Chaos Group Customer Success Story :: Method - Halo: Reach "Deliver Hope"

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Chaos Group gives us another customer spotlight. This time its Method Studios and their work on Halo:Reach"Deliver Hope" .

click the link above to read the full interview.

"Here at Method we have been using V-Ray for Maya since the beginning of its development. It has had huge success in house for feature and commercial work large and small. Having multiple renderer support inhouse it's a head to head vs match to final only the best images."

Scott Metzger, VFX Artist at Method Studios

Based in Los Angeles, with locations in New York and London, Method Studios is a leading post production facility providing a full range of visual effects services including conceptual design, look development, on-set supervision, 3D animation/CGI, matte painting, compositing and finishing.

Get V-Ray for 3ds Max or Maya at the Motion Media online shop!

V-Ray 2.0 for Maya Beta now available!

Chaos Group Releases V-Ray 2.0 for Maya Beta Version.

V-Ray, hailed by many as the most robust and versatile rendering engine on the market, is about to see a significant upgrade for all Maya users. The 2.0 upgrade for V-Ray began its much-anticipated Beta test on March 30th, 2011.

V-Ray 2.0 for Maya is a complete rendering solution developed by Chaos Group, now with interactive rendering on GPU and CPU. This robust and highly trusted engine is the perfect tool for the 3D professionals, working in the film and VFX industry. With this new version users can expect many new improvements and updates to the existing one.

Exciting new features are now available in V-Ray 2.0 for Maya like: V-Ray RT and V-Ray RT GPU, Faster rendering of dynamic geometry (displacement, fur, proxies, hair etc), Faster rendering of render-time subdivision surfaces, VRayFur and Maya hair, VRayCarPaint material, VRayToon shader and a lot more. Detailed information and a full feature list for V-Ray 2.0 for Maya can be found here >>



The beta program will be open to all customers who already own a license of V-Ray for Maya (purchased V-Ray 1.5 for Maya) or pre-ordered V-Ray 2.0 for Maya.



Join the V-Ray 2.0 for Maya Beta Program and be among the first to test this advanced rendering technology for all Maya users. It's your help and feedback that will make this product much better.

Release plans have been set for the end of April. Get ready for the official start and share the V-Ray experience with us!

 

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Order your V-Ray Maya 2.0 pre-release, or Upgrade at our online shop!

Chaos Group Customer Success Story :: Blur Studio

Chaos Group gave us a spotlight on BLUR STUDIO and their use of V-Ray.

If you missed it click the link above.

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With the coming of the E3 Expo in June, we  went back in awe of the visually stunning work from BLUR and interview with Kevin Margo CG Supervisor at Blur Studio.

"V-Ray is a supremely brilliant rendering engine with mind bending approaches to visualizing 3 dimensional form that encourages philosophic ontological discussions about the nature and observation of reality itself."

We at Motion Media can't wait to see what  BLUR is working on for this year's E3 Expo!

BLUR STUDIO has been creating award-winning visual effects, animation and design, applying its creative skills across various mediums. We produce 3D character animation, motion design and visual effects for feature films and television, game cinematics & trailers, large format films, location-based entertainment, commercials and integrated media. Located in Venice, California, we combine the passion and excitement from our directors, animators, designers, concept artists, and writers with our clients into a collaborative creative approach that results in compelling visuals and storytelling.

Order your V-Ray for 3ds Max or Maya at our online shop!

Package Design and Construction Kit for modo 501

 

 

Luxology releases a  new PACK Kit for modo, you can quickly create bags, wrappers, boxes, bottles, cans, cartons, tubes, tubs, and non-destructively develop new packaging concepts.



 

Popcorn family image by Gene Dupont.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the core of PACK is a collection of more than 200 presets, images and assemblies, which together form a large library of packages and components such as container seals that can be modified and brought together to both visualize existing packaging and to create totally new package designs.



 

Customize your packaging with pre-built container seals like these.

 

The new PACK Kit is one more great reason to use modo! Get modo 501 at our online Shop.



 

 

More detailed information and videos of the pack in action here.

 

 

 

Blackmagic Design Software Updates

 

 

 

Blackmagic Design releases software upgrades for their Decklink and VideoHub products.

Software Updates

Videohub 4.6.4 has just been released.  This update fixes an issue with the USB not being recognized when an SD reference is connected.

DeckLink 7.9.6 is available.  This release fixes an SD-SDI issue with Sony HDW 700 cameras on DeckLink Studio, DeckLink SDI, DeckLink Duo, and DeckLink Optical Fiber.

These updates can be downloaded here:

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/support/software/

Purchase a Decklink or Video Hub at your online Shop

V-Ray 2.0 for Maya Features!

The long anticipated V-Ray 2.0 for Maya is on its way to be officially released on 25th of April.

V-Ray for Maya ADV 1.5 is still in Beta. V-Ray 2.0 for Maya will be available after 25th of April.

Starting March 25th 2011 customers can purchase V-Ray Maya 2.0 pre-release and get started right away with V-Ray Maya 1.5. Customers who purchased the pre-release or upgrade will receive V-Ray for Maya 2.0 on its release April 25th.

 

Order your V-Ray Maya 2.0 pre-release, or Upgrade at our online shop!

 

Below is the list of new features of V-Ray 2.0 for Maya.

• Python callback for access to and modification of the translated V-Ray scene before rendering – this powerful feature allows you to directly modify the V-Ray scene before rendering to fit V-Ray seamlessly into your production pipeline; to access the full features of the V-Ray rendering engine and its plugins, even if they are not exposed in the user interface; to add your own custom V-Ray plugins without the need to code Maya plugins and much more.


• Support for the Substance textures in Maya 2011.5 and Maya 2012 - use the new V-Ray 2.0 with the Substance textures in Maya 2011.5 and Maya 2012 to create a wide range of procedural shaders for your projects.


• V-Ray RT and V-Ray RT GPU - the new interactive technology running both on CPUs and GPUs speeds up the shading and lighting stages of your production. With the new V-Ray 2.0 you can take full advantage of our state of the art interactive renderer. It can also be used for fast off-line rendering with support for motion blur on both CPU and GPU, and displacement, subdivision surfaces, hair and fur on the CPU.


• Faster rendering of dynamic geometry (displacement, fur, proxies, hair etc) - new internal optimizations have led to even faster rendering of dynamic geometry like displacement, proxies, fur and hair etc.


• Faster rendering of render-time subdivision surfaces, VRayFur and Maya hair - the new improved core of V-Ray 2.0 can render VRayFur, Maya hair and render-time subdivision surfaces much faster.


• VRayCarPaint material - create realistic car paint shaders complete with "Base",  "Flakes" and "Coat" layers. Full mapping support allows for amazing flexibility and a wide range of effects.


• VRayToon shader - add amazing cartoon-like feeling to your renderings.


• Support for dispersion in refractions for VRayMtl  - this option uses the new capabilities for wavelength-dependent raytracing of the V-Ray core and allows you to create stunning close ups of refractive objects with caustics that dazzle the eye.


• Automatic support for both Mari- and Mudbox-style tiled textures - V-Ray 2.0 can automatically load the correct texture bitmaps depending on the UV tiles of the rendered object.


• PTex textures - with V-Ray 2.0 you can stop worrying about UV coordinates and use PTex textures instead. This state of the art technology allows the artist to be absolutely free in his or her creative process and skip the boring UV unwrapping.


• Lens distortion through Nuke displacement maps - the VRayPhysicalCamera can use displacement maps from Nuke to completely mach the distortion of your real cameras.


• Option to turn off camera motion blur - V-Ray 2.0 gives you a separate control to enable or disable the motion blur coming from the movement of the camera.


• Support for rendering of Maya fluids - the new V-Ray 2.0 recognizes and renders Maya fluids directly, with full support for GI and light scattering inside the volume.


• Support for the Maya stereo camera in batch render mode - render your stereoscopic animations with V-Ray 2.0 and Maya batch render mode.


• The ply2vrmesh tool can convert RealFlow .bin files to .vrmesh files - with the new version of the ply2mesh tool V-Ray 2.0 users can render very large RealFlow simulations as VRayProxy objects with significantly improved memory efficiency


• Extended irradiance map viewer tool – allows the incremental merge of irradiance map files to avoid redundant information; preview of light cache files; manual deletion of unwanted samples, and usage of OpenGL display lists for more interactivity.


• Img2tiledexr tool - for mass conversion of many common image formats to tiled OpenEXR files


• Output of multi-channel scanline OpenEXR files with data-window - removes the need to manually convert the multichannel OpenEXR files produced by V-Ray to scanline-based OpenEXR files for efficient processing by compositing applications.


• Shutter efficiency for motion blur – render more realistic motion blur with manual control over the camera shutter efficiency.


• and many other fixes and improvements...

Order your V-Ray Maya 2.0 pre-release, or Upgrade at our online shop!

 

 

STORM UPDATE COMING SOON:

The Foundry gives us a tease of things to come this week with STORM.

STORM's release has been really well received, but at The Foundry we are not standing still. A STORM update will be made available this week. There will be information coming your way soon.

Learn more about STORM - We have  started an on-going video series to highlight STORM Features.

For  complete details of the STORM blast above Click Here.

Get The Foundry’s Storm Now from Motion Media’s online shop.

Try the FREE 15 day trial!  You can try any of The Foundry products FREE for 15 days, click to learn more.

NUKEPEDIA - ALL Things NUKE!

 

 

NUKEPEDIA is the place to go for all things NUKE.  Plug-ins, gizmos, tutorials, scripts and much more including exclusive access to the brains behind the software. There are transition videos from Fusion to Nuke and much more. Join more than 4000 Nuke using members.

NUKE 6.2v3 is released!

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

The Foundry releases NUKE 6.2v3.  This is a maintenance release containing many bug fixes.  Please see the RELEASE NOTES for further details.

All new versions are FREE to customers on valid maintenance.  If you want to renew your maintenance or add a seat of Nuke to your VFX tool set, please contact your Motion Media account Representative.

Matrox MXO2 Releases 5.1.1 for PC and 2.2.1 for Mac — Now Available

Matrox releases software updates for the MXO2 family 5.1.1 for PC and 2.2.1 for Mac are now available for you to download.

Common features for MXO2 products include:

•		Support for Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 version 5.0.3.
•		Unique new Matrox HDMI Calibration utility that provides a wizard to guide you through the process of color calibrating your HDMI monitor so that it performs like a broadcast monitor. It walks you through a set of patterns that lets you effectively identify and compensate for five improper adjustments that may be present in your HDMI monitor – true 1:1 pixel representation, white and black level, white point, gamma response, and hue and chroma.

Note: To take full advantage of the Matrox HDMI Calibration Utility, your HDMI monitor/television must support an HDMI input resolution of 1920×1080 and 1:1 pixel mapping (aspect ratio of 1:1) on the HDMI input. On some HDMI monitors, 1:1 pixel mapping is referred to as "dot-by-dot", "Full Pixel", or "Just Scan" mode.

Autodesk Special Media Event Webcast March 21 -TODAY!

 

 

Learn about Autodesk’s new products for the design, engineering, and entertainment industries by joining Senior Vice President Amar Hanspal for Autodesk’s 2012 Product Launch webcast.

Date and time: Monday, March 21, 2:00 PM PDT / 5:00 PM EDT

Action: Register in advance at www.autodesk.com/webcast.

Looking for a seat of Autodesk Media & Entertainment products? You can  Click Here to Purchase.

 

cebas Visual Technology and Cyber Radiance Enter Hair Farm cooperation

cebas Visual Technology Inc. announces an initiative for close cooperation with Cyber Radiance to enhance the speed and effectiveness of their core software products, finalRender and Hair Farm. The latter is now available from the cebas website.

The two independent software developers intend to optimize their respective offerings through their new partnership. This will ensure that these industry leading tools will work hand-in-hand to get the best possible performance for their customers.



Rendering made with finalRender and Hair Farm
cebas CEO Edwin Braun stated: “It’ll be great to optimize both systems for our current and future user base. Hair Farm is an amazing product and we are happy and proud to promote it in the future.”

“finalRender is an extremely powerful rendering system for using Hair Farm and I’m excited to integrate our products more closely," said Dr. Cem Yuksel, creator of Hair Farm. "It will yield optimal performance and enhanced workflow for all 3ds Max users. Most importantly, it will help us extend the capabilities of our solutions and go beyond the limitations of today's technology.”

This agreement marks the second such software development deal, after cebas announced the cooperation with Sitni Sati and their leading CG fluid dynamics simulation system, FumeFX, last year.

The announcement clearly shows the commitment by cebas to offer the most efficient and best rendering solutions to its customer base. By covering and enhancing complex rendering effects, such as fire, smoke and now hair, finalRender strengthens its position as the number one choice for serious motion picture and game production professionals.

While Hair Farm users agree that it is undoubtedly the best hair rendering software for CG professionals, the announcement affirms that Cyber Radiance is determined to go beyond this achievement and continue improving its ultimate hair solution with new ground-breaking technologies.

*  *  *

About Hair Farm

Hair Farmwas designed and developed by Dr. Cem Yuksel. When he first started developing Hair Farm, the available CG technologies for modeling, animating, and rendering hair were very limited and under-developed. Therefore, Dr. Yuksel began developing various novel technologies required for a solid hair modeling, animation, and rendering software. After six years of R&D, the last piece of the puzzle was solved with his invention of hair meshes, as first presented at SIGGRAPH Asia 2009.

Hair Farm is not just another tool for producing hair for virtual characters. It is a completely new design that combines state-of-the-art technologies with an artist-friendly user interface and flexible workflow. Within a year of its release, hundreds of studios and artists have begun using Hair Farm for their projects, such as the upcoming motion picture "Sucker Punch" (rel. March 25, 2011).

Contact

Cem Yuksel, Founder & CEO
Cyber Radiance LLC
cem@cyberradiance.com
www.cyberradiance.com

3ds Max, Motion Builder Kinect Workflow and Kinect SDK

 

Louis is a Technical Specialist in 3D Animation and Visual Effects for Autodesk.

 

 

Louis Marcoux from Autodesk gives us a rundown of 3ds Max and Motion Builder in an animation pipeline.

Part 5 goes into the use of the Kinect unit and Motion Builder with the tools from http://www.brekel.com.

Read and watch the videos here.

Things are looking promising since my initial Kinect post last year.

Hopefully with the release of  the Kinect SDK from Microsoft this Spring Motion Capture on your favorite animation program will become ubiquitous.

More information on the Microsoft Kinect SDK announcement at the official Microsoft blog .

 

AJA Updates Io Express, Kona, and FS1!

New Firmware for Io Express Mac and Windows Platforms Adds Support for Avid Media Composer v5.5

AJA has released firmware updates for Io Express for the Mac and PC, adding support for Avid Media Composer v5.5.

Download v8.1.2 for Mac or v5.0.3 for Windows here.
Be sure to read the release notes included in the download for detailed release information

 



Updates to KONA and Io HD v8.1.2 for Mac

New features for each product include:
Io HD v8.1.2 fixes a problem where the video output choices for 25/29.97/30 psf were incorrectly displayed.

This version is compatible with Smoke for Mac 2011 for KONA 3G and KONA 3

Click here to download v8.1.2 for your KONA or Io HD. Be sure to read the release notes for more details.

 

 



 

AJA FS1 v2.2 Now Available

The FS1 v2.2 brings numerous improvements to the popular FS1 frame-sync, including:
Save and load individual preset configurations
New internal video and audio Test Signal Generator (TSG)
Freeze On Input Loss (FOIL) ensures the FS1 output is always stable even with unstable input signals

Download FS1 v2.2 here and read about more improvements in the release notes.

Purchase the Aja Io Express /HD, Kona 3G, Fs1 at the Motion Media Online Shop.

Matrox MXO2 Mini for Avid Media Composer 5.5 Now Available

Avid's support of Matrox MXO2 Mini was the talk of NAB and IBC 2010, giving Media Composer and NewsCutter users a very inexpensive HD monitoring solution. We are now pleased to inform you that Matrox drivers for the latest Avid releases are available for you to download.

Matrox Mtx.utils 5.1 (PC) provides support for using the software-only versions of Avid Media Composer 5.5.1 and NewsCutter 9.5.1 with Matrox MXO2 Mini and Matrox MXO2 Mini with MAX hardware. Avid has qualified this release for video and audio monitoring.

Release 2.2 ( Mac) provides support for using the software-only version of Avid Media Composer 5.5.1 with Matrox MXO2 Mini and Matrox MXO2 Mini with MAX hardware. Avid has qualified this release for video and audio monitoring. Avid has also qualified this release for accelerated H.264 encoding directly from Media Composer using Matrox MXO2 Mini with MAX.

