As a follow-up to my post on learning resources for coding, I'd like to share our recent efforts to open source some of our in-house code.
Trading Insider Secrets
Scott Squires, of Industrial Light & Magic, has a blog called Effects Corner. Scott talks everything VFX, from artistry to wages. If you are looking to read the frank ins and outs of the VFX world then Scott’s blog is the place to go. Scott has 35 years’ experience in the industry and has work on film projects like Van Helsing, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Stars Wars: Episode I – Phantom Menace.
His articles are well written and packed full of industry top tips. He talks you through key skills like camera tracking and 3D match-moving as well as providing links to some of the latest visual effects news.
Michael Hansmeyer: Computational Architecture
Here is an amazing chap called Michael Hansmeyer. Michael studied as an architect and programmer. He explores the use of algorithms and computation to generate architectural forms for artistic and commercial purposes.
The images of the forms that he creates are very intricate and beautiful...check them out.
Latest VFX Reel from Our Students
The quality of work that our students create during their Visual Effects Production course is always awesome and there's no doubt it's getting better and better. When you consider that every student doesn't just attend their daytime lessons. They have to find, track, model, light, texture, render and composite a shot in just 6 weeks that shows the extent of their ability. One of our former students and now Studio Assistant Ashley Miles remembers how stressful it can get.
Learning Resources for Coding
There are a lot of people in the CG industry who have an interest in the "wizardry" of coding: from automating repetitive tasks via scripts, to pushing the boundaries of the software packages through the API layer, to smoothing out company pipelines by hooking up software that did not originally understand the other software's lingo.
Potential Shortage of Hard Disk Drives
Western Digital, one of the worlds largest hard drive manufacturers, has been badly affected by recent flooding in Thailand where they have two production plants. The one in Bang Pa-in Industrial Park is completely destroyed, with equipment submerged in water. The other in Navanakorn Industrial Park is struggling to keep flooding at bay.
Get Involved With the V-Ray for Softimage Public Beta Programme
Last week, Chaos Group announced that their V-Ray for Softimage is now ready for public Beta testing. This is the latest rendering solution by Chaos Group, due to release towards the end of the year.
Pixar release Tractor!
Pixar have just announced the release of it's much anticipated Distributed Processing Solution for RenderMan and Other Applications!
Sony Pictures Imageworks releases open source shading language
Yesterday, Sony Pictures Imageworks -the award-winning visual effects and digital character animation unit of Sony Pictures Digital Productions- released the Alpha version of its source code for OSL (Open Shading Language).
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