Digital filmmaking tools have become increasingly accessible, and now Wonder Dynamics wants to make photorealistic CG characters available for any budget. The software firm says its product enables users to drag and drop computer-generated characters into live-action scenes as if they were custom generated. The company’s web-based editor, Wonder Studio, is billed as a full-blown tool, not a toy, and aims to help ease artists’ workload. The three-year-old startup has raised $12.5 million to date. Co-founders Nikola Todorovic, a writer-director, and actor Tye Sheridan, who starred in Steven Spielberg’s “Ready Player One,” say it’s the tool they’ve craved. Continue reading Wonder Dynamics Leverages AI for Web-Based CGI Platform

In 2018, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences established the Academy Software Foundation, with the mission of increasing the “quality and quantity of open source contributions … [to] lower the barrier to entry for developing and using” it. Its genesis was a survey conducted by the AMPAS Science and Technology Council that found 84 percent of those in the media & entertainment industry used it — but had challenges. At HPA Tech Retreat, ASWF executive director David Morin updated the group’s activities. Continue reading HPA Tech Retreat: Latest From Academy Software Foundation

Linux production environments can now leverage Nvidia’s recently introduced GRID technology to power VMware’s Horizon 6 for Linux and provide visual effects and animation artists anywhere, on any device, with virtual Linux workstations running their familiar high-end applications. Nvidia’s VP of Enterprise Marketing Greg Estes showed a virtual workstation running simulations in Maya on the SIGGRAPH floor in Los Angeles with the application, processors and Nvidia’s GRID and CUDA technologies installed in a data center hundreds of miles away in Northern California. Continue reading Linux to Go: Nvidia GRID Delivers Virtualization, Performance

Google Cloud Platform announced the public beta of Zync, its cloud-native rendering solution. Google acquiredZync last August to incorporate specialized computing capabilities for visual effects production in the cloud.  According to Google’s representative, “As part of Zync, artists will get access to 1,600 dedicated Compute Engine cores to power your V-Ray, Arnold and Nuke-based renders. Integration of the upcoming release of the popular Renderman software with Zync by Google Cloud Platform was also announced. Continue reading SIGGRAPH 2015: Google Cloud Announces Cloud-Native Rendering