Matrox MXO2 Mini with the built-in MAX H.264 encoding accelerator option lets you deliver H.264 files for the web, iPad, iPhone, and other mobile devices, directly from Media Composer and your Mac Pro or MacBook Pro, at speeds up to five times faster than software alone, without sacrificing quality. Matrox MAX even lets you deliver directly from Media Composer up to three times faster than if you used Sorenson Squeeze to encode the files. read more

For information about MXO2 Mini hardware support with Avid editing software, including the supported video formats, see the Avid Knowledge Base topic Matrox MXO2 Mini FAQ (366347).

Purchase the Matrox MXO2 Mini at the Motion Media Online Shop.

The Foundry STORM Launch at RED STUDIOS, Hollywood - 10th March 2011

 



 

 

 

STORM 1.0 - AVAILABLE NOW!

The STORM has now officially hit and to celebrate, you are invited to an exclusive event.

Join The Foundry at RED Studios in Los Angeles for an exclusive event to celebrate the release of STORM.

DATE: THURSDAY 10TH MARCH
TIME: 6PM - 9.30PM
WHERE:  RED Studios - Stage 4,
846 North Cahuenga
Boulevard, Los Angeles
CA 90038 - 3704

Places are limited, so REGISTER NOW
to ensure you don't miss out.

DON'T MISS OUT ON THIS RARE CHANCE TO VISIT RED STUDIOS AND
HEAR FIRST HAND ABOUT RED AND STORM DEVELOPMENTS

More information on The Foundry's Storm Event at Red Studios or Buy The Foundry's Storm Now from Motion Media's online shop.

The Foundry Ships Storm 1.0!

 



 

 

 

STORM 1.0 - AVAILABLE NOW!

The Foundry's eagerly anticipated RED Digital Cinema workflow product, STORM, is now available.

STORM brings a focused and easy to adopt tool to digital camera workflows, offering a consistent and reliable way to review, organize, prepare, edit, conform and deliver RAW RED media, on a laptop or workstation on and near-set.

STORM brings continuity to your workflow enabling you to quickly and easily take RED media from camera, through editorial and onto post-production and delivery.   Whether you’re a DIT, Data Wrangler, Cinematographer, Editor, Colourist, Director or all of the above, STORM provides a workflow solution that will work for you.

More information on The Foundry's Storm here or Buy The Foundry's Storm Now from Motion Media's online shop.

What’s New in Autodesk Softimage 2012

Autodesk Softimage 2012

Autodesk^® Softimage^® 2012 software delivers innovative new creative toolsets; enhanced interoperability with Autodesk® Entertainment Creation Suite Premium products; and new tools that embrace recent technology trends.

Follow the link for more information on Softimage 2012 and the new New features video.

What’s New in Autodesk Maya 2012

Autodesk Maya 2012

Autodesk^® Maya^® 2012 software delivers powerful new toolsets for previsualization and games prototyping; offers extended simulation capabilities; and better pipeline integration.

Follow the link for more information on Maya 2012 and the new New features video.

What's New in Autodesk 3ds Max 2012

Autodesk 3ds Max 2012

Autodesk^® 3ds Max^® 2012 3D animation software delivers inspiring new creative toolsets, enhanced iterative workflows, and an accelerated graphics core that together help significantly increase overall productivity.

Follow the link for more information on 3ds Max 2012 and the new New features video.

Ki Pro Mini & Lexar CF Card Problems

An issue has come to our attention regarding the use of Lexar 32GB Professional 600x Compact Flash cards as originally qualified for use with the Ki Pro Mini. If the Lexar Compact Flash cards are inserted in the Ki Pro Mini prior to powering up the unit, the Lexar Compact Flash cards will falsely report recording; in actuality data will not be written to the Compact Flash card as expected. While this issue does not occur if the Lexar Compact Flash card is inserted after the Ki Pro Mini is powered up, we can no longer recommend the use of these cards at this time. We are actively working to determine the cause of this issue, but for now, the Lexar 32GB Professional 600x Compact Flash card has been removed from our list of qualified Compact Flash cards for use with Ki Pro Mini.

Please note that the issue described above for the Lexar Compact Flash card does not affect the other cards qualified for use with the Ki Pro Mini. Additionally, AJA will be adding new choices to the qualified list of Compact Flash cards for use with Ki Pro Mini in the near future.