AWN Headline News

One of the fastest growing areas of the booming entertainment technology industry is special effects, and with standards being raised daily by innovative uses in TV, film, and computer games the need for qualified effects artists increases. The Center for Digital Imaging and Sound (CDIS), a private technical arts college celebrating 20 years in operation in British Columbia, has jumped on the opportunity.

Pratt Institute's Department of Computer Graphics & Interactive Media (CGIM) has begun the development of a Research Lab to explore the development of virtual worlds, stereoscopic 3D imaging, and other outside-the-box possibilities.

CGIM is also pleased to announce that Professor Claudia Herbst joined our fulltime faculty. Prof. Herbst's previous position was at the Walt Disney Company, where she trained the company's computer graphics artists.

Key members of Pratt Institute's Department of Computer Graphics & Interactive Media (CGIM) faculty and student body will be participating at SIGGRAPH 99 as follows:

Prof. Michael O'Rourke has been invited to conduct a full-day 3d computer animation workshop at SIGGRAPH 99.

Two of Prof. Don Ritter's interactive installations have been accepted into the Millennium Motel program at SIGGRAPH 99. The installations are "Intersection" and "TV Guides," described at:

www.users.interport.net/~ritter/intersection.html

The six month Bristol Animation Course is now available at the University of the West of England, Bristol. It is supported by several animation studios in the region, including Aardman Animations. The course aims to train animators in the craft skills of character and performance animation, enabling them to work in a professional animation studio. The course delivers a Post Graduate Certificate in Extension Studies. According to UWE, 85% of past students have been employed in the industry. There are five places for 2D and five for model animation.

The Visual Communication Design department of Austin Community College offers a work intensive program in the areas of Graphic Design and Multimedia production. The two year Associate of Applied Science degree includes classes in Computer Production Art, Typographic Design, Illustrative Techniques, Graphic Design and Basic Drawing. The Applied Multimedia Technology certificate offers extensive training in 2D and 3D Computer Animation, Motion Graphics, World Wide Web Design, Multimedia Authoring, Interface Design and Photoshop Techniques.

Vicon has announced the latest in motion capture technology - Vicon 8Rt. The final reduction in the production pipeline has been achieved with the Vicon 8 system, producing accurate optical motion capture in real-time. This marks a significant breakthrough in motion capture technology as Vicon 8Rt is not a previewer, but actually produces full body motion capture data without the wait.

Commotion, the award-winning visual effects application, is now available for Windows NT. Commotion version 2.1 marks Puffin Designs' first release for Macintosh and Windows NT. This highly anticipated release is a direct result of requests from thousands of NT-based effects artists who wanted to use Commotion on their platform of choice. Both versions are functionally and visually identical, enabling users to work in either environment without having to find work-arounds for interface or workflow differences.

Actor Leonard Nimoy, who has gained worldwide recognition portraying the legendary character Mr. Spock in the science fiction juggernaut "Star Trek," narrates the new feature length documentary film "The Story of Computer Graphics."

"The Story of Computer Graphics" which premiered Sunday, August 8th at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, will also be shown during SIGGRAPH 99 in Room 501 of the Los Angeles Convention Center.Screening times are: 9-12 August at 9 am, 10:45 am, 12:30 pm, 2:15 pm and 4 pm; and 13 August at 9 am, 10:45 am and 12:30 pm.

Sierra Design Labs will be demonstrating its industry leadership in switchable multi-format high definition and standard definition video disk recorders. Ultra SCSI and Fibre Channel connectivity, as well as 1080P /24 support will be shown for the HD1.5Plus. The new HDCAM-compatible HD270, developed in conjunction with Sony, joins the Panasonic HD D5-compatible HD360 disk recorder in Sierra's family of versatile HD/SD recorders.

AvatarME wants YOU! is the battle cry of London-based AvatarMe Ltd. at this year's Siggraph in Los Angeles. Unveiling its revolutionary AvatarBooth, the company plans to incubate hundreds of 3D avatars from willing public at the exhibition.

Viewpoint Digital will be showing its new Premier Catalog and updated Library Program. In addition, Viewpoint will be featuring its new textures library as well as the popular Model Bank, and will also be demonstrating its Interchange 3D file format translator. For more information, contact Viewpoint Digital at www.viewpoint.com or via phone at (800) DATASET.

Crater Software, a Spanish-Canadian software development collