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Douglas Trumbull, VFX whiz for ‘Blade Runner’, ‘2001’ and others, dies at 79
The longtime visual effects director was behind some of the most influential sci-fi films of all time.
Epic's MetaHuman Creator generates realistic virtual people
With Hollywood clamoring for virtual production tools after the success of Disney’s The Mandalorian, bleeding-edge digital effects are in high demand. At the forefront of the medium lies Unreal, Fortnite maker Epic Games’ proprietary game engine that sits at the intersection of gaming and big-budget Hollywood entertainment. After working on the digital sets used in the Star Wars spinoff, Unreal is now offering a glimpse at its latest virtual production tech: A realistic digital character creator that takes the grunt work out of crafting virtual humans at scale.
Big-name talent and bad CG made for the worst holiday special ever
The original “film” was created in four months in 2002 by a barebones team of animators on a budget of about $650,000, and director Colin Slater hoped it would be the first in a line of extremely popular, extremely cost-effective holiday specials. Apparently, all it took to get Luke Skywalker himself onboard was to hire a limo that would ferry him to and from recording sessions.
Watch the trailer for Studio Ghibli's first fully CG movie
Studio Ghibli has released the trailer for its first CG movie, 'Earwig and the Witch.'
iPhone AR tech can improve amateur CGI
It won't produce Hollywood-ready special effects, but it'll make Match Moving a lot easier for everyone else.
Studio Ghibli's first fully CG movie will be 'Aya and the Witch'
Studio Ghibli is shifting to 3D CGI animation for its next movie, Aya and the Witch. The movie will premiere on Japan's NHK this winter.
The CGI ghost of James Dean will star in a Vietnam War movie
More than 60 years after his last film, James Dean will return to the screen in Finding Jack. In an exclusive, The Hollywood Reporter shares that the iconic actor, who passed away in 1955, has been posthumously cast in a major supporting role. Production house Magic City Films plans to use photos and videos to recreate Dean in CGI.
The forgotten pioneers of computer animation
Everyone remembers ReBoot. It's hard to forget the show's lead character -- a bright blue 'guardian' named Bob -- and his fight to protect a city inside a computer. The computer-animated series premiered in September 1994, months before Pixar stunned theatergoers with Toy Story. It was a groundbreaking show that allowed its creator, Mainframe Entertainment, to pursue similar projects like Shadow Raiders and Transformers spin-off Beast Wars. Today, many believe that Mainframe was the only company to debut a computer-animated TV show in 1994. But that's incorrect. The Canadian studio had a European peer called Fantôme ("ghost" in French), which developed an equally important and pioneering series called Insektors.
'Stranger Things' VFX artists show how imploding rats came to life
Stranger Things 3 packed plenty of punch, not least because of the horrifying monsters that terrorized the residents of Hawkins. A great deal of work went into the creatures and the rest of the season's visuals, and VFX house Rodeo FX has released a behind-the-scenes look at how some of the effects came into shape. The videos spoil some of the season's more impressive shots, so you might want to hold off if you haven't finished Stranger Things 3 yet.
‘Cats’ trailer plunges into the uncanny valley of digital fur
VFX artists had a go with the feature film Cats. Universal unveiled a full-length trailer today that gave us the first look at what the film's human actors look like as CG-transformed felines. While the Broadway version of Cats relied on elaborate costumes and makeup, the Jellicle Cats in the Tom Hooper film are heavily aided by visual effects wizardry. Earlier footage revealed the film's actors performing in leotards with markers, with the promise of "digital fur" being added later in post-production.
One of these models doesn't exist
Virtual humans are gradually scaling the uncanny valley, and like artificial intelligence, they're coming for our jobs. A case in point is Imma, a digital Instagram model who has garnered over 50,000 followers thanks to her (its?) trendy, street-style selfies and photos. Imma just entered uncharted territory for 3D rendered humans, appearing in a makeup spread with two real models for Kate cosmetics in Vice's i-D site in Japan.
'Sonic the Hedgehog' director: Changes are 'going to happen'
That the internet had an uneasy reaction to our first look at the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog live action movie isn't surprising, but the absolute horror induced by some elements of the furry hero's design has not gone unnoticed. This afternoon director Jeff Fowler tweeted "The message is loud and clear... you aren't happy with the design & you want changes. It's going to happen." He didn't say what changes were in store, but Sonic's detailed teeth, under-stylized body type and widely spaced eyes seem like potential places to start. Take a look at the trailer again and let us know what, if anything, would make it better in your opinion.
Watch the visual effects for 'Ant-Man and The Wasp' come to life
One of the most entertaining aspects of Ant-Man and The Wasp was how the film played with the characters' shrinking and growing powers. Marvel obviously relied on CGI to turn that building into a roller suitcase and that Helly Kitty pez dispenser into a massive weapon, but we could only guess how much of each scene was real and how much were visual effects. Now, Rodeo, the VFX company behind all those fun scenes, have given us a glimpse into how they were shot and which parts of the set had to be covered in green screen.
