T-Splines Announces T-Splines Maya Plugin Modeling Software

Provides greater control and more efficient modeling for animation and industrial design

T-Splines, LLC, leading developer of 3D animation modeling software, announced today that the T-Splines Maya plugin 1.0 is now shipping, opening a new frontier in 3D modeling by solving two problems that have plagued the 3D modeling industry since its inception: greater surface control and seamless merging. A free trial of the T-Splines Maya plugin Learning Edition may be downloaded at the T-Splines website, http://www.tsplines.com.

The innovative plugin, which integrates easily with NURBS and polygons, allows artists to add single control points anywhere on a 3D surface without changing the surface. The plug-in also solves a major industry problem by allowing surfaces to merge seamlessly, resulting in greater control, less tedium, and much faster and efficient modeling for animation , industrial design and bioengineering professionals.

"T-Splines will give studios and designers a boost in productivity by reducing time spent designing and by presenting superior animation ." said Matt Sederberg, co-founder and CEO. "We are dedicated to making T-Splines the next industry modeling standard in animation and CAD. The T-Splines Maya plugin truly represents the future of 3D modeling."

T-Splines is solving the next billion-dollar problem in the 3D modeling industry by eliminating gaps between objects, which until now has been a serious hindrance to the modeling process.

T-Splines allows animators, CAD engineers and others involved in 3D modeling and animation to:
* Reduce large amounts of data in existing models by removing superfluous control points from NURBS models
* Utilize T-Spline patches to create one seamless T-Spline model-with no gaps between objects!
* Make changes to 3D models more quickly
* Render faster
* Significantly improve modeling productivity in Maya
* Import any NURBS object into T-Splines
* Insert NURBS-compatible local creases
* Quickly create models that can be fully animated


"Over the years I've witnessed and been apart of the significant growth in the 3D animation field and the evolving technology surrounding it," said R. Brent Adams, head of the animation department at Brigham Young University. "Having worked with NURBS and other applications, I feel that T-Splines will take animators to the next level by boosting productivity and control in a way that has not yet been seen in the industry."


About T-Splines
T-Splines, LLC was founded in 2004 by Matt Sederberg and Tom Sederberg. Based on several years of research and development, Dr. Tom Sederberg invented the T-Spline technology. This solution opens up new frontiers of modeling possibilities, allowing artists and designers to add detail and merge models in ways that were previously difficult at best. The Maya plugin is compatible with existing modeling capabilities and provides additional benefits including greater surface control and seamless merging for more efficient modeling in the animation , industrial design and bioengineering fields. T-Splines is located in Lindon, Utah.

For more information visit www.tsplines.com.

The Pixel Corps Wants You

Pixel Corps is closing the gap between creative thinking and digital artistry. The San Francisco-based group that touts itself as a "global learning guild for aspiring and professional digital craftsmen" is now offering an open enrollment program where digital craftspeople can participate in the Pixel Corps' global community and immerse themselves in extensive online training with programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Apple's Shake to Luxology's modo and Softimage XSI.

At the core of it all is Alex Lindsay, founder and chief architect at Pixel Corps and former Industrial Light and Magic/JAC Films veteran. Lindsay, whose long history in the arts drives him to help other artists realize their potential, believes every artist should understand what it takes to compete in the fast-paced digital media market. "It's important to us that Pixel Corps provides its members with real-world production experience," explains Lindsay. "We are committed to constantly improving Pixel Corps' offerings to meet the demands of the industry and the needs of our members. While other artists may struggle in a changing economy and evolving market, our members will drive the change rather than wait for it to arrive."

The Pixel Corps open enrollment includes: 90-day licenses to software such as Apple Shake, Maxon Cinema 4D, Softimage XSI, RealViz Imagemodeler, Stitcher and MatchMover Pro, 2d3 boujou bullet Zaxwerks ProAnimator, Luxology modo, auto-des-sys form-Z and others. Training is offered as a starter kit, containing over 80 hours of video training covering everything from Adobe Photoshop basics to motion capture, HDRI and photogrammetry. Members get an hour of training material each week and the opportunity to produce collaborative work, all the while building a community where people can share and pool resources.

Membership pricing during open enrollment is $150 for three months, $240 for six months or $420 for 12 months, plus a $50 registration fee for new members. Visit the Pixel Corps web site at www.pixelcorps.com for more details.

