preferring to look at works of various sorts - but having found this site I am so impressed with the artwork that is covered (it is clearly of a type/style that appeals to me) - I just wanted to splash some around...

Visiting Colossal reveals the gorgeous images of artistic endeavour followed by the next and the next and so on like any good bloglike site. All this without much in the way of ads all over the place ruining the experience - it is very clean by today's blog standards. Nice work Christopher Jobson. Here are some images from recent posts that show off the range. Not too many specifically digital works here, but digital elements eek their way into many things these days:

[Artwork featured on the Colossal site - great work by the artists and a cool site]

Star Wars matte paintings and commercials

2012-02-05T20:04:00.001+11:00

Having just watched the second disk of special features from the Star Wars bluray box set, I am again completely inspired by the vast amount of work put in by so many talented people. The disks feature a wealth of content on the concept, design and evolution of every aspect of the films elements. Here though I just wanted to call out the incredible matte paintings, which we just take for granted when watching as being amazing worlds and exotic locations.

Here are 4 lovely examples on the wookiepedia site of the huge number made for the 6 films:

[Star Wars matte paintings via wookiepedia]

---

But while we are here talking Star Wars here are some VW commercials using the license - and a reply:

Candy for the Soul

2012-02-04T10:40:00.002+11:00

Here is Candy for the Soul on UNSWtv, the winner of the Best Animation Award at COFA in 2011. The creative students were David Yau, Johnni Kha, Pearl Lai and Jay Fei and Audrey Houssard and they succeeded in creating a fun little world. Their names link to their pages in the 2011 COFA Annual where they hove other works and some production images from this piece. Clearly student work, but some really nice ideas and realisation of character and concepts from the Bachelor of Digital Media.

Here are a few of the production images that reveal more of the depth and work that goes into work like this behind the scenes.

[Production images for Candy for the Soul via the COFA Annual site]

---

While you are here you should get a laugh from the Sheep Cyclone

Light Festival

2012-02-02T21:28:00.000+11:00

Check out some of the super pieces at the 2012 Light Festival in Ghent, Belgium. The idea of light-centric architecture isnt new of course, but modern tech can take the idea in clever and artistic directions. The LED Cathedral is the centre piece of the festival and it is covered by ThisIsColossal.

[LED Cathedral images via Stijn Coppens Flickr stream]

I like the simplicity of the actual glittering detail being the actual light source, zany as the design might be. In the same way as stained glass in a cathedral like Sainte Chapelle in Paris with its towering windows of backlit glass - this self illuminating work is a visual feast. I loved our RL visit to Sainte Chapelle btw, superb piece of architecture and so bright as they restore the panels.

Check the site for more info and the vid below for some of the other pieces in the Festival.

Gorgeous Guildwars Graphics Goodness

2012-02-01T22:31:00.002+11:00

The effort that MMO veterans NCSOFT are putting into Guild Wars 2 looks very impressive. Not only from a graphics/audio/effects/design perspective but with new and exciting gameplay logics that will hopefully challenge many of the mainstays of the whole MMO sphere.
Lets take a little tour of some of these elements kicking off (as always seems appropriate) with a full no mercy trailer:

So much going on here in terms of characters, classes, creatures, landscapes. The look reminds me a fair bit of Everquest 2, with some nice animation in places, though it still has the floaty game engine feel. I particularly like those zombies coming out of the water and the dragonlike creature.

The trailer features some animated concept artwork as well as some preview 3D gameplayish footage. The media page on the site has some, but nothing new, so lets look at screenshots instead. As the development has continued the site has added more images to keep us checking in and here are some that really show off the design and graphical aesthetic they are going for:

[Guild Wars 2 Promo Screenshots via the official site]

I have posted before on the gameplay and concept changes - but, back to the concept art, as I truly love that aspect and what better place to look than GuildWars2Guru that has extensive forums and more on the game and heaps of concept art for us to admire including these:

[Guild Wars 2 Concept Art via GuildWars2Guru]

Also see some of Matt Barrett's building sketches on the same site (plus there's more of course).

Lastly 2 pieces from Kekai's blog - beautiful work:

[Kekai concept art for Guild Wars2 via his blog]

Some Neato Optical Illusions

2012-01-31T21:38:00.000+11:00

This photo that created such a wonderful accidental optical illusion is one I have been meaning to blog about for a while. As with most of my favourite illusions, I love how it still works so well even after the illusion is seen/revealed. Plus I just like the simplicity here.

This next one has done the rounds on various sites, and though it looks like Beyonce it is an Indian Actress whos name escapes me for the sec. I love the reaction you get from people for this one - the gasps! Even though we know the science for this, it is still so so cool.

This trippy image is far more potent than many of this type and really does show off how easy it is to trick our big brains. This one is so active it feels like an animated gif. Similarly these ones with the animated dots are cool as well.

Here are the links to these with the commentary on the Mighty Optical Illusions site - though they are sourced from all over the place:
Flying Carpet
Inverse Actress
Trippy Bean Wall

Vidsorama

2012-01-30T23:05:00.000+11:00

Here are a few videos that present some interesting ideas and realisations with the medium.

Hello
This is a super clever mashup taking an armada of movie clips to bring Lionel's song to life in a whole new way. Some nice patience in the editing as well and something that would be fun to try if only I knew how to start such a thing - finding all the clips one at a time...

Green Hornet Multi Split Screen
We were talking about split screen ideas for work the other day and that reminded me of this sequence in the Green Hornet - lovely stuff.

GWTDT Intro
Some nice CG work to bring this concept to life for the intro of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

New Vimeo
This is a clever little vid showing off where Vimeo is headed, such nice editing and realisation.

Address is Approximate
One last classy realisation of an elegant idea

MMOs

2012-01-20T09:14:00.000+11:00

The number of quality MMOs active now is vast and more join the fun all the time. No brand new MMO can get it right out of the box, but SWTOR seems to be doing better than most. There is a pervading logic to the gameplay for the whole genre which only changes slightly across an array of titles. Even though there is alot of sameyness, within each game they do cater to different playstyles of course. There is the trend towards Free2play with Star Trek Online joining City of Heroes, LOTRO and others.
With things only shifting slowly in the MMO arena it does leave the space open for bold experiments in this space, but it is very very expensive to try. There are lots of little things that I would like to see evolve, find a way not to need separate 'servers' for people - bring the community together in one vast 'world' (EVE style). Have the AI/NPCs go about their lives and not stand there ready for us to slay right in front of the next set. See if we can find a way to have what is done stay done, how many thousands of times must players retrieve the locket for an NPC before they stop losing is at the bottom of a flooded mine... I like what Bioware have done with the story side of SWTOR and some of the promises that Guild Wars 2 might bring are interesting.

Anyhow, lets throw in some gorgeous visuals from some of these titles - oh if there was time to taste them all !!!

Star Trek Online
Now free2play and looking great even under the shadow that is SWTOR at the moment. The graphics dont seem to have the fidelity that I would like to see though, to pick up a game I want to be excited by it on multiple levels.

[STO Screenshots via the official site]

---

Guild Wars 2
A better update soon, but this video is great great great and a pair of teaser screenshots before I look in more detail as well.

[Guild Wars 2 Screenshots via the official site]

---

As always I like to swing by MMORPG.com to see where things are at as well, but really all the big news at the moment is around Star Wars the Old Republic. Here is their upcoming changes vid:

Electroshock

2012-01-17T08:06:00.001+11:00

The shot french animated film Electroshock is exquisitely crafted and is a real standout in terms of every facet of short film making. We have some nice writing supported by groovy production in all categories from design, modelling, animation, lighting, editing and sound.
The fact that this little jewel was created by a suite of students at ESMA (Ecole Supérieure des Métiers Artistiques) makes it all the more impressive - what is not to like!

The Electroshock Facebook page has mor einfo and images from the production which is great, seeing behind the scenes shows even more clearly how much effort and skill goes into such things.

[Production images from Electroshock via their facebook page]

Titanic Mod

2012-01-16T22:39:00.001+11:00

The staggering volume and quality of the work put into this CryEngine 3 mod by the team at ORM Entertainment really shows off the amazing vessel that the Titanic must have been. The Titanic: Adventure Out of Time blog is the home of the project with guides and links to all manner of info. Seeing the attention to detail with the models as well as operating doors, blinds, toilets and so on.

Here is the killer Update #5 Video to start off.

There are some tempting images on the site for the interiors as well - but they are all low res - darn it.

Arrietty

2012-01-12T21:23:00.000+11:00

Studio Ghibli's latest film is The Secret World of Arrietty which takes on Mary Norton’s book series “The Borrowers” which suits the charm of the studio to a tee. Here are three trailer versions showing how the same film in Japanese, American and British can have quite a different feel and quality. All of them look gorgeous and I like those Brit accents.

Here are some of the stills released that show off things:

Real Time Architecture

2012-01-09T15:40:00.003+11:00

Having spent a little time over the last few days with some of the work being done here at UNSW Built Environment with repect to bringing in Architectural models into real-time environments like CryEngine I had a quick browse through some videos on Autodesk Showcase.

Showcase takes data from packages like Revit and manhandles them into a semi-attractive real-time walkthrough or flythrough engine. There are some nice features like the sectioning and the expected features of floor/wall detection etc. That said it certainly doesnt have the audio, visual and emotional richness we are getting with the CryEngine Free SDK.

Being able to link Industry apps like Revit with the vanguard of visualisation tools would be a nice future for all. With PlayUp doing such a great job with Sketchup, the bar has been set and there is plenty of room to grow from there.

SW-TOR Tempation

2012-01-08T22:13:00.000+11:00

With the release of Star Wars : The Old Republic MMO by BIOWARE the temptation to head over and join the Jedi and Sith going at it is very high. When we were all blown away by each cinematic trailer as it came, I was somewhat let down by the actual gameplay footage. But now watching more videos the look isnt bad and the storytelling focus that BIOWARE have brought to the MMO looks very attractive.

MMOs generally arent too hot when they first release and take some time to mature, generally the longer the better. Even the king of the MMO, WoW, is a vastly improved game now than the revelation it was all those years ago at release time. So, dive in now with all the hype or wait until things settle and the content starts fleshing out and the initial chaotic bubble of players calms down??
The key is clearly having some friends (or family) to play with and everyone's fun and investment in WoW is always there - calling...

Before we throw some cool videos showing off characters, story, gameplay and more - check out the CGSociety article for some info and imagery on design and modelling for the game.

[SWTOR Modelling images via the CGSociety article]

ok VID Time:

Affinity Software

2012-01-05T09:30:00.000+11:00

I was watching some of the promo vids for Trelligence Affinity which offers a pretty extensive set of tools and integrations for doing architectural programming. I like the links with sketchup and BIM and the logic of designing to a detailed specification of rooms and relationships.
It will be interesting to see if software like this is intuitive enough to bring into the design degrees, it seems as though it would be, though not appropriate for all design studios I am sure some would derive great benefit from the rigor.

Eat3D CryEngine Vids

2012-01-04T21:31:00.000+11:00

I have started to work through the Eat3D videos: CryENGINE 3 vol 1-3 Introduction and Application. Just watching Crytek's Hélder Pinto do his little intro as he flies around a gorgeous level created with the freeSDK is inspiring. Admittedly having only watched through the first 4 parts so far we are getting a slow and steady intro to the editor - but I am keen to see it all come together. The vids arent too expensive, I grabbed the download versions rather than the DVDs, the quality seems great so far!

I will have to work through some 3ds Max tutes when I want to swap in another app...

Three Vids

2012-01-04T16:47:00.000+11:00

Some videos that are sitting here demanding to get their day of glory on the blog - they just wont quit with the nagging.

Out of Sight is a delightful Grad project takes a nice idea and delivers for us. I like the polite cuteness of the whole thing, good films dont have to be edgy and confronting. The polish and production quality is really very high, put that on top of a lovely idea and this is a must watch.

The Embrace Life TVC I saw first on Gruen Transfer and was suitable amazed. Really poetic work and wonderfully executed.

What's not to love about a Dark Knight Rises trailer. Seeing The Dark Knight on IMAX was an intense experience, seeing this trailer reminds me of that and a hankering to do it again!

LA AutoShow Design Challenge

2012-01-04T10:08:00.000+11:00

I always enjoy seeing the fun that designers have with the Auto Show competitions. They go far beyond a few thumbnail sketches, creating complex fleshed out designs and renderings. The 2011 LA AutoShow Challenge had a movie star theme which gave the entries a different feel. Here are some images from entries in this "Hollywood’s Hottest New Movie Car" Design Challenge which brought something interesting to the table in design and presentation - see the site for more:

[LA Auto Show Design Challenge Images via the official site]

and a vid as well:

Crysis2 Concept Art

2011-12-20T08:55:00.000+11:00

Some more concept art for Crysis2 is up on CGtopia by Viktor Jonsson. It is inspirational to see these environments come alive in his illustrations to such a level that they feel playable. Here we have mood and detail, colour and lighting. Here are a couple, but see the post for more:

[Crysis2 concept art by Viktor Jonsson via CGtopia]

Techy Bits

2011-12-19T22:47:00.000+11:00

Here are a few interesting bits of tech that swam past over the last little bit that are worthy of a few seconds of blogginess:

Throwable Spherical Panoramic Camera Ball

The Ball Camera is a clean and simple idea of having enough cameras in a throwable ball so you can get a 360 degree look at a spot once thrown. Quality of the splicing looks like it could be better/smoother, but the video speaks for itself - clever.
.
Sony HMZ-T1 3DTV Headset
The idea of nice headsets for VR or AR is till something waiting for something of a revolution. We generally dont want to have silly headsets on, but when the quality gets good enough to blow our socks off we will change our minds fast enough. We wear headphones for things and when 3D vision headsets give us full peripheral screens at hi-res we will don them as well and it will be super.

I am doubtful Sony's HMZ-T1 headset will be what is needed - but perhaps it is another little step along the way - maybe it will be a big step, bringing a fully realised commercial product to market.

Here is the same unit with some head tracking thrown in:

HP Envy Laptops
While we dont seem to get these HP Envy Laptop babies in Oz (why?) there are things worthy of note. The design is frustratingly too much like the MacBookPro. We know the MBP design is gorgeous, but that doesnt mean there arent other designs for laptops that can look just as good. Sigh - HP have crafted a laptop that looks basically the same...

[HP Envy Laptop promo image via the official site]

Looks arent everything though, the laptop boast some serious hardware including the 3D screen and some nice sub-systems.

WoW TCG Artwork

2011-11-13T21:06:00.001+11:00

With the family still enjoying some WoW-time together here and there I like some of this artwork that has been created for the World of Warcraft TCG. WHile some of the pieces might just be nifty illustrations of the basic races and classes and generic enemies, some are loving representations of some of the cooler characters and instance bosses that we all remember. Check the site for more, but here are some to lure you there:

[World of Warcraft TCG images via the official site]

Thor

2011-11-04T08:24:00.000+11:00

Got to watch the Thor bluray the other day and they have done a great job in bringing another Avenger to the screen for us. This time we have a tale spread across the stars as well as time with our gods living so long. The environments of Asgard and Jotunheim contrast so beautifully with the simplicity of the New Mexico desert and township. We get another stirring tale of powerful people strugglign to understand their role in things, but in this case the main struggle is far far away with the politics and struggle between the mighty Norse gods and the Frost Giants which spills over onto Earth.

Kenneth Branagh assembled a great cast, we get Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins bringing their class to Aussie Chris Hemsworth's ripped Thor. The sound stands out in the film (as it has in many the recent superhero movies) - lifting the experience for us into the other realms and to the right plane for thinking all supery.
The occasional tie to the Avengers here reinforces this concept that we are leading upto something huge, something that will require Nick Fury's whole team to tackle (plus with Joss a the helm, whats not to love).

The CG and visual effects were stellar, the world of the front giants feels cold, the magical technology of Asgard transports us there and the blasts and power of our God of Thunder are fully integrated. See the CGSociety article for more detail and some great production images like these:

[Thor CG imagery via the CGSociety article]

Here is some gorgeous concept art done for the film by Michael Kutsch and Craig Shoji. They have each designed and captured character, environment, prop and mood of these grand places and the heroes/villains - inspirational stuff. See their respective sites for much more, but here is a taste:

Michael Kutsch

[Thor concept art by Michael Kutsch via his site]

Craig Shoji

[Thor concept art by Craig Shoji via his site]

Game Trailers

2011-11-01T22:17:00.001+11:00

Just saw the review of Battlefield3 and Uncharted3 on GoodGame, so thought that was good enough inspiration for some Gaming videos of cool things around atm or soon to be. It is incredible the number of things modern games can have going on at once on screen for us, while we may have a fair way to go to reach 'reality', they are still a joy to behold. The modelling, animation, effects and gameplay are all very mature now...

Windows 8 Preview

2011-11-01T17:49:00.002+11:00

Well I took the plunge and have downloaded the Windows 8 Developer Preview from dev.windows.com and thrown it onto my HP 2760P to see how it handles the touch screen and so forth - or perhaps just as importantly how I handle it.

The Install
Downloading was simple, the ISO just needed unpacking so the install could proceed from a USB key (thanks Jas). Super super smooth after hitting the setup.exe as it nicely went about the upgrade in maybe 10 mins or so with just the one restart. Most of my devices were detected by the install, not sure what I am missing yet - but the key things are there.

First Baby Steps
Well talk about a confusing start, the whole concept of the green start screen thing is quite mystifying still. Esp as the installation has hidden all my previously installed apps away from me...
The splitting up of the new apps and the more regular desktop experience feels highly disjointed. Though ALT-TAB works, this is far from the joy of the Win7 taskbar with all its clever icons, aero preview and unified logic. The idea of strangely discovering which part of the screen I can swipe over to get things to come up is odd. Plus the intuitive thing might be to swipe up at the edge to get something to appear - but to get it to go away again, why swipe up again :-)

Progress?
First real problem is getting onto the wireless network, that is just giving me unhelpful errors so far. Moving on I have started to re-install apps, that seems to be what is needed and the WIn7 versions are popping on there one by one ok so far.

Where Does that Leave Me
Well it is actually working surprisingly well in one way considering it is early days yet. The Metro interface is still a mystery waiting to be solved and I am stuck to a network cable, but the rest seems to be alive...

---

A little video (not mine) of how that Metro is looking etc:

HP2760P and SketchBookPro

2011-11-01T13:54:00.000+11:00

A little while ago now I finally got an HP 2760P to replace my iPad as the portable computer in my life. While the Star-Trekky coolness of the iPad was great, as an actual tool it was left wanting in almost every regard. I am a computer user and to be hamstrung by the apps and the IOS logic at every turn meant either a great journey or just greatly reduced functionality and efficiency.

So, rather that just going back to a baby laptop or ultrathin I decided on a convertible tablet PC. This way I got the small form factor, the fully functional OS (and all the apps that run on it) plus retained the touch screen as well. In fact the HP 2760P screen is a fully functional WACOM tablet with pen so the lure of using it for graphics work was high.

The Windows7 OS isnt super at doing touch as yet and many of the apps assume that it is easy to press a key at some point which isnt easy when in full tablet mode. For example Photoshop's navigation and tool controls often need the shift or control keys etc which is too hard in this mode.

I am loving the portability of the device and the i5 version I have is quick (though it isnt too much more to get the i7). The handwriting detection is surprisingly good, though even my junk typing is generally faster anyhow.

One of the first pieces of software I was keen to try was SketchBookPro as it works nicely with the touch and pen interface (not perfectly, but nicely). Over the last few weeks I have done a handful of little sketches of various Moth and Butterfly characters and here are some of them. Clearly I have plenty of practising to do, but I think it shows merit as a sketch tool for me...

Vitaliy Modelling

2011-10-31T20:15:00.001+11:00

Found Vitaliy Naymushin's modelling via a look at some Rage concept art. Seeing behind the scenes of each creation (the inner workings of the 3D models) always gives me a much greater appreciation of the craft and creative talent required to deliver the final vision.

Check out these amazing images for the Rage character models by Vitaliy from Ben Olson (lots more on his site):

[Vitaliy Naymushin character models from Rage vis his site - SHRUNK]

Should finish off with a Rage video:

Muppets, Cubes, Robots, Bandai and CryEngine

2011-10-29T09:38:00.000+11:00

A mixed bag post here, just some things I felt needed a little air-time.

I have to start with this super poster from Disney that brings together the Muppets and Cap (via FirstShowing).

[Disney's Muppets promo poster]

Now, what is not to love about lego, rubik's cubes, robots and smart phone apps - bring them together and we get things like the CubeStormerII.

I like having models of things on my shelves and one source of such things are the Bandai kits. The GundamModelKits site covers them in great detail and shows how cool they are. I only have a few of the little squat ones, but they are fun to build (even with the kids) and have a nice/dramatic design aesthetic (see also Collect3D)

[Bandai model imagery via GundamModelKits and Collect3D]

What the community can do with the mighty CryEngine2 is superb, but seeing the CryTek staff playing with shaders and more complex effects is very cool - like Cry-Styves work shown in these images (see thread).

[Cry-Styves CryEngine shader images]

Lastly these videos look like they will be cool - showing a Unity Project from start to fin!!!!

X-Men First Class

2011-10-29T00:26:00.001+11:00

Just finished watching X-Men: First Class (blu-ray) and had a blast. Seeing all these characters from the books woven into the new tale along with events from world history. Going back into the back story of our main protagonists (ProfX and Magneto) holds everything together - action and the human stories alike.

The sound and music was super, bringing all the mutants powers together and continuing the work from the previous films. I liked all the casting, with each bringing something more to the characters (gotta love Kevin Bacon as well). The CG effects are gorgeous and flawlessly integrated while keeping a nice old-school 60s feel to the whole film.There is a little more info on Luma Pictures work on the film in CGSociety's Feature.

First some imagery from the film itself (it looks so good in HD) showing off some character designs and CG overlays thanks to DuBlu's review:

[Shots from X-Men: First Class via DuBlu - shrunk, see site for fulls]

Then here is some concept art from the film.
First some Jamie Rama environment concept art pieces:

[Jamie Rama X-Men: First Class concept art via his blog]

Lastly some character concepts by Howard Swindell:

[Howard Swindell X-Men: First Class concept art via his blog]

Comicon Challenge 2011

2011-10-28T08:43:00.000+11:00

The final round entries in this years GameArtesans competition as part of Comicon are up. Here are some of the coolest pieces (my feel) from the Comicon Challenge 2011 - Alternate Universe, there are heaps more on display through the site as well as the threads detailing the various creations.

One of the things I love about this challenge is that we get to see under the skin of the pieces, the 3D entries reveal to us how the artists modelled, textured and posed these mini-masterpieces. All the more impressive with the teensie pixel and texture limits.
This isnt just about the graphical or modelling talent, this comp is filled with design and character-driven thinking.

[5 3D entries in the Comicon Challenge 2011 via the official site]

[2 2D entries in the Comicon Challenge 2011 via the official site]

Mangachasing and other Mangaring

2011-10-26T23:09:00.000+11:00

The Mangachasers have some fun videos showing off some cool techniques and style. While I think Manga can get a bit formulaic/samey there is no doubt that it can look super cool and nice Manga creation is a joy to behold.

The MangaChasers Youtube Channel has plenty more where that came from, all worth every second.

---

There are some lovely vids and sketches by Mark Crilley on his channel as well:

---

While we are at it, here are a few more magarish vids:

Mists of Pandaria

2011-10-22T12:22:00.000+11:00

With Blizzcon comes the announcement of World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria - Even as we have Cataclysm still in full swing there is something exciting about the stuff coming our way. We have the new Monk class and the Pandas, lotsa Pandas. A score of smaller things which will broaden the appeal of the game, the whole pet concept looks to be expanded with little combats and more collecting.

Here is some concept art as well - strong is character and keeping the signature style of the game in place.

[WoW Mists of Pandaria concept artwork via the official site]

And here are screenshots - I like seeing how they realise all these ideas (making it have this nice balance of humour and fun with the fact that it is serious life and death conflict).

[WoW Mists of Pandaria screenshots via the official site]

Techy Bits

2011-10-22T09:58:00.000+11:00

Some of the more interesting technology things that caught my eye of late

Kinect Fusion

This video shows another powerful example of how people are using tools like the kinect to achieve things that were perhaps the domain of zillion dollar projects previously. What is not to love about this - allowing software/computers to see our environment in live 3D and model that for us == gold.

Asus Transformer

There is a new teaser video for the upcoming Asus Transformer to be armed with Android 4 and some cool looks...

GOOGLE

Here is a quick video of the changes coming for GMail, Google has a whole set of interesting things coming our way including the Google Music store and the wonders of Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich).

Mouse Without Borders

This Microsoft Garage application lets us draw together multiple computers and their screens into a more seamless experience. Having all the displays liked with copy'n'paste and more flowing between them is very cool. I havent got around to playing with Mouse Without Borders yet - but the idea could work for my 2 laptops...

OCZ 1TB Laptop SSDs

One of the tricks (apart from the giant cost hike) with SSDs has been their size. Well now we have guys like OCZ bringing big SSDs out and in the laptop form factor so our portable machines can now bring our data along for the ride as well.

WACOM

Using a Cintiq tablet is a real joy, with a decent computer the feel of the device is really enjoyable. The relatively new Wacom Cintiq 24HD is a big one, but oozes class and features.

[Wacom Cintiq24HD promo images via the official site]

iphone4s

Now that I have upgraded from my iPhone3G (which was taking a full week to load up some apps like the messages one) things are all gloriously speedy, crisp, lushous and there are new features to boot. Why I should be excited about finally being able to flag my email is kinda dumb, but at least now I can. Maybe the only thing (apart from ongoing silliness between Apple and Samsung) that had me stay on the iPhone side was that I do use iTunes alot and would be more keen if gifted with a good alternative.
I havent had a chance to play with all the new features of the iPhone4s yet, but the new camera I am certainly looking forward to...

Trailer Time

2011-10-16T13:40:00.000+11:00

Here are some super trailers for movies that are about to be gracing our screens. I like how trailers condense the essence of a film into a short video where the intent is to inspire people to watch. They differ from most advertising as they are generally not so divorced from the real thing, they are just a highly condensed (and jumbled) version of the thing itself.

Black Swan

2011-10-15T12:02:00.000+11:00

Watched the magic of Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan (DVD) last night for the first time and I am still enthralled. The passionate film is tense and engaging as well as overflowing with lovingly integrated VFX work.

I really like seeing the behind-the-scenes of things, whether it be a documentary on the making of lego, to the special features on our DVDs to seeing dancers gearing up for performances. Black Swan transports us behind the front face of a ballet company to see the talent, stress and hard work of the dancers. Natalie Portman is simply superb showing the range of characters as her roles as the white and black swans intertwine in her mind. The other standout (apart from the majesty of the dancing itself) was the cinematography. I am no expert in this area, but Matthew Libatique I think successfully brings us unto the world of the dance and the mind of our protagonist.
All up, a superb film that I recommend on many levels (though not one for the kids...)

The visual effects work is beautifully seamless, we have face and head replacements, mirrors, feathers and more. The attention to detail here is beautiful and LOOK FX have done a nice job of the effects not taking over the shots. Check out this VFX reel to see just how seamlessly the effects work comes together and delivers on enhancing the whole experience. The CGSociety article gives us more detail plus stills as well.

[CG Production Shots from Black Swan via the CGSociety article]

An interviews with Natalie and Darren on the dancing and prep:

Lastly a few pieces of concept art - who doesnt love some cool concept art. These 2 images by Alex Mandra are from his blog post and show the swanification of the dancer.

[Alex Mandra concept art for Black Swan via his blog]

The Lineup

2011-10-09T22:48:00.000+11:00

Here are my WoW characters that I consider active, just the one 85, but all fun in their own way and all proudly members of our Chilli guild. The game is still a great escape (stress reliever) as well as vehicle for me and kids to play together when we are inside doing something semi-active.

City of Heroes Freedom

2011-10-09T22:22:00.000+11:00

Free-to-play comes to City of Heroes in the form of their Freedom update. I have the fondest of memories for the game which had the best roleplaying of any MMO I have played so far as well as the most engrossing character creation. It is possible I spent more time creating characters than playing them. If I had friends to join me I would love to head back in again and get that super feeling again. There are the 3 tiers of subscription now from free to VIP.

Here are a few images of how it is all looking now in Issue 20:

[City of Heroes Imagery via the official site]

WoW 85

2011-10-09T21:49:00.000+11:00

The kids and I never dreamed of of having high level characters when we began World of Warcraft characters together. We were watching Charmed DVDs together at the time and decided to create 3 caster sisters to adventure together and the Chilli sisters were born. So the Blood Elf Mage, Warlock and Priest set out to explore Azeroth doing as many dungeons as we could given our caster group. We played in pockets, diving in a little more when school holidays would come around.

Well this school hols the final step was taken, the original Chilli's hit 85. Having never had a max level character in any game, this was quite something for me, but all the more impressive that we did it together. Along the way we have plenty of other characters that adventure together in various ways, questing and instancing plus doing trades along the way (I enjoyed maxxing Herbalism and Alchemy).

WoW has proved to be a remarkable gaming environment, catering to all manner of play desires and allowing our casual group to progress and enjoy the experience as a little family. Blizzard have done a super job of crafting a game that continues to grow and draw us in.

I think what I will do next is a few drawings to celebrate the 3: Alichilli, Nachilli and Kischilli.

In the meantime, here are some official promo images for the 4.3 expansion as the Cataclysm storyline continues to unfold - I think the team does a great job of injecting so much quality into an engine with such a low polycount and tech bar.

[Catclysm art via Blizzard - shrunk]

Bruce Timm Art

2011-10-08T09:47:00.008+11:00

[Bruce Timm art piece via DeviantArt]

There is something deeply appealing about the style that Bruce Timm brings to his renditions of characters. The stylised flowing angles with the poppy youthful dynamism of it all maybe looks childish to some, but for me is like good caricature, it gets to the heart of each character and presents them with style and flair. Hmm that sounded a bit too fancy, basically his work is immediately engaging and full of stylised cool.

ComicVine has a good collection of his sketches and pieces in the gallery - here are some samples:

[Bruce Timm art pieces via ComicVine]

Portal 2 Goodness

2011-09-23T14:01:00.005+10:00

Though I completed Portal2 what seems like an age ago now, I still have good memories of the incredible quality the Valve team was able to squish into every corner of the game. The CGSociety article covering Portal2 design shows off some of the depth behind the scenes and gifts us with some of the concept art. More at the COMBINE OVERWIKI.

[Portal 2 concept art via the Combine OverWiki]

Video Contest
The Portal2 Music Video Contest had a very nifty set of entries, here are the 2 winners and the coolest lego one :-)

Wedding/Engagement Rings
This concept of a pair of portal rings by yuumei is gorgeous:

[Yuumei's portal engagement rings via her DeviantArt page]

Razer Blade

2011-09-22T21:28:00.004+10:00

The play on words in the name perhaps shows the fun that peripherals gurus Razer have had in creating the Razer Blade gaming laptop. Armed with some very nice specs, a gorgeous chassis and the switchblade UI there is alot to love about this stealthy black tech-candy.

[Razer Blade promo images via the official site - shrunk]

Perhaps it looks rather too much like a black MacbookPro on the outside, apart from the black and those glowing green snakes. The switchblade UI with the LCD/mousepad and those neato buttons is the standout feature. No doubt the NVIDIA GT555M makes the 17.3" screen look great with the games running - I am looking forward to seeing one in the flesh...

Fosters Office now

2011-09-05T08:56:00.004+10:00

With Built Environment working on a new set of Space Master Planning I was looking again at the info on the work area at Norman Foster & Partners Architects. Particularly how their space has transformed with the change to digital practices.

Remember these two images showing their office in 1990 and then 2007 (2008 blog post).

[shots of Foster's office from 1990 and 2007 showing the impact of computers on their practice - via Foster's 2007 TED talk]

Looking at the Fosters site today we get this image showing every person has the 2 screen setup, still with the highly open-plan config (not even partitions). There are shots of the wonderful models in other parts of the space (plus you can spot them dotted around inside the space as well.

[Norman Foster and Associates Architects work/office floor interior today - via their website]

---

HCMA Vancouver Offices / HCMA shows another example of an open plan Architectural Practice. The article on ArchDaily gives us quite a good look at the logic and design of the spaces - once again computers are front and centre and this is a challenge for educators of Architecture students to deliver in a meaningful way.

[HCMA Vancouver Offices via ArchDaily]

Batman Hush

2011-09-02T21:31:00.005+10:00

Just finished the Batman Hush TPB from 2002/2003 featuring the incredible talents of Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee and Scott Williams. I picked it up the other weekend and I was actually surprised how engrossing it all was - the mystery drew me ever more deeply into the graphical world created by legend Jim Lee. Every panel is a feast for the eyes - showing off this star studded story.

Everything here is inspirational and shows what a graphic novel can be. While I am a fan of less-is-more in terms of characters, here it feels like the showcase of allies and the rogues gallery roster is there for a reason. That said, it is one of the things that annoys me about many of the superhero films, they try to include too many villains at once. A movie isnt big enough for two most times - see how well the Dark Knight works - just one lime-light-stealing villain is required.

In Hush, the art is superb enough to make each page something that could grace a wall and inspires me to look through it multiple times. The men and women are gorgeous and they look every bit the superheros they are as they leap about on rooftops and succumb to their various Achilles heels.

[Batman:Hush pages via batmanunmasked.com : shrunk]

I read the full TPB over a few nights and loved how my drifting off to sleep was filled with all things HUSH. Clearly Jim Lee enjoyed bringing all these characters to the page and Jeph Loeb seems to have enjoyed spinning us a tale. The production quality of the book is excellent, glad in this case not to have it digitally as it looks great on my desk. I didnt mention the inking and colour work - both of which are super.

All up this was one of the coolest comic experiences I have had for a while, Batman and his supporting cast are great fun esp under the pencil of Mr Lee.

Inkling

2011-08-31T21:54:00.005+10:00

The new product from WACOM is the Inkling pen that captures your sketching as vectors for direct importing into the computer. Since it is actually a real pen you can do 'pen things' with it as well as sketch away for alter use in photoshop or illustrator with all the layers and such as well.

The portability and affordability of the solution looks very tempting - maybe much more approachable than a full WACOM tablet, a convertible notebook, iPad apps or the touchup after scanning. How nice is the sketchy look in their videos as well - nice work.

[Inkling promo images from the WACOM site]

Daz Studio 4

2011-08-29T21:15:00.006+10:00

Not completely sure why, but I decided I would take a little detour with my 3D tools and give the DAZ Studio a try with the new version just out. DAZ Studio 4 has a bunch of new stuff, perhaps the cornerstone of which is the genesis morphing toolset. This allows a single generic humanoid to be moulded into all manner of people from small girls, heroic men and even monstrous creatures. All the rigging, textures and clothing all come along for the ride as you mix and match all these deformers.

This video is from the success stories promo page shows how some artists use the DAZ Studio and figures as the basis for some quite cool artwork. Doug Shuler uses the software before going on to paint superheroes:

[Doug Shuler illustrations via the DAZ site]

Armed with bundles for V4 and G4 plus the Genesis tools that should be plenty of capability to show me whether this might be a workflow with merit. Using the figures to explore character ideas, either for bringing into other 3D tools for the game engines or rendering out to use as reference for photoshop/painted concept work.

Here are 2 images from the Monthly DAZ Gallery showing what can be done by the community:

[Images by Poeplipoe and Igolochka using DAZ from the DAZ Monthly Gallery site]

---

My explorations so far have really only allowed me to start getting a feel for the interface and various approaches to using the library, parameters and options in various orders. You need to be careful to save often - a false move of applying a material to the wrong things and boom. There is definitely a learning curve, though it is pretty shallow - esp if pre-armed with a little 3D software understanding. The structure of the library isnt intuitive though - and having to download and install a bundle is a pain.

A little while after getting going I was at least able to throw a figure into the scene and set them up with options for a basic output renders. Here are some quick images to show that it can be done very quickly - compared to starting from scratch in 3ds Max this is lightspeed. They arent exactly overflowing with quality, but they already are expressing character and showing real potential for working over for character design purposes.

[my test renders while exploring DAZ Studio 4]

For me - complex posing, while keeping the anatomy sane, is hard work and often ends up wonky. Plus expressions and keeping features consistent from one illustration to the next are tricky - having good grounding from something like DAZ could be a powerful ally in this.

Next step is to follow this idea all the way through a pipeline to see how I fair, going from DAZ to rendering to photoshop grayscale to painting to colouring and final touchup. May dive in and go straight for a Moth or Butterfly.

Lumion

2011-08-29T19:45:00.004+10:00

I like real-time visualisation tools, so when a new one comes along it is always fun. I am looking forward to playing with Lumion soon, but I will let Steve dive in there first while I look at other things.

As the promo vid shows, the Lumion toolset delivers a pretty elegant real-time experience and with the nice pricing model and hopefully a nice interface for people it could be a cool way to show off design work. If the pipeline from your Architectural modeller of choice (formats: DAE, FBX, MAX, 3DS, OBJ) can get things in and going quickly then it could work for clients as well as design studio tutors. This next video shows a tutorial from importing from Sketchup to materials etc - very smooth and quick if you like using the built-in textures:

The water is pretty nice, and the speed of the process looks viable for any user. Like many of the toolsets of this type, I can see their viability for people hinging on the library and the easy of supplementing the library.

[Promo shots for Lumion via the official site - shrunk]

Oneof the tricks is still that the workflow is still very much a one-way thing. This maker iterating designs complex still as all the work done on a model in the Lumion interface would need to be repeated after making a change in sketchup then coming back in again.
Path forward might be to allow a 'mapping' of sketchup materials to Lumion versions which you do once, then each time you import all the changes come leaping in all materialised already...

DMTB and Greeble

2011-08-23T21:38:00.005+10:00

I was looking at some of the early submissions for the Design Modelling - Time-Based course where they are exploring 3ds Max and video by submitting a whole pile of short experiments. The students individual blogs have all their vids and some are quite fun - I like how we always find videos that have things in them we would love to know.

-

Thus the segway into a little peek at the wonders of Greeble. Klanky's little plugin has been around for a while and can now do complete magic through subdivision and generation of model complexity. I like seeing things like this where it takes some thought and design from a human mind then uses computation to generate the insane complexity for us.

Lets have a look at what some 3ds Max artists can do armed with Greeble via the Greeblelicious site:

[3ds Max images using Greeble via Greeblelicious by: ollle, Richard Rosenman, Corentin SEGUIN de BROIN, Stefan Morrell & BilboX - SHRUNK]

Chesterfield Invasion gets stormy

2011-08-22T22:10:00.004+10:00

Tutorial was looking at weather etc, clouds were a failure so far but adding the gloomy sky, rain, lightning and altered ocean was fun. (Note that the Ocean fog is in 2 places for some crazy reason - the one in Terrain - Environment and the working one under Time-of-Day Advanced settings)

-

Some vids from other people playing with the engine:

Chesterfield Invasion Worsens

2011-08-22T08:00:00.006+10:00

I am enjoying working through the CryENGINE 3 tutorials, in the cookbook at the moment rather than the online ones (at least for now).
Various bits of my island have played host to little experiments with terrain, boids, decals, vegetation, roads, textures and a slew of environment settings. Some things just work, others seem tricky like voxels and some settings which dont seem to apply straight away - but fall into line eventually. My HP 8740W is performing very well actually - which is making it all very enjoyable.

For MvB, there are a couple of technical threads going. This thread is looking at the CryEngines and the various creation toolsets. There is also the 3ds Max tutorials I have started looking at character and asset creation as I will need the moths, butterflies, architecture and forest. Sound-wise I will have a look at Audition now that it is just part of the Creative Suite. To take a break from the keyboard and mouse I keep popping over to do more sketching as well which I love.

-

Anyhow, the map really has a calm spookiness about it, the Chesterfields have truly taken over, from small to huge. You cant even escape them in the water and with the parameters tweaked they can be seen dotted across the landscape far and wide. It is fascinating how something so innocuous has such an eerie feel to it, our minds desperately trying to make sense of it all, trying to divine some meaning. What do all the Chesterfields mean, what is going to happen...

Invasion of the Chesterfields

2011-08-20T21:02:00.003+10:00

More fun working through my CryENGINE 3 Cookbook - well almost following along anyhow.
Here I have used the nice red chesterfield armchair as vegetation :-)

CryENGINE 3 Mod SDK test

2011-08-20T15:49:00.003+10:00

Since I wasnt so happy with the free CryENGINE 3 SDK v1.0 I grabbed the CryENGINE Mod SDK v1.1 to see the difference with all the Crysis 2 goodies in there as well. Well here are 4 screenshots showing some of the same actions, but with a faster and nicer result including the vegetation and even some wildlife. There may not (in the end) be too much difference, but right now there is more polish in the Mod version.

Dont seem to have butterflies etc in there at the moment from Crysis1 - have to dig deeper.

CryENGINE 3 Cookbooking

2011-08-20T12:55:00.004+10:00

Working my way the tutorials/recipes in the CryENGINE 3 Cookbook one this is apparent straight up - the SDK that Crytek releases keeps changing and seems to have all manner of small (yet frustrating) differences, omissions or bugs based on what they include for us in the download.

Things are largely the same as the previous Sandbox apart from these quirks. Simple things like the SpawnPoint entity isnt there any more despite the references to it in the documentation and the Cookbook. Would see if the multiplayer spawn point worked - if the Launcher would go...

So, just as a point of comparison I am downloading the ModSDK (v1.1) to see how different it is Modding instead of base SDKing (lets hope my decision to get Crysis 2 through Steam all that time ago wont cause any probs).

Plus there is always the CryEngine2 instead if the new engine just isnt going to be nice to me...

