SIGGRAPH 2012 wrapped on Thursday of last week. With extensive reporting from the show floor, fxguide discusses news from Side Effects, the RenderMan user group, NVIDIA, Massive, Open Source, DreamWorks and more.
Side Effects made several key announcements including a rebranding of its flagship product, Houdini Master, as Houdini FX; a new pricing structure ($4,495 for Houdini FX and $1,1994 for Houdini — formerly known as Houdini Escape); elimination of the $800 fee for the Annual Upgrade Plan; and a new asset marketplace called Orbolt, designed to help artists create and sell 3D assets.
The article notes that the new Houdini FX “includes all Houdini features with a focus on particles, fluids, Pyro FX, cloth, wire and rigid body dynamics.”
The Pixar RenderMan User group had an impressive turnout when it met Wednesday night. “RenderMan had a huge release with version 16,” explains the article. “The next release builds on this and improves performance. Gold mastering on the new RMS 4 and RPS 17 is very soon with a ‘wide’ beta starting the week after SIGGRAPH, and the final gold mastering planned for the end of September. Interestingly, with the new rolling release schedule, 17.1 b1 release will follow not long after around the 1st of November.”
NVIDIA unveiled its Maximus second generation workstation platform and the latest versions of its Quadro and Tesla cards.
“Maximus certified workstations (from HP, Dell, etc.) contain two NVIDIA cards — a matched Quadro GPU as well as a Tesla GPU,” explains the article. “This divides the tasks normally done with a single card; the Quadro drives the display and the Tesla card is used for computationally intensive tasks, such as fluid dynamics simulation, GPU rendering, and real-time color correction.”
The new Quadro K5000 will ship in October at $2,249 and the Tesla K20 is slated for December availability at $3,199.
Massive 5.0 was unveiled, the company’s first major release since February 2010. “The new 5.0 aims to address long-term user requests, new features and some interesting extensions,” notes the article.
“What is of even more interest is not just what Massive is releasing but how teams are using it. DreamWorks in particular presented a brilliant paper at DigiPro 2012 (SIGGRAPH co-located event) on accessing the Massive sim output data directly and using it to improve the characters that the agents drive by having a high quality render time deformation engine (RTD), where high quality character geometry is generated on the fly,” explains fxguide.
“This technique required significant changes to DreamWorks’ animation rigs. Character TDs created Multidimensional Rigs, where a character can run in a ‘service mode,’ interfacing with the RTD server to deliver any model in a crowd for any pose as requested by the renderer.”
Stephen Regelous, founder of Massive software, demonstrated the company’s latest work in crowd simulation, the details of which are provided in the article (including related videos).
This fxguide article features tech specs, video demos and performance evaluations for these products and others. An earlier fxguide write-up includes highlights of session reviews, tech papers and notable new software releases.
Taking their cues from natural science, engineers have developed flying drones inspired by birds and swimming robots that emulate jellyfish.
The earthworm is the latest creature to inspire a team of scientists from MIT, Harvard and Seoul National University. Led by Professor Sangbae Kim, the team has created a robotic device named “Meshworm,” that crawls along the ground via the principle of peristalsis.
“The device is propelled by a spiral-shaped coil of artificial muscle made of a titanium and nickel alloy, a material chosen for a particular reason: It stretches when heated and contracts back to its original shape once cooled,” reports Smithsonian.com.
“The engineers used an internal battery and circuit board to apply a weak electric current to different muscle segments within the Meshworm, heating each of them in turn,” explains the article. “When each segment is heated, it expands in length, causing the outer circumference of the mesh to briefly contract, then return to its original size quickly afterward.”
The motion occurs successively at each segment of Meshworm, creating a wave of contraction that enables movement across the ground (the article includes a video of the lifelike movement). Steerage is controlled via lengthwise artificial muscles that are pulled when heated.
Since the Meshworm parts are all fibrous and flexible, it is nearly indestructible.
“The research is funded by DARPA…and some speculate that the robot could someday be used in reconnaissance missions, since it could be air-dropped, launched or thrown over relatively long distances and land without harm,” notes the article.