Source: CGWorlds

Alias celebrates six new Maya Masters

The 2005 Maya Masters are six individuals from varied backgrounds who share a talent for using 3D computer graphics to explore and present the world in a different way. This year's Maya Masters were announced and honored at the Alias Global Users Association (AGUA) annual event last month during SIGGRAPH in Los Angeles.
Now in its fifth year, the Maya Masters program recognizes talented members of the computer graphics community whose spirit and imagination reshape and redefine the boundaries of technology, art and visualization.

Alias is pleased to acknowledge the accomplishments of this year's Maya Masters:

Drew Berry works for The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Australia and creates scientific visualizations for science documentaries, museum exhibits and gallery installations around the world. His most recent project involved creating animations of the very nasty bugs Smallpox, Ebola and Anthrax for a National Geographic documentary on Bioterrorism.

Corban Gossett was once a senior product specialist for Maya at Alias and afterwards joined PDI DreamWorks as a production engineer where he was tasked to better integrate Maya into PDI's propriety pipeline. He also worked on several projects at DreamWorks Animation and did a stint in Hong Kong, working on Father of the Pride. He is now the supervising technical director on Shrek 3 and will work on this project until the film is released in 2007.

David Gould's varied roles in production, including research and development, shader writing, lighting, and CG effects , reflects his broad range of talents. He has also authored two acclaimed books on Maya programming. David is currently at WETA Digital where he worked on The Lord of the Rings trilogy and is currently working on King Kong.

Rob Magiera is the first digital publishing artist to receive the Maya Master distinction. He is the president and founder of Noumena Digital, a full-service digital art studio specializing in high-end CG for print. Rob has become one of the most recognized computer artists in the world, having worked for clients such as American Express and Intel. His unique blend of 3D techniques and sophisticated compositing consistently push the boundaries of the modern still image.

Steven Stahlberg was the first CG artist in the world to have a virtual character sponsored by Elite, a major modeling agency. The character was presented to the world in a press conference in 1999 and later appeared on ABC and BBC, as well as in dozens of newspapers, including The New York Times, The Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Steven is now a partner in Optidigit. He has also worked on projects for Disney, Electronic Arts and an animated feature about Anne Frank.

Ryo Takahashi works at Namco as an engineer and is involved in creating the Maya plug-ins needed for game development, in addition to providing technical support. His latest accomplishment is the development of TEKKEN'S NINA WILLIAMS IN: DEATH BY DEGREES, an action adventure game for PS2.


The Maya Masters Program
Established in 2001, the Maya Masters Program celebrates the accomplishments of Maya users around the world. Each year, Alias recognizes exceptional Maya Masters from all walks of life the digital artists, visual storytellers and scientists. Maya Masters is a non-endorsement program, with no fees paid and membership by invitation only, based on nominations.

For more information about Maya Masters, please visit www.alias.com/mayamasters.


Previous Winners
Since the program's inception, the following Maya Masters have also been recognized:

2004 Maya Masters Andrew Daffy, Jeremy Gordon, Lee Griggs, Derald Hunt, Tom Kluyskens, and René Morel

2003 Maya Masters Scot Brew, Hiroyuki Hayashida, Meats Meier, Daniel Roizman, Takahito Tejima, and Rob van den Bragt

2002 Maya Masters Alceu Baptistao, Emmanuel Campin, Dr. Court Cutting, Bryan Ewert, Kenneth Huff, and Jason Schleifer

2001 Maya Masters Dirk Bialluch, Chris Landreth, Nobuo Takahashi, and Habib Zargarpour

Virtual Sets for All

When I was a kid, my family visited Universal Studios in Hollywood. That was back in the early 1970s-the era of mechanical monsters, rubber scars, and Styrofoam boulders. I recall seeing examples of all those things on the studio tour. I was especially taken by the wilderness and other outdoor soundstage sets inside the large warehouse-style buildings on the studio lot. As a youngster, I found it amazing that these fake-looking sets could actually look real in movies and on TV.

Key to Virtual Sets

Keying has been around even longer, of course (since the mid-’60s, though it wasn’t much in use then), and keying effects have been an increasingly regular feature in editing systems for the last dozen years. For keying to work best, you typically need to start with a solid, evenly lit, colored background, usually green or blue. That color, or color range (which can’t appear on the foreground talent or their clothing), is used to create the alpha channel for keying the background screen to the image. If that color range is too wide, it gets extremely difficult and time-consuming to minimize keying errors in the foreground actor or objects and on the edges of the key.