CryENGINE 3 SDK

2011-08-18T21:15:00.004+10:00

With the release of the full CryENGINE 3 SDK from Crytek everyone can get their hands on the Sandbox editor without the complex contracts. There is a bit more info on the licensing models, though the MyCryEngine site is still uninformative about many of the details. Gamesutra's little article details the 20% model as well, all good news for using this mighty engine for things.

This release only ships with one level (the forest) and I havent looked enough to know yet whether we are given as much in the way of assets. The completely new look CryMod now CryDev will hopefully lead me to assets that might flesh out what I will need for my work.

These screenshots are some of the promo ones on the download page (looks awesome)

[CryENGINE 3 Sandbox screenshots via the CryDev download site (shrunk)]

The SDK is a strange download, it doesnt install, it just sits wherever you put it, and you as long as you keep it together the Editor.exe etc just seem to run from there with or without Crysis2 in the mix. The forest level is ok (not perfect) but does show the basics of the engine and I will be keen to see over the next few days how it compares to the tests I had done in CryEngine2.

Plus there is the Crysis2 Mod SDK still available as well, maybe that is better (will all make sense soon enough)...

Wildstar Online

2011-08-17T21:04:00.005+10:00

Trailer for Carbine's Wildstar Online for NCsoft is a beautiful thing. We get some polished rendering emotive of gaming rather than just cinematics with enough characterisation to make it extra fun as they start to feel the fun yet perilous nature of their new world. What am I saying, this cinematic trailer us superb!

I found this via the short MMORPG writeup, but the Official site is surprisingly sparse. There are a few screenshots and concept art pieces though like these.

[Wildstar Online images via the official site]

MvB glimmering sketch

2011-08-16T22:31:00.004+10:00

Ultra quick colouring of the sketch set of Butterfly structures showing the kind of glittering nature of the architecture a little better.

Little bit on process for reference:
Scans of sketchbook first, then in photoshop using the Curves I drag the top right of the line to the left until it is after the large peak that basically represents lots of very light stuff like paper grain etc. Then I curve the main line until I get some nice contrast without losing the pencil or tonal texta clarity.Last step is to desaturate the whole thing to make sure it is just greys.
The colouring here was using a variety of brushes (with some pattern mostly) on a layer (set to Color mode) with lots of 'color jittering' in the brush to get that dynamic colouring effect.

I am looking forward to working on some of these ideas in 3D as I can ramp up the detail in symmetrical shapes very fast.

MvB Concept Sketch Compilation 9

2011-08-15T21:22:00.005+10:00

First up some sketches showing more of the difference (primarily cultural) between the Moths and Butterflies. Note that the Butterfly jewellery is now much more geometric rather than swirly which helps differentiate them from the tangled biological look of the Moths.

With the core deliverable for the MvB project being the environment at present, here are some more sketches of the critical Architecture (Butterfly buildings in this case). You can see this mixture of flamboyant craftsmanship and more crystalline & geometric shapes. I am not sure how to draw all the complexity and detail that I envisage would be present in these structures, need to work on my implied detail skills.
The structures need to feel light and colourful as well, with gems and translucent shimmering surfaces that these sketches barely hint at.

---

As far as the project goes, I have been working my way through a DigitalTutors video series reintroducing me to 3ds Max. We have stated making our pod-racer which is fun.

Andrea Joseph pen art

2011-08-14T12:56:00.006+10:00

I came across the wonderful pen sketches of Andrea Joseph via her little review set on PenAddict. She is a prolific artist using common pens of all types to create a vast array of images from doodle-like conglomerations to full renderings. She has a real talent for making a simple ballpoint pen work wonders on a piece of paper.

Here are a few images from her blog and Flickr account:

[Andrea Joseph pen sketches via her blog and flickr]

---

I seem to mostly sketch with pencil, I should do more with ink. Oh and the Pen Type-A looks nice as well...

Shuttle, Bikes, Storage, Raytracing and 120Hz

2011-08-13T17:55:00.008+10:00

Just a quick grab-bag blog post here of some cool stuff I have sitting in my open tabs.

Storage
There is something very cool about these budget red Backblaze babies that sport 134TB in 4U. Storage may feel cheap when we look at a little usb drive or a Drobo, but at bigger scales it gets trickier. I like both of these babies for different reasons, I can see a Drobo on my desk/shelf and would love to see UNSW with an army of Backblaze racks for all that research data.

[Backblaze data centre and Drobo box]

Shuttle
With the conclusion of the Shuttle Program, there were plenty of tribute posts out there in blogland. The Neatorama post features this gorgeous NASA image and I just love the lighting as well as the majesty of space travel that is invoked here:

[NASA Shuttle takeoff photo via Neatorama]

INgSOC
Yanko Design have created this concept bike called the INgSOC which looks simple spectacular. The idea of riding along with this is the equivalent of driving around in a Porsche concept car. The bike is hybrid electric as well as sporting this amazing look - see more images and info on the site.

[Yanko Design INgSOC bike via the official site]

120Hz
For gaming 3D goodness we need 120Hz monitors, have been looking at the new Samsung S27A950D 27" screens for the office.

Raytracing
Videos showing people create things are just plain cool, here we have a raytracer in 24 mins - inspiring to watch.

Screenwriting Intro Keys

2011-08-13T17:40:00.004+10:00

Here is a short but focused little video talking about 5 Keys to Irresistible Openings on ScreenwritingU. Advice on getting the most out of those first 1-3 pages to get engagement from a reader or producer.

5 Keys to Irresistible Openings

Commit to engaging the reader
Give us white space
Lure us into the story
Deliver character in action
Use interest techniques

ScreenwritingU has other fun things like their articles/tips with things like Send Your Character to Hell.

---

While I have been spending time with 3ds Max tutorials and more sketching, I think some more attention on the scriptwork behind the characters will help MvB be stronger. At the moment the goal is still to concentrate on creating the environment, the place, the world - but through that world I would love to present the stories and characters, even though it can only be a preview of the fully realised story.

JW SSO SOH

2011-08-13T09:18:00.006+10:00

Last night Alicia and I were at the Sydney Opera House (first time inside for me believe it or not). The Concert Hall is not only an architectural icon from the outside but I loved being in there as well. What looks in the photos like we would have needed a Hubble telescope to see anything is far from what it feels like. We were in H27 and H28 which gave us a great view of the whole hall and the orchestra etc. Lucky for us a little boy was in the seat straight in front of us which meant we could see the whole stage with no obstructions at all.

[Shot of the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall interior via the SOH site]

We were there to see Shaun Micallef presenting the Sydney Symphony playing the music of John Williams. This meant we had his comic stylings before and after each piece which certainly added to the fun and energy of the evening. The 90+ orchestra was wonderful to watch, seeing that much musical talent all working together is superb. Guy Noble conducted this 2 performance set which included 17 full principles that did an awesome job of bringing these classic scores to life.

I have a greater appreciation of the music now, in just the same way as watching the special features on a DVD. Seeing the complex weaving of the instruments and musical themes is all the more impressive live, seeing as well as hearing.

They played these pieces:

ACT I
Olympic Fanfare
Theme from Lost in Space
Theme from Jaws
Highlights from Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Adventures on Earth - Concert suite from E.T. (The Extra-Terrestrial)
Theme from Schindler's List
The Raiders March from Raiders of the Lost Ark
Theme from Jurassic Park
Theme from Superman

ACT II
March from 1941
Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter
Sayuri's Theme from Memoirs of a Geisha
Main Title from Star Wars
Imperial March from Star Wars
Princess Leia's Theme from Star Wars
Cantina Band Theme from Star Wars
Throne Room and End Titles from Star Wars

The little encore saw Shaun conducting (in his comical way) another rendition of Superman - super super stuff. All in all a wonderful night that will stay with me for a long long time and I hope the SSO are looking to do more similar events!

Event Link

DC New 52

2011-08-09T21:23:00.003+10:00

The huge reboot of the DC universe is getting close now (start of Sept), the 52 #1 titles will see all the core DC heroes exploring their worlds anew. With the digital versions available at the same time I may be tempted. Batman's rogues gallery is awesome and less super characters like Green Arrow are fun as well. Check out the DC New 52 video on the site as well...

With giants like Jim Lee and David Finch at DC now there is some super art to look forward to as well.

[Some of DC's imagery for the New 52 via the DC site]

Cryart

2011-08-08T21:13:00.007+10:00

First a little tribute to the artwork of Council using the CryEngine. I love seeing amazing worlds created in 3D, and am all the more impressed when they are delivered in a real-time environment! So here is a little inspiration and I hope to bring some of this depth into my Moths vs Butterflies work.

[Council Cryengine artwork via his DevianArt Gallery]

---

More inspiration, cant go past the superb fantasy world creation by MadMaximus. I have looked as his work before - but wow it is still superb. The detail and complexity on top of such focused design is wonderful to see. There is alot of character to bring forward into MvB from this work - the environments of the Butterflies and the Moths should inspire a closer look in just the same way. See his InCrysis thread as well, more stunning imagery of the same world.

[MadMaximus Cryengine artwork via his DevianArt Gallery]

---

Lastly the latest images of Eorzea by Ulysses182 which shows the epic scale possible with the engine. Having the mist of the waterfalls permeate the dreamy quality of the environment is beautiful.

[Ulysses182 Cryengine artwork via his CryMod thread]

---

Tempted to get a reference book - maybe the CryENGINE3 Cookbook

Artists Haven

2011-08-07T21:10:00.003+10:00

[Johan Gustavsson's Artists Haven via the RonenBeckerman blog]

Just admiring this piece by Johan Gustavsson on RonenBeckerman because only the architecture is 3D and rest is a lovely piece of 2D compositing. The short video shows how some super photoshop work brings this Artists Haven to dramatic life.

Artists Haven - PS Breakdown from Johan Gustavsson on Vimeo.

Expose 9

2011-08-02T20:29:00.005+10:00

When Kinokunia had another of the 20% off sales on art books the other day, it was just a matter of what, not if. After much changing of minds and flip-flopping I walked out with a shiny new copy of Ballistic's Expose 9. 'Finest digital art in the known universe'. The book is graced by an array of artwork pieces across a suite of categories totalling some 444 pieces by 327 artists. There is so much digital candy here that it can actually be hard to stop on each image long enough to see all the depth and refinement. You can see a little preview of the inside on the Ballistic site, but that only gives you a feel for the real deal.

With the purchase come a code that allows download of a set of videos and files (brushes etc) by artists featured in the book. We get Ruoxing Zhang's walk-through vid of her cover above, plus Frederic St-Arnaud's walk-through of his 'The Decline of Babel Myth – Jacobsen War' image.