Fox Sports’ new virtual studio runs on Unreal Engine
It's no secret that Epic Games has enabled a number of gaming studios to create more-realistic visuals with its Unreal game engine. Since its debut in 1998, powering the first-person shooter Unreal, the technology has evolved to power hundreds of games, from Fortnite to Street Fighter V, and with that process, the virtual has become increasingly more realistic. Now in its fourth iteration, Unreal Engine is no longer exclusively being used for gaming, as other industries have taken notice of the possibilities. Unreal Engine 4 has become a key element for film and television in recent years, and Fox Sports is using it to power its new, completely virtual studio set. "Virtual sets have been around for quite some time, and we've done our fair share of using them," Zac Fields said. "But it's always been a struggle to give that sense of photo realism." Fields oversees Fox Sports' Graphic Technology and Integration department, which includes the addition of new gear during a studio build. He said the team started thinking about the idea of a virtual set about two years ago. Around 15 months ago, the network started getting staff familiar with the software and began tests. Then last winter, the broadcaster did a virtual show. Fields described this as a "full run-through" of a show on the virtual set that was built in Charlotte, North Carolina.
With 'Siren,' Unreal Engine blurs the line between CGI and reality
Epic Games has been obsessed with real-time motion capture for years, but the company is now trying to take its experiments with the technology one step further. Enter "Siren," a digital personality that it created alongside a few prominent firms in the gaming industry: Vicon, Cubic Motion, 3Lateral and Tencent (which just became a major investor in Ubisoft). The crazy thing about Siren is that she comes to life using live mocap tech, powered by software from Vicon, that can make her body and finger movements be captured and live-streamed into an Unreal Engine project.
NVIDIA announces exclusive features for GPUs that don't exist
It's been exactly five years since NVIDIA announced Volta, its next-generation GPU architecture. The closest thing to a Volta consumer graphics card we've seen since is the Titan V, a $3,000 offering targeted at scientists that was announced three months ago. Well, today at GDC, NVIDIA is... still not announcing a new GeForce card based on Volta. What it's doing instead is teasing that Volta cards will have some exclusive GameWorks features. The new features are part of "RTX," a "highly scalable" solution that, according to the company, will "usher in a new era" of real-time ray tracing. Keeping with the acronyms, RTX is compatible with DXR, Microsoft's new ray tracing API for DirectX. To be clear, DXR will support older graphics cards; it's only the NVIDIA features that will be locked to "Volta and future generation GPU architectures."
‘Blade Runner 2049’ VFX reel breaks down that unexpected reveal
Despite the insane stakes, this year's Blade Runner 2049 lived up to (and in some ways surpassed) the paradigm-shifting original film. The sequel created its gritty futuristic look with the help of plenty of visual effects, but building settings isn't all the film pulled off with digital wizardry. A shocking moment comes with the kinda-return of (*spoilers*) Sean Young's replicant Rachel, who looks like she hasn't aged a day. The company behind that VFX trick just released a trailer giving a peek at exactly how they did it.
'W Magazine' shows how fashion is embracing augmented reality
The fashion world loves augmented reality. From Gap to Nike, brands are trying to find different ways to integrate the technology into their retail experience. Now W Magazine, one of the most prominent fashion publications, is treading a similar path with a new AR-powered issue. Done in partnership with The Mill, a visual effects production studio, the magazine's Sept. 2017 Collector's Issue features an interactive, computer-generated image of Katy Perry on the cover. At first glance, it seems like a traditional magazine, but that changes when parts of it come to life when viewed through the lens of a smartphone or tablet. For W Magazine, it's about using tech to keep its print publication modern.
Watch the most impressive 'Game of Thrones' VFX reel yet
Warning: Spoilers ahoy. This week's Game of Thrones episode wasn't dampened by hacking or leaks, mainly because the "Loot Train" battle was so spectacular. The producers have posted a new YouTube breakdown (below) showing how the VFX and stunt team used everything they've learned so far to pull it off. On top of the CGI, there are acrobatic horse stunts, multiple people on fire, and most of all, those fire-breathing dragon scenes. "It's like a time travel movie -- what if somebody had an F-16 that they brought to a medieval battle?" said executive producer D.B. Weiss.
Inside The Mill’s mind-bending alternate reality art showcase
I stepped inside a small, dark room in a large, airy loft space in New York's Soho district early Wednesday morning. Our host fitted me with an HTC Vive and told to explore the world around me. Within moments, I was trapped in a glass box, surrounded by other people, also wearing VR headsets, also trapped in glass boxes, one of whom continued to claw at the glass until both of our headsets were consumed by our own flesh. We were one with the machines. Over the next two hours I watched semi-autonomous robots run in circles, randomly scribbling on large sheets of butcher paper; pulled the virtual puppet strings of a CGI llama that lip synced to Mariah Carey; watched as Reeps One, a world-famous dubstep beatboxer, created unique digital sculptures with the incredibly nuanced tones of his voice; and floated through a VR dreamscape using my breathing and brain waves to propel me upward.