Computer animation and the ability to create realistic-looking sets and locations have come a long way over the last decade. Still, keyed effects, and especially virtual set material, aren’t common in many modest-budget videos, because good, natural-looking keying is hard to do. Shooting at a real location is usually easier and less expensive.

With a low price point, Serious Magics Ultra 2 virtual set and keying application makes the process of replacing backgrounds, whether they are in DV, HDV, or HD format, practical for all types of video professionals

Ultra 2, a major new version of a virtual set and keying application from Serious Magic, may address some of these problems for smaller companies that haven’t been able to use virtual sets before. To begin with, Ultra 2 costs only $495, compared to the thousands of dollars you need to spend for traditional professional keying tools. With this product, Serious Magic hopes to make virtual set keying something that any videographer can use on any shoot, which means it’s also designed to be easy to use and of good quality, as well as affordable.

The secret is in how Ultra establishes the key. Instead of employing the traditional approach of keying off only a specific, evenly lit color, Ultra analyzes a digital image of an empty virtual set, complete with any shadows, wrinkles, or unevenness, before you start filming the on-screen talent. (If you can’t get a clean-slate image before shooting, Ultra allows you to create one in postproduction by selecting a series of points-such as a well-lit area, and one with shadows-on the key background to build an effective clean slate after the fact.)

From there, Ultra builds a mathematical model of the virtual set using a technology Serious Magic calls Vector Keying. It writes equations for how the different areas of the background relate to each other. When an actor steps in front of the virtual set, Ultra can use a variety of mathematical techniques, including pixel substitution, color vector differences, edge recognition, and traditional keying, to build an alpha channel. The Ultra interface does include a variety of traditional keying tools like color-range sliders, edge softening, and cropping, but the idea is that most users should not have to use them.

In Ultra 2, which began shipping recently, Serious Magic introduces two clever features; the first of which is support for high-definition content. You might not think there’s anything particularly special about this, because HD has become an obligatory part of any content creation tool. But in addition to supporting traditional HD content from HD cameras, Ultra can actually create true HD footage from an SD camcorder.

This sounds like digital trickery or “upconverting,” but it isn’t. Serious Magic lets you simply turn a 720x480 camcorder sideways 90 degrees and shoot in 480x720 portrait mode, thus yielding a full 720 vertical lines of your on-camera foreground talent. That can be matched to any size high-resolution computer-generated or video background. The Ultra 2 software automatically compensates for the rectangular pixels by determining the native aspect ratio of the source and adjusting horizontally.

Ultra 2 also leverages the virtual lighting technology from typical 3D creation tools to draw virtual shadows on virtual sets from real on-camera subjects. By simply choosing a light angle, you can make your keyed-in actors blend more naturally with the virtual set. Even more remarkably, Ultra 2 can retain real shadows created by real actors standing on or in front of a greenscreen background and, thanks to Vector Keying, can map those real shadows onto the generated virtual set.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Ultra is that by enabling a wider use of virtual sets, Serious Magic is opening the doors for digital artists and animators to become the new virtual soundstage designers for video makers.

SOURCE: CG World

Electronic Arts To Restructure Management

San Francisco, CA (AHN)

The world's biggest video-game publisher, Electronic Arts, announces a management shake-up Friday, after a year of canceled bonuses and profit let-downs. The company says Don Mattrick, president of Worldwide Studios, is being replaced immediately by Paul Lee, its current studio chief operating officer.

Mattrick joined EA in 1991 when they acquired his previous company, Distinctive Software. The company says he has "chosen to seek other opportunities outside of EA," but did not disclose what these were.
David Gardner, a 23-year veteran at EA, will take over Paul Lee's current role, while Frank Gibeau, former head of North American marketing, will now be responsible for the North American publishing division. Gerhard Florin, head of European publishing, will now expand his role to cover Asia.
EA's profits in the fourth quarter ending March 31 fell to $8 million, from $90 million the year before. In July, EA pushed back the release of its much-anticipated videogame The Godfather until 2006, citing the need for development time.
It has also lowered its revenue forecast for the current fiscal year to $3.3 - $3.4 billion, down from $3.5 billion one year ago.

SOURCE: Hector Duarte Jr. - All Headline News Staff Reporter