CGSociety have had a few features now covering artists and pieces from the book. David Fraher's Architectural piece I may have covered before, but I do love Meny Hilsenrad's still life, 'Classroom Scene'.

[Classroom Scene - THE MAKING OF from Studio Aiko on Vimeo]

[Classroom Scene by Meny Hilsenrad creation images via CGSociety]

The production quality of the book, is wonderful and I personally prefer this soft-cover feel. The printing is gorgeous throughout and I do like having the info about the software used with the title and artist of each image. This reinforces how this is all digitally created and gives a little insight into the production (though only a hint really). While the quality and execution of the portraits, still life & architectural work is flawless, it is the character concept pieces that I am drawn to most - all that nifty implied detail.
Current favourite is maybe 'Servant of the Castle' by Yongming Yang (pp104)

MvB Concept Sketch Compilation 8

2011-08-01T21:39:00.004+10:00

After a good talk with Steve @ COFA about my project and getting back on track to complete the MDM, I scanned in some of the concept sketches for the Moths and Butterflies of late and have compiled them here.
Some of the things I have been playing with here include a greater amount of 'sexual dimorphism' (I like that term, just a greter difference between male and female). So now the females have the curvy lower half producing that waist-to-hip ratio, plus the eggs can be in the abdomen section quite neatly. The males lose their lower half altogether, replaced with an almost whip-like tail/tendril.

These sketches dont show much emotion, but they continue to flesh out the idea. I was explaining the premise to Alicia yesterday when she asked why I was sketching more Moths 'n' Butterflies. She did seem to like the ideas, though thinking about it later I need to work on how to have 2 main perils. The idea that there is the underlying evil to be defeated, but to do that the protagonists need to elude the peril presented by the ongoing warring between the two species does add complexity until all is revealed.

In talking to Steve he covered a fascinating workshop he was involved in with Ian McCaig where they re-envisioned and developed a story and concept-set for their take on the Pied Piper. Some of the concept sketches were simply superb.
Anyhow, I likes the pics of their whiteboard, showing how their 3 act structure developed and fleshoed out over the period.

For MvB, I might see if I can strengthen the structure with this classic approach next.

Gnomon Student Reel and Blik

2011-08-01T09:04:00.002+10:00

Here is a video showing off student work from the Gnomon courses - superb!

Gnomon Student Work Compilation 2010 from Gnomon School of Visual Effects on Vimeo.

---

While we are in Vimeo and cool animation productions - check out Blik:

Blik from Polder Animation on Vimeo.

Black, White, Paper, Eye and Tinsel

2011-07-28T20:53:00.016+10:00

Lets start with BLACK. These dynamic sculptures are created by artist Yong Ho Ji from tires. The way he has used the form and texture of the material to convey musculature, tension, movement and material is something to admire.

[tire sculptures by Yong Ho Ji via MyModernMet]

Check the coverage of his work on MyModernMet and Colossal where there are many more works to admire. I like this sort of art, one which does exhibit a clarity, but when you look closer you see more and more, plus there is clear and admirable effort & expertise.

[tire sculptures by Yong Ho Ji via MyModernMet]

---

Now onto WHITE. Another sculpture artist, this time Motohiko Odani who has created these preistinely engaging works that have the same 'look closer' quality to them. There is more coverage of the work on Colossal plus their homepage.

[Motohiko Odani sculptures via Colossal]

---

Obviously we should go BLACK & WHITE next. Parka Blogs is a super site for art books and I particularly like seeing his reviews of the various movie and game development and concept art books. His recent post covering some of his favourites for the year includes Everything is its own reward by Paul Madonna. His review of the gorgeous coffee table book reveals some of the superb illustrations that bring such a desire to see this architecture.

[Paul Madonna art from Everything is its own reward via Park Blogs]

---

Staying with PAPER. I found these false eyelashes fascinating in the context of some of the concept designs I have been doodling away on for Moths vs Butterflies. They have that other-worldly yet artistic feel about them. The Paperself eyelashes are paper cut-out false lashes - the images tell the full story - check their site for heaps of options. Images via 2Threads and the official site.

[Paperself eyelash images via ]

---

Fluttering on from there are a heap more EYE treatments. While there are images of lash jewels and feather lashes about the place I thought I would give credit to Jangsara and her makeup blog. She has done a nice job of documenting all manner of experiments and commercial makeup - much of which is what I need for reference in MvB for both the Moths and Butterflies. Here are a few images showing off various effects I am looking to incorporate:

[Eye and lash makeup by Jangsara compilation of images from her blog]

---

Before we leave the eye I have to include a few images from shu-uemura who have some pretty snazzy eyelash options as well...

[Shu-Uemura falsh eyelash imagery]

---

Last stop is TINSEL which is simply to show off another makeup trick/trend - hair tinsel. These searches give the idea: vids, pics.

Avengers Concept Art

2011-07-25T21:28:00.004+10:00

[Avengers art via Marvel.com]

One of the trends I love is how concept art is becoming more and more part of the buildup for a film release etc. Here is a nifty promo piece for the Avengers which shows off the characters as well as the cinematic history of the buildup. This is such a clever idea, we get full origins films for the main characters then an origins film for the group as well.

Above is the full image (by Ryan Heinerding & Co) then 2 of the panel closeups (see the Marvel site for more details):

[Avengers art via Marvel.com]

Comic-Con Trailers and More

2011-07-24T21:26:00.004+10:00

Just had to post a few cool things from Comic-Con 2011 way over in San Diego.

Here is the trailer for Mythbusters they used at their panel - what's not to love:

X-Men Destiny Trailer:

Star Wars: The Old Repuplic (gameplay footage not looking nearly as awesome as the rendered trailers):

Guild Wars 2: gameplay walkthrough and dev chat:

Stunning live inking of Star Wars car - wonderful stuff:

Tablet Computer Experiment Coming

2011-07-22T21:43:00.006+10:00

While I still like my iPad, its capability as an actually productive tool is rather limited. While I can find a way to do a range of things with enough apps and configurations and workarounds it doesnt naturally do any of these well really.

Sooo I have been looking at alternatives which deliver a suped up experience - a full OS delivering the cool capability of all the apps we love to use. I have a no mercy laptop already for the 3D app, realtime work and more serious graphics, what I need is portability.

The brand new MacBook Air is a very tempting little piece of kit, it is perhaps the sexiest computer on the planet, thin, elegant, good specs and with full OSX Lion running. I was toying with one in JB-HiFi and it is just gorgeous. I like the Mac OS for many things and for what I would use the machine for the software choices would be fine.

But I have decided to explore a slightly different sphere, inspired a little by the idea of the ASUS EP121 and UNSW agreement with HP I am getting in an HP 2760P. Running win7.64 it can wield the same apps I have on my main machine plus brings a few special extras to the table. The convertable form factor means I can tap away in meetings and have all the multi-tasking and serious software at my disposal. The touch screen should make for a nice experience for browsing and flicking through things like images or presentations.
The main experiment however will be to try digital sketching and colouring using the active pen and WACOM digitiser. Armed with Photoshop, SketchbookPro or similar - will this be a mobile art platform. I am interested in how devices like this might fit into the digital usage of the Built Environment courses as well - but lets see how it actually functions first...

[Apple MacbookAir and HP 2760p product images]

Both these devices feature the Intel 3000 graphics solution (currently #204 on Notebookchecks graphics benchmark list) This wont set any 3D graphics records but I am hoping it will run things well enough to make using the WACOM tablet a nice experience withh the battery giving up after 3 seconds.

I was just thinking how these 2 computers are a little like a Global Santoku knife vs the Leatherman Skeletool CX.

High Elf vs Wood Elf post2

2011-07-19T22:35:00.002+10:00

Continuing on with the reference images of High Elf and Wood Elf for the respective concept designs for the Butterfly and Moth societies and warriors:

Another set of High Elf Imagery (Butterflies)

then Wood Elf Imagery (Moths)

High Elf vs Wood Elf

2011-07-18T21:11:00.003+10:00

In looking at reference for Moths vs Butterflies a little while back there was plenty of inspiration to be drawn from. Here are a suite of each collaged together from an army of Google image searches (sorry about the lack of attibution):

High Elf (analogous to the Butterflies)

Wood Elves (Moths) in the next post

Harry Potter Conclusion

2011-07-17T21:36:00.005+10:00

The final film in the epic series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt2 brings a highly dramatic and combat-centric end. We have been treated to something special in seeing the actors grow up through a series of films in just the same way as J. K. Rowling's superb novels.
The last movie looks huge up there on the big screen, filled with wizards, spells, mythical creatures and a host of characters we have grown to love through the previous films. The trailer gives a taste of the experience:

The film was wonderful to see, I couldn't recall much of the detail of the book, so it was all coming as a surprise to me. There was emotion buoyed by the soundtrack (Alexandre Desplat) and the awesome soundscape and audio effects - they all combine to draw us right into the world they have created. The effects work is top notch, they haven't skimped on anything with some very complex scenes all brought to life for us. While our child actors may not inspire on some fronts, they are now very much their characters and so it all works. Seeing the teachers come together in the siege of Hogwarts is heart-warming stuff.

Incredible how the book is still skimmed through, even given 2 full films - but that isn't criticism. The film format excels in different areas to the books - all up we get a great movie experience as the conclusion to the 8 film Juggernaut.

---

Concept art is always cool for such things, hypable has a suite of works for the film by Stuart Craig. Here are a few cool ones:

[Harry Potter 7 pt2 concept art by Stuart Craig via hypable]

-- EDIT --

I was talkign about teh epic sound that accompanies the epic film - well here is a little vid talking with the sound designers about that very thing:

SoundWorks Collection: The Sound of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

The Dark Knight Rises Poster

2011-07-14T21:58:00.003+10:00

There were some great posters created for the Dark Knight film and we are already being treated to wonderful images like this one for the Dark Knight Rises. (via Collider)

[Dark Knight Rises poster via Collider.com]

For more fun check out these posters on Forevergeek.

SIGGRAPH CAF Vid

2011-07-05T18:16:00.002+10:00

The SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival in Vancouver is on soon and they have released their preview/promo trailer - full of cool bits:

Plus there is a Gallery preview as well:

Transformers 3 Concept Art

2011-07-03T22:29:00.004+10:00

The insanely detailed alien robots that smash their way around our screens doing Michael Bay's bidding all start with some very cool concept work. Here is some for Transformers 3 which shows the evolution of the work of the first two films. Clearly it is a complex thing to create the CG robots, putting all this energy into the concept pieces is also quite epic.

