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Disney Releases Production Assets for R&D and Education Posted by Mike Seymour ON July 4, 2018 Disney Animation has released two production assets to be used in computer graphics research and software development or education. The cloud rendered using Disney’s Hyperion renderer. The first data set is a realistic cloud that could be used for example in volume rendering research. The large and highl

Saya: a uniquely Japanese “Kawaii” Digital Girl Posted by Mike Seymour ON October 2, 2017 “Last year a new Japanese celebrity burst onto the scene. But “Saya” was a different kind of star, because she is the product of a Tokyo computer lab, ” wrote the BBC discussing the virtual human Saya. Saya is an evolving digital human project using primarily off the shelf tools. Fxguide was keen to learn mor

The science of spherical harmonics at Weta Digital Posted by Mike Seymour ON April 25, 2013 Spherical Harmonics are an invaluable tool for production rendering, and also a common device used in games, but few really understand them and how they are used. Spherical Harmonics (SH) are a data representation, nothing more. But like a Fourier transform, the SH data transformation has been allowing incr

Disney’s new Production Renderer ‘Hyperion’ – Yes, Disney! Posted by Mike Seymour ON October 13, 2014 At the Eurographics Symposium on Rendering last year, Brent Burley and a team from Walt Disney Animation Studios presented a paper called, ‘Sorted Deferred Shading for Production Path Tracing’. This was the first major signal that Disney Animation was developing their own new production renderer f

The tech of Crytek’s Ryse: Son of Rome Posted by Ian Failes ON March 20, 2014 When Microsoft announced the Xbox One in May 2013, Ryse: Son of Rome was confirmed to be one of the first titles available for the next-gen console. For Crytek, that provided a chance to develop a game with characters and environments seen in a level of fidelity they had not previously tackled. “In the past,” Crytek art

The state of rendering – part 2 Posted by Mike Seymour ON July 17, 2013 In Part 1 of The State of Rendering, we looked at the latest trends in the visual effects industry including the move to physically plausible shading and lighting. Part 2 explores the major players in the current VFX and animation rendering markets and also looks at the future of rendering tech. There is more about rendering a

The state of rendering – part 1 Posted by Mike Seymour ON July 15, 2013 Part 1 of 2. This part deals with the rendering trends in the VFX industry today. Part 2 includes a run down of 14 of the most popular renderers for VFX. Many of the issues in this special two part series will also be covered in more depth in the July term at fxphd.com. Introduction: which renderer? Each Tuesday at ILM in the

Assassin’s Creed III: The tech behind (or beneath) the action Posted by Mike Seymour ON December 11, 2012 Assassin’s Creed III (ACIII) follows the story and path of Desmond Miles as he uses the Animus once again to relive the memories of his Assassin ancestors while fighting the Knight Templars. In ACIII the adventure extends for the first time to the ocean, unable to even swim in the first Ubisof

Tandent Lightbrush: engineering an image Posted by Mike Seymour ON August 30, 2012 One of the more interesting new products shown at SIGGRAPH 2012 in LA was Tandent’s Lightbrush. This was first previewed at a prior SIGGRAPH but it was not yet a product that could be purchased. Lightbrush comes from computer vision research and allows artists to independently work and manipulate surface colors and

The Art of Rendering (updated) Posted by Mike Seymour ON April 10, 2012 Rendering is always an exercise in managing how much computer power you are willing to devote to simulating reality – that cost is expressed in both dollars and time. Once considered a commodity item in the whole CG / VFX world – rendering is now a hot topic. CG supervisor Scott Metzger jokes that one can’t talk about renderer

The science of fluid simulations Posted by Mike Seymour ON September 15, 2011 Fluid sims have become such a vital part of so many visual effects films, yet are not well understood by most general artists. We try and explain the science behind the fluid sims, and look at one in particular closely: Naiad, with help from our friends at Exotic Matter. Introduction Fluid sims were used by Weta Digital