And since it can navigate rough terrain and fit into small spaces — quietly and inconspicuously — it may serve as a future robo-spy. The shape-changing artificial muscle technology may also be used for medical devices, prosthetics and CE devices such as mobile phones and portable computers.
Last week’s online streaming coverage of the Curiosity rover’s Mars landing drew more viewers than most of the prime time cable news channels.
“Ustream, the website that broadcast the landing, told Mashable that its live-stream reached a peak viewership of 500,000, besting CNN, MSNBC, and HLN,” reports Slate. “A total of 3.2 million people tuned in to the live stream at one point or another.”
The numbers suggest that Americans are very interested in seeing history unfold live, even if the production value is not on the same level as other traditional media.
Additionally, NBC served 1.5 million live streams of the women’s gymnastics team final during its recent Olympics coverage.
“How many were actually watching at any given time is unclear, but the figure suggests sports fans are at least as enthusiastic about watching events online as science buffs,” notes the article.
Although online broadcasts may be starting to reach a mainstream audience, their numbers do not typically come close to those involving television viewers. TV still reigns supreme for now.
SnagFilms, a new media start-up founded by Ted Leonsis (who also co-founded AOL), is hoping to connect lesser known films with audiences via online streaming.
More affordable camera and post production equipment has led to an increase in independent film production. However, effective distribution remains elusive for aspiring filmmakers — and competition within the festival circuit has become fierce.
For example, approximately 9,000 films are submitted annually to Sundance every year, and only a fraction are selected (118 last year). Only about 20 percent of those films selected by Sundance will see a distribution deal. “You have a better chance of getting into Harvard (5.9 percent admittance rate) than Sundance,” suggests Mashable.
“SnagFilms currently has more than 3,200 films in its library, and all are available to watch any time for free,” explains the post. “With investors ranging from Leonsis, to Steve Case and Comcast, SnagFilms is a frontrunner in the indie space online. It also runs the Webby Award winning site, Indiewire, which is a go-to source for independent film news.”
SnagFilms makes its money via advertising and says its video player is highly social. “We were the first streaming service to develop and integrate the Facebook Open Graph,” says CEO Rick Allen.
The post includes a 10-minute interview with Allen from “The Valley Girl Show,” hosted by Jesse Draper.
YouTube may be best recognized for its sports highlights, user-generated content, music videos and classic TV clips available on-demand, but its live streaming of the Summer Olympics may indicate where the video giant is headed next.
YouTube partnered with NBC to provide 34 million live streams during the first week of the Summer 2012 Games. Nearly 1.5 million people watched live streaming of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team winning the gold and nearly 1.2 million watched Michael Phelps beat Ryan Lochte in the 200-meter individual medley.
YouTube built an entirely new platform to support as many as 100 simultaneous high-definition feeds. Jason Gaedtke, YouTube’s director of software engineering, suggests the efforts will not stop at the Olympics.
“While it’s true we built this platform for the Olympics, a better way of characterizing it would be to say we used the Olympics as an opportunity to challenge our capabilities and set some high quality-of-service and streaming goals going forward,” he says.
YouTube has live streamed concerts and last year’s Royal wedding, but now has a larger infrastructure in place for the future. “We certainly see strong demand in a couple verticals: gaming, sports, news increasingly — anything with a realtime or community-driven aspect to it seems to play well in this format,” adds Gaedtke.
YouTube is also looking to increase its social features, as evidenced by its recent hosting of Google+ Hangouts and adding publicly viewable audience analytics. Decreasing the distinction between live and on-demand video is next.
“We’re intentionally blurring the line between live and video-on-demand,” Gaedtke explains. “With the technology we’ve built here — real-time transcoding at a high level as well as how we prepare the media stream — we can immediately go from a live to DVR experience once an event ends.”
PC makers Dell, HP and Lenovo touted products and initiatives last week at the SIGGRAPH conference that target media and entertainment.
“The PC system vendors are absolutely getting more aggressive in the media and entertainment space,” notes NVIDIA exec Greg Estes. “They perceive there is an opening with some of the latest decisions Apple has made.”
HP has teamed with Adobe and Red to launch the Z820 Red Edition desktop workstation, “a customized version of the HP Z820 that comes ready for production with a Red Rocket accelerator card and two Red SSD card readers,” details Carolyn Giardina in The Hollywood Reporter.
“We are not aiming to get away from Mac,” explains Red exec Ted Schilowitz. “But it’s pretty obvious that Apple’s focus is in the mobile computing world. [Filmmakers] drive a lot of data. Mac is viable, but if want the most horsepower, you are now looking at HP.”
Dell announced a new advisory board comprised of industry professionals that use Apple’s Final Cut editing software. “According to Scott Hamilton, Dell’s vertical market strategist for workstations, some of the company’s advisors have stated discontent with Final Cut Pro X and Apple’s workstations,” notes Giardina.
Lenovo showcased its latest ThinkPad and ThinkStation technology at the conference. The company has plans to certify its technology for media tools including Avid Media Composer and Adobe CS6, according to the article.
Montreal-based tech company TeamUp demonstrated its new cloud-based Multi-Optics rendering technology at SIGGRAPH last week in Los Angeles.
“The TeamUp platform is designed so that customers have access to the fastest machines available and do not have to download, install, license or set up anything before working with 3D content,” reports Below the Line.
“3D rendering is traditionally the slowest and most complex process,” notes TeamUp co-founder Thiago Costa. “The back and forth with clients and peers can become tedious and costs a lot of time through miscommunications and scheduling consensus.”
“We built TeamUp to truly improve this experience,” he says of the real-time 3D collaboration system, “so creative teams and their clients can see the same render live, edit and make decisions in real-time on multiple devices, and arrive at the look they want for any 3D asset.”
“One of our techniques to achieve such high quality results is to take physical objects and measure their many optical properties to come up with an accurate representation,” explains scientist and TeamUp co-founder Arno Zinke.
“This way we can make hair, sand, cloth, metals, volumetrics, and many complex materials look real,” he adds. “Besides providing a constantly growing library of materials, users can also create their own materials from these fundamental properties.”
The system is presently in beta for standard OS platforms and Apple iPad OS. TeamUp’s cloud-based, subscription service anticipates a fall launch.
The annual SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference featured a panel on shooting films at high frame rates. The panel attracted in excess of 1,000 attendees (including studio execs) and lasted more than two hours.
Filmmakers such as Peter Jackson and James Cameron are now advocating shooting at 48 frames per second or higher. “Avatar” producer Jon Landau suggested that filmmakers, rather than the studios, need to drive the process in order for high frame rates to succeed.
Landau noted the dip in 3D audiences. “In 3D, studios decided to impose it on filmmakers, and the result suffered and the public picked up on it,” he said.
“We have a responsibility to find what tells story in a better way and drives people out of their homes and into the cinema,” he added. “[With high frame rates,] they will walk away having been more engaged in our movies.”
Cameron plans to produce his “Avatar” sequels at a high frame rate and Jackson has chosen 48fps for “The Hobbit” trilogy. Filmmaker and innovator Douglas Trumbull described Jackson’s pioneering effort as a “bold step” that will hopefully pay off, considering theater attendance is at a 16-year low. “Peter Jackson’s commitment [to high frame rates] is very brave and very important,” he said.
“Supporters of higher frame rates argue that the they create a more lifelike image and truer illusion of continuous movement,” notes Carolyn Giardina in The Hollywood Reporter. “In particular, they improve 3D and action sequences by eliminating or greatly reducing motion artifacts like blur. Others argue that images shot at higher rates look too real, resembling video more than the traditional look of film.”
The panel discussed the strain that additional data places on the post production process, noting the challenges involved with computing, storing and rendering the increased data that results from shooting at higher frame rates. However, panel members did not waver in their support.
“We know these problems are coming,” said Dennis Muren, Industrial Light & Magic’s Oscar-winning VFX supervisor. “We can start thinking about ways to do this more economically and faster.”
Two free apps — EasyShift and Gigwalk — enable users to earn money by doing small jobs for companies. Users submit the work via the apps and then collect the payments through their PayPal accounts.
“EasyShift, made by Quri Corp., launched nationwide in May 2011 as an iPhone app that’s focused on stock-checking tasks in grocery, convenience, drug and discount stores,” explains the Wall Street Journal. “Gigwalk launched nationwide in May 2011 and works on the iPhone and Android phones. It matches businesses or people with workers, so its gigs, like taking menu photos for $4 or testing a mobile app for $20, vary more than EasyShift’s jobs.”
WSJ reporter Katie Boehret took both apps for a test drive: “The tasks I completed were easy and some were even fun, like answering a few questions and taking photos of energy drinks at CVS for $2. I found myself scouring the apps’ built-in maps for nearby jobs as I drove around Washington, D.C., where I live. In cases when the job felt more like work than fun, I got paid enough that I didn’t mind ($8 for taking seven simple photos).”
“I was startled by how much pride I took in doing the task correctly — all for a few bucks and a good reputation within the app’s community, which can lead to higher-paying jobs,” she adds.
Some of the more active workers make $200 to $800 a month. Boehret notes a couple who made $1,000 to pay for their honeymoon.
“With EasyShift, most people who do work during the day get paid that night,” she writes. “Gigwalkers get paid within a day or two of submitting work and no later than five days after finishing a job. Both apps offer simple ways to make quick cash — and no one is overqualified to say no to that.”
As part of its mission to provide “universal access to all knowledge,” San Francisco-based non-profit the Internet Archive has added more than a million torrent files to the BitTorrent ecosystem.
“The torrents link to almost a petabyte of data and all files are being seeded by the Archive’s servers,” reports TorrentFreak.
Starting this week, “all new files uploaded to the Archive will also be available via BitTorrent,” explains the post. “In addition, a massive collection of older files including concerts from John Mayer, Jack Johnson and Maroon 5 and the Prelinger collection are also being published via torrents.”
Founder of the Internet Archive, Brewster Kahle, hopes the next step will be turning the popular file-sharing protocol into a distributed preservation system for the Internet.
“I hope this is greeted by the BitTorrent community, as we are loving what they have built and are very glad we can populate the BitTorrent universe with library and archive materials,” Kahle told TorrentFreak. “There is a great opportunity for symbiosis between the Libraries and Archives world and the BitTorrent communities.”
“In the wake of recent news featuring raids, crackdowns, DDoSes and lawsuits, this announcement from the Internet Archive brings some very welcome positive news about BitTorrent,” notes the post.
Open-source game console Ouya, the $100 Android-based console that broke the single day Kickstarter record by reaching its $950,000 project goal in a mere 12 hours, is about to become a reality.
Ouya’s Kickstarter campaign ended this week with a staggering $8.59 million pledged by more than 63,000 gamers.
The console supports four wireless controllers and features a Tegra 3 processor, 8GB of internal storage, 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, a single USB 2.0 port and an SD card slot.
“Ouya is the creation of gaming start-up Boxer8, which is headed by Julie Uhrman, former vice president of digital distribution for IGN and GameFly, and a long-time gaming industry veteran,” reports Digital Trends. “Yves Behar, COO of mobile accessories company Jawbone, designed the Ouya. And former Xbox chief Ed Fries serves as an adviser to the project.”
Developers who invested at least $699 will receive consoles in December, while those who pledged $95 or more will see units as early as March 2013.
As Apple preps the launch of its next-generation iPhone with bigger screen, Businessweek offers a prediction: “Apple devices will soon project holograms like you’ve never seen.”
“This is not mere speculation,” suggests the article, “but insight based on Apple’s patents, recent acquisitions, and the business imperative to do something to break free of the tablet clutter.”
The company patented a 3D display system in 2010 that would “mimic a hologram” and allow multiple users to view stereoscopic images simultaneously.
Businessweek offers several reasons why Apple would be interested in 3D screens, despite the technology’s slow adoption.
“Apple is the second-mover that makes failed first-mover ideas work,” notes the article, citing the company’s successful improvements upon Xerox’s mouse and Microsoft’s early pen-based Tablet PC. “Toshiba is now selling a 55-inch 3D television in Asia that doesn’t require glasses for viewing the effect. Do you think Apple will let such advances in screen technology pass it by?”
“Apple’s hologram technology will be different — and completely realistic,” adds the article, noting that the patent allows freedom of movement for each viewer without the need for special glasses, while taking into consideration ambient lighting and personal identification.
Recent acquisitions of 3D modeling businesses including C3 Technologies and Poly9 also serve as an indicator.
Apple will need to forge a new direction if faced with the possibility of touchscreens becoming irrelevant (the article notes Disney’s Touché “swept frequency capacitive sensing” system as a potential disruptor in this regard).
“As tablets become commodities, it’s not hard to predict the design battle will move from hardware to the virtual visual realm. Even Sir Jonathan Ive can take glass panes only so far,” comments Businessweek. “I don’t know if an iPhone 5 will hold holograms, but eventually Apple will serve us 3D images — because while anyone can copy a glass tablet, not everyone can make the world float in your hand.”
Warner Bros. will release the high-frame-rate version of Peter Jackson’s first “Hobbit” only to select cities, according to a source familiar with the plans.
“People who have seen much of the film in 48 frames-per-second 3D tell Variety the picture now looks vastly better than the test footage shown this April at CinemaCon, which had not yet undergone post-production polishing and got a mixed reception from exhibitors,” reports Variety.
The studio wants to test the marketplace with a limited HFR release and then expand with the next two installments.
“As of now, there are still no theaters ready for HFR projection, though some require only a software upgrade that will be ready in September,” notes the article. “Warners is satisfied with the pace of efforts to ready theaters for HFR.”
Although production gear vendors seem to agree that HFR is the future, equipment upgrades will differ for Series 1 and Series 2 Digital Cinema systems.
“Each of the makers of the most popular 3D projection systems (RealD, MasterImage, Xpand and Dolby) says its systems are either HFR ready or easily upgradable, though several doubt each others’ claims,” notes Variety. “One thing that won’t be happening soon is a combination of 4K resolution — which is already in some theaters — 3D and high frame rates. Today’s gear and networks can’t handle that much data.”
“That’s going to be a forklift upgrade when that comes about,” says Don Shaw, director, product management for Christie. “That would require a full-scale replacement of all of the equipment in a movie theater.”
A video that sharply accuses the U.S. government of selling out to Hollywood interests has drawn more than 10 million views after being featured on The Pirate Bay.
“Anti-Hollywood sentiment is nothing new, especially on The Pirate Bay, but what sets this video apart is its top-notch — one might even say Hollywood-caliber — production values,” notes Ars Technica.
The two individuals behind the video say they financed the $5,000 project on their own in hopes of raising awareness of repressive copyright policies.
In the video, a military-style raid leads to the arrest of a copyright infringer who is then treated as if he was a suspected terrorist.
“The website associated with the video depicts Kim Dotcom, Richard O’Dwyer, and others as victims of a copyright regime run amok,” explains the post. “The site is short on details about who’s behind it, providing only an email address.”
“If this video is a hit, it could be the first in a series of videos focused on ‘online freedom and copyright.’ The next one might be tied to the American elections in November,” suggests Ars Technica.
Video-based social network Viddy is gaining traction, after amassing 38 million users in its first 16 months.
Often referred to as the Twitter for videos, Viddy is on the rise thanks to endorsements from celebrities such as Justin Bieber (who is just one of the app’s high-profile investors).
“I’m into Viddy because I can just be me and show my fans the fun parts of my day,” Bieber explains. “I’m big on talking with fans on Twitter and posting pictures on Facebook, but video is another level, and I like watching viddys my fans make for me.”
“Users shoot short video snippets, known as ‘viddys,’ and upload them from their iPhones and other mobile devices for their followers to watch,” explains the Los Angeles Times. “Like tweets, viddys capture everyday moments, with one caveat: They have to be 15 seconds or shorter.”
The network has attracted brands such as General Electric, Southwest Airlines and Diane von Furstenberg to share video messages, as the format allows for concise, engaging content.
Unlike notable Bay Area social heavyweights — including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram — Viddy is headquartered in Los Angeles (Venice Beach).
“We have the ingredients to create what can become the next Twitter, the next YouTube, the next Facebook, and that’s what we’re setting out to do,” says Brett O’Brien, Viddy co-founder and chief exec. “Our ambition is very large.”
SIGGRAPH 2012 wrapped on Thursday of last week. With extensive reporting from the show floor, fxguide discusses news from Side Effects, the RenderMan user group, NVIDIA, Massive, Open Source, DreamWorks and more.