Josh Nizzi's site has a heap of his work on TF3 and here are a few that inspire me (heaps more on the site):

[Josh Nizzi Transformers 3 concept art via his site]

Warren Manser's site gives us another view through his Transformers 3 concept pieces, again heaps on his site and a couple of choice picks here:

[Warren Manser Transformers 3 concept art via his site]

Transformers 3

2011-07-03T21:29:00.005+10:00

Headed in to see the 3rd of the Transformers films, extra enthused after seeing 2 of the stars at Supanova. So to IMAX 3D for Transformers Dark of the Moon we went with much enthusiasm for a 2.5 hour trailer of superb proportions. Is that a little unkind? Well there is enough incredible footage is gigantic 3D relief to fill a million trailers and with Steve Jablonski's super score it is hard to go wrong.

The huge IMAX screen is exploding with robots tearing apart buildings, any humans who get in the way and each other. The effects work is nothing short of remarkable, it must even ILMs rendering hardware bleed - so much complexity.
Emotionally the film only has a few moments which make us care much about the characters though, and doesnt bring us into their story as successfully as it should. The first film did a far better job here, now the characters are much more going through their predeturmined motions. The plot is harder for me to think through, there are certainly lots of plot elements - some of which are actually very clever - yet they dont quite fold together to make a nice origami swan (a swan featuring giant robots smashing into each other). But maybe that doesnt matter, we do get the full transformers experience, cars, trucks, planes, explosions, goodguys, badguys, betrayals, girls and a reluctant hero somehow surviving in the midst of the chaos with the world in peril.

There are lots of nice moments as we get film and character references thrown in, plus the special sounds and the 3D is just what a gigantic film like this should be.

[Promo images from Transformers 3 via the official site]

The whole thing is still WOW - as was seeing the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt2 trailer on the IMAX screen - stupendous!

Sebastian Cryengine Movie

2011-07-03T21:03:00.003+10:00

There are some more images from the 'movie' project powered by CryEngine by Sebastian. I have looked in on the stunning imagery coming from the project so far and these are no exception - particularly since I am looking at jungle/forest scenery for MvB. The CryEngineFilmTools blog has more images, though the Crymod post has the nice new ones - here are two:

[Sebastian jungle images via CryMod]

Crymod and Sandbox3

2011-07-03T20:43:00.005+10:00

There is a nice new version of the Crymod site now and that means all new goodies for those of us playing with the wonders of the CryEngine. This all coincides with the release of the Sandbox3 SDK for CryEngine3.
I havent been working with the engine much of late, maybe this is the spark I need to dive in there and really start creating. We even got ourselves a groovy graphics update on the PC pulling in all manner of DX11 goodness. The features are covered in this article on GeForce.com showing off the tesselation, water, pen-umbra, motion blur, particle shadows, DOF and the lsit goes on. The article has plenty of nifty animated-gif comparisons to show how much nicer ULTRA can really be now.

[DX11 CryEngine upgrade images via GeForce.com]

Here is the Launch Trailer - just how good does this look:

Though this video is in german, we can see the improvements as video here again:

Hansmeyer Columns

2011-06-29T20:39:00.006+10:00

The spectacularly complex mathematically generated columns of Michael Hansmeyer were featured recently in an Inhabitat article "Incredibly Intricate Cardboard Columns Are the World’s Most Complex Architecture". The columns are generted through geometric algorithms then cut from thousands of layers of cardboard - when assembled the incredible patterns weave into existance.
Apart from being able to generate this level of complexity, I like the fabrication and being able to actually bring something like this into reality and out of the computer.

[Michael Hansmeyer column images via his website]

Here are some more images from his work with algorithms and geometry in his platonic solids series:

[Michael Hansmeyer complex platonic solid images via his website]

Here is an older video showing how some of this complexity arises as the maths has fun with a sphere:

FloodSlicer

2011-06-28T21:49:00.003+10:00

The guys at Floodslicer were just featured in a CGSociety article showing off their mighty Melbourne-based architectural visualisation work. The article looks at the approach they take on projects and some of the tech they bring to bear on things for clients. The article and their homepage both feature their showreel as well.
The Floodslicer page itself is very engaging, a cool gallery mechanic bringing their graphical product front and centre.

So here are a few images to show a snippet of what they can do, specifically a few renderigns for the AT38 Tower in Melbourne:

[Floodslicer visualisation images via the AT38 site]

SW Lego

2011-06-27T21:04:00.003+10:00

When Star Wars lego first came on the scene - many moons ago now it was great to see this clever toy concept more formally bringing the legendary designs of the Star Wars universe to life. Before then we would try to create our own interpretations with bits of Space Lego, so we pretty much had to create our own designs inspired by SW.

The reason for this post is the enormous Super Star Destroyer model, featuring over 3000 bricks and certainly dominating any room it may dock in. While this would be incredible, I think I would prefer to have an AT-AT Walker - standing proud on the model shelf.

[Star Wars Lego via MTVGeek and the Official Site]

EP121 Drool

2011-06-27T16:23:00.003+10:00

I am still very keen to explore how a device like the Asus EP121 could work as a mobile computer platform and as a sketching/drawing/doodling/markup/graphics tool. I am working with suppliers on getting one for us to try, though HN may end up being simplest.

Here are some more vids from people who have them and are doing cool things:

Frostbite 2 Engine

2011-06-21T22:06:00.003+10:00

I love a good game engine and the new engine powering the glory that will be Battlefield 3 is Frostbite 2. This 64bit beast running DX11 and a host of features that are best seen:

E3

2011-06-21T21:19:00.004+10:00

As always the gaming industry is on show at E3, big platinum titles, new console hardware and lots hype. After seeing @Hexsteph and this great summary on CGSociety. There was more coverage of games we are already teased about like Battlefield 3, Elder Scrolls V and co, but here are a few videos from things that inspire:

David Finch Pencils

2011-06-20T22:45:00.003+10:00

Thinking back over the fun of Supanova, seeing David Finch wield pencil and pen was wonderful to watch. Seeing him find these shapes and light patterns with such natural twists of his hand was inspirational. His Blog has heaps of images from his Batman work and going back from there. I have to show one as it is a remarkable piece overflowing with energy and emotion. The skill in having such detail in strong lighting (extreme dark and bright light) is very cool...

[David Finch pencils for Dark Knight Issue 1 via his blog]

mill

2011-06-20T21:38:00.004+10:00

The Mill creates some superb VFX work for film, TVC and more and when they bring it together in a showreel I just adore the results. The capability of digital effects to create these remarkable images that bring to life more and more incredible concepts is truly inspiring - so seeing quality like this is a great ride:

But why stop there, the mill then gifts us with the full commercials/clips featuring the 'making of' content as well. I love watching these behind the scenes elements, for me they just lift the actual piece to a whole new level seeing all the effort that goes into the creative process - enjoy:

how about a short film too:

Supanova 2011

2011-06-19T21:49:00.006+10:00

After being inspired by the more local SMASH, I had to head out to Olympic Park to see the full-on spectacle of Supanova. While pre-paid was still a good plan, there was a gigantic queue for them as well. So so so many people, but a super atmosphere as everyone is just so happy to be joining in. On the trip in, getting closer the anticipation grows as the number of costumes increases as everyone converges on the Dome.

My entrance was in through the signing hall, where the vast snaking queues led up to the likes of Tom Felton, James Masters, Barbara Eden and more. I didnt explore this side of things, but it did involve getting merchandise, token and then a wait (long wait). I spent my time sitting in on the Seminars and Talkfests, plus meandering through the large exhibition hall featuring all manner of comic creators/retailers, robotics guys, collectible traders, gaming and so forth. All of this takes place amongst an incredible array of costumes as the cosplay is such a feature of the event, made me feel rather slack pottering around in just my Buffy the Vampire Slayer t-shirt.

Some highlights of my day:

David Finch QA
Small room conversational Q&A session with comic megastar David Finch who talked through his work on the new Batman Dark Knight after his recent move to DC for this very reason. He covered how challenging it was to write, even though he brought a very visual approach to the task. He talked about how comics are a much more writer driven business now, with companies using the medium as R&D for other ventures like film and gaming.

Comic Artists Drawing
The Kings Comics booth had a simple line of these comic gods which were doing commissions and signings for people, I however just stood there and watched them do their stuff - inspirational. Intriguingly other people in the area or lining up just seemed to want the finished work or the sigs, didnt seem at all interested in the craft itself. I was mesmerised seeing David Finch, Billy Tan, Nicola Scott and Dave Johnson working their pencils, pens and markers. Fascinating to see their style, David Finch was fast and filled pages with light and shadow, Billy Tan was very measured and precise and Nicola Scott more tonal with her markers.
This was a great thing to see - wish I could have stood there all day (felt a little like a stalker :-)

Amy Acker and Gareth David-Lloyd
Q&A session on the big screen with the Amy Acker from Angel and Dollhouse. She is just like Fred, bubble and so naturally bursting into laughter as she happily answered all the crowd questions for all. I liked her ballet stories and all the info from the set of the series and her love for Joss Whedon's creations.
Same thing later in the day with Gareth David-Lloyd from Torchwood who is more of a comedian that we might have thought, but loved answering the questions again. I sat next to a girl who flew in from Melbourne for the weekend, and met a few others who popped in as well - very big drawcard is the whole event.

Julie White and Neil Kaplan
This might have been another ordinary Q&A, but with the bubbly mum and the voice of Optimus Prime from Transformers - it was so much more. They both brought a very different perspective to questions about the films as well as their whole industry. They were cagey about the 3rd film but did day it was funny at the start before tearing Chicago to pieces in the second half and all in gorgeous proper 3D. Neil is a singular talent, pulling accents, voices and impressions out at the drop of a hat to illustrate the role of voice acting - remarkable.

There was just so much more, cant wait til next year now - how crazy is that...
I only took a few pics - check out Flickr etc for all those camera-armed peoples view of things (eg enzym and jackdoc101)

---
Edit - just adding a quick pic of some of the few images I did take - this post just wasnt graphical enough:

And a Video from the show by CyberSiren for good measure.

Lion and a Campus

2011-06-08T21:37:00.002+10:00

Well Apple is all in the news now, with their big WWDC announcements for OSX Lion, IOS5 and the new iCloud. Plus we can see their plans for the new Cupertino 'campus' which features a huge ring building for 12,000 employees.

Watch the full keynote from WWDC to see Steve and his gang introduce the features of these new software releases. Apple is pretty painful to watch in general (all the self praise and cheering), but there is some nice stuff and certainly lots of common ground with Win8.

I find it interesting the fixation with both OSes with full -screen apps now - we could already maximise apps that allowed for it - we watch video this wall all the time. Plus most of the time I like my apps in windows so I can use my screen for lotsa different things at the same time - maybe it is just me...

Anyhow, here is the vid of Steve Jobs presenting to the Cupertino Council his plans for the Apple Campus - some visualisation images in here, but nothing that flash...

Win8 and AsusUX21

2011-06-06T09:23:00.003+10:00

Windows 8 news continues to come and the very touch-centric development is fascinating to watch. I for one am a little disappointed that there are essentially the 2 UIs, that we cant have a single UI that delivers the versatility and the full-screen lushness at the same time - oh well. I can see myself just living in the Windows mode and when I launch one of these new apps being annoyed that it took over my screen so I cant see my notifications, that switching is now more awkward etc.
However, there are nice things...

The Asus EP121 - makes a showing in the video - looking forward to see if this piece of hardware lives up to my expectations.
Speaking of Asus gear, here is a vid for a very Macbook-Air-Like superthin laptop, the UX21:

CryEngine and Offset

2011-06-02T20:43:00.003+10:00

Well, without these real-time engine posts, where would this humble blog be. Here is another superb video showing off the capability of the CryEngine3 and the artists of course. The vid isnt new, but I just love those shots of the girl in the Autumn woods, with the lighting, leaves and mood.

Ok, here is a vid from Project Offset (which isnt going ahead) but they were certainly setting the visual bar very high indeed for a game. This isnt new either, but another lush example of what these realtime rendering solutions can deliver when they get to play on the cool hardware now available. The guys behind the glory below are now Fractiv and their gunsmith game has an interesting look already, but quite a different rendering objective.

Asus Slate and Tablets

2011-05-31T21:21:00.004+10:00

In my growing quest to replace my iPad with a similarly portable yet more computer-ish device - today I look at the ASUS Slate and the ASUS T101.

ASUS Slate
Here we are graced with a full tablet running Windows7 with the i5 grunt and some decent WACOM goodness - the Asus Eee Slate EP121. While it is a fair way short of a Cintiq, this does look as though it can be a portable graphics device and handle all the apps I would want to follow me around (the real apps I might add). I will have to learn to live in 64GB, using the SD perhaps and the ports and connectivity are super.
The weight is only a touch over the Macbook Air - though need to add a little for the keyboard (and the case). Battery is a liability perhaps with only a handful of hours - will need to manage that rather than just not worrying about it.

There how cool is that. The full review on MobileTechReview has more info again.

[Asus Eee Slate EP121 promo images via Asus site]

---

While we are here it is worth having a peek at these babies, though I am perhaps so keen on the Slate that these seem rather hohum: ASUS T101MT (Netvertible) and the Eee Pad Transformer TF101 (honeycomb gadget) - super honeycomb example (though I am hunting for a full OS experience these days) - still uber-nifty:

3D bits

2011-05-30T16:23:00.005+10:00

Time to take a little peek at a few pieces of 3D and GPU news. First it is always great to see new mobile graphics upgrades - I am a real laptop fan, I like that our computers, setup, software, digital lives can follow us around. That said I also like grunt - superb 3D real-time performance and more.

Here is a promo vid for NVIDIA's new GTX 560M which wields 192 CUDA cores and MHz in all directions. While in FBE we have shifted of late to the Workstation class graphics because of our vendor relationships (currently HP) - we do have some of these class of GPUs and the hardware is fun.

Seeing these laptops with built in 3D is groovy, NVIDIA now have their glasses a little cheaper if we give up the wireless versions (article). The Engadget mini-report on the 560M has some nice specs and comparisons as well.

I have to say that I have only watched a handful of movies and done a little bit of gaming and 3D visualisation in 3D. So far it is still powerful and a real leap forward in the immersion. Just to keep my enthusiasm in check, here is an interesting article on 'Why 3D doesn't work and never will. Case closed' by Roger Ebert.

--EDIT--

Just adding a link to this video today which shows off what NVIDIA is doing in the more mobile arena. This video showing dynamic lighting and cloth effects on 4 cores under Honeycomb:

Couple'a'vids

2011-05-30T14:40:00.003+10:00

A kinda miscellaneous post with a handful of videos that I have found interesting over the last few days - what better reason to blog a little and add a comment or two.

Flottille (detail) from Etienne Cliquet on Vimeo.

There, wasnt that serene. Apart from the slightly over-zen nature, this is a lovely example of physics in action. Plus it uses the imperfections in the real world to great effect, much like the superb JILA mint cardboard box, here the width of the paper is important.

More glorious astronomy, maybe more physics actually - the rotation of the earth spreading the stars in their wide arcs.

Lets call this more physics just to keep the theme going, but here we are treated to digital physics inside Unity - flames and fun all around.

Itty Computer Thinking

2011-05-29T22:42:00.003+10:00

I am still trying to work out what sort of itty computer I should wield when zipping about to meetings all over UNSW Campus. Looking after IT for Arts, Built Environment and Law now, plus all the central IT gatherings means I need something small and light. I take my iPad atm, but it is a wonderous toy, but no replacement for a computer really.

Here are is a mess of images and then links:

HP2560P : AIR : Lifebook : Samsung9 : HPmini etc

Astronomical Beauty

2011-05-29T22:00:00.005+10:00

I love getting the pointers to the stunning imagery from NASA and other sources that come through on twitter etc. Here are a few of the images and videos of late that really captured my attention:

Mountains of the Moon
While it is cool to see the mountains silhouetted against the sun, for me, seeing our sun as this vast tumultuous globe is remarkable - rather than the untra-bright disk we are used to. The image comes courtesy of NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams. LINK

[Mountains of the Moon via Lights_in_the_Dark on Flickr]

The Lagoon Nebula
Here is a portion of the Lagoon nebula imaged by Argentinean astronomers Julia Arias and Rodolfo Barbá using the Gemini South telescope with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph. Not only wonderfully beautiful and complex, but vast. LINK

[Lagoon Nebula via the Gemini website]

Bret Webster Milky Way
These images are part of a set by Bret Webster showing the sweep of lights of the milky way set behind the rocks and ancient paintings of the desert rocks in Utah. LINK

[Bret Webster Milky Way Photos via the Telegraph website]

Lastly, check out Bye Bye Comet.

CryEngine Tech Demo Screens

2011-05-29T21:33:00.003+10:00

I have been doing a shocking job of keeping the blog ticking of late - so lets back back into the swing with some juicy screenshots from this years CryEngine 3 Tech Demo. These come courtesy of Pierre-Yves Donzallaz blog (and also inCrysis) and we get to see the wonders that this real-time engine can deliver for us.

[CryEngine 3 Tech Demo lighting Images via Pierre-Yves Donzallaz blog]

Convertible Tablet PC

2011-05-10T21:35:00.002+10:00

I do love my HP 8740w and put in many many hours on it each week. However for work I also have LOTS of meetings that need attention. I occasionally take the big beasty along, but it can be a little oppressive, so I generally take my iPad along to take notes and stay in touch. Thus I can, in a rudimentary way, do the basics like email, calendar, basic text notes and even dabble with instant messaging and some web capability. Note I am using DropBox to sync my notes files between the laptop and the iPad.
While the iPad is clearly more productive than just a piece of paper, it is pretty terrible when it needs to stack up to the power, versatility, capability, fluidity, multi-taskicity and so forth of a windows (or mac) interface.
So, I get plenty of enquiries from people asking about using the iPad as a productivity tool for those of us who do have an armada of meetings to attend. It has some nice things, its profile is low, it is very light, it lasts all day and it is a lovely lovely toy. So we cant type without looking (well I cant) and we dont have our native apps (outlook, IM, word, excel, web, etc) or file management and projector link niceties etc etc.
I am now thinking/hoping that the world of the convertible tablet may come to the rescue...

Maybe HP's new 2760p which is an upgrade to the 2740p but with this year's nice internals including the new Sandy Bridge i5s and i7s. I am keen to find a way to try this out, I am sure I can get a loan from HP. It will be interesting to see if there is much value above a regular 12" laptop with the touch screen and wacom interface - which I hope is cool in reality. It certainly wouldnt be the ultra-thin and light iPad, but it would be an actual computer which I would love.

---

Here is some early info on the HP 2760p, including the datasheet and info from places like GottaBeMobile.

Cool Vids

2011-05-04T20:53:00.003+10:00

Simple post featuring some fun videos of various sorts:

Digital Domain's 'The Future of Driving' TVC for Dodge:

Immortals:

Binary Domain - The Machine Age has Begun:

World of Warcraft Cataclysm: Rise of the Zandalari (Machinima Trailer)

Star Trek: Tik Tok (super amount of work in here)

Pendulum Waves - beauty of physics:

Buffy vs Edward

Sketch Madness from the wonderful digital pen of Reiq

Sonic Chilli Group Col

2011-05-03T23:14:00.004+10:00

I havent done much on the Sonic Chilli concept with Alicia for a little while, but when I scrolled past my earlier concepts the other day I decided to do a colour treatment for some of them.
So I grabbed 4 of the sketches for the teenage super-hero band members and brought them together as the WIP images below show. This time I worked with pretty much a single colour layer beneath a multiply sketch layer and a faint version of that same layer on normal which pulls back the intensity for me. I also played more with the Accented Edges filter on the sketches at the end - I like the effect in combo with the colour.

Things are still pretty rough, both the sketch and elements of the colour which I actually like in this case, they are my attempt at ideas, not full rendered people - some of the crookedness for example makes the girls seem a little more real as well (or maybe I have been staring at it too long :-) I like how having the WIP images in a set like this shows things slowly filling in.

From L-R we have Shyla, Poppy, Tim and Jordie - more on their story and powers later. As a group they look a little unhappy, I will look at another version where they are meant to be together and more of their emotional character can come through as well...

Stroggtank art and armour reference

2011-04-28T21:49:00.004+10:00

I am always on the lookout for reference art (and other imagery) for projects, including the current character design thinking for Moths vs Butterflies. The Butterfly armour here involves fine tracery over the top of plates with integration of jewel-like qualities here and there. The pieces are a mixture of tight conforming segments that occasionally fly-out beyond the signature body shape.

---

STROGGTANK Reference Cetaur
I came across Carlos Ortega's CGPortfolio and in particular his images of 'Tesalia, a young female centaur' created in Maya with postwork in Photoshop. Here is a nice little CG model which features armour very much like that the Butterfly characters including the swirling metal and a simple yet vibrant colour scheme. The bow is pretty cool as well, though I have been pushing the idea further for prop elements like this. His Gallery is full of other works and more imagery of Tesalia even - well worth a browse.

[Carlos Ortega images via his CGPortfolio Gallery]

---

In the spirit of reference imagery for the Butterflies, fantasy High-Elves are good value. Some Google image searches around this brings forth all manner of other artists with related ideas (I might cover some of them in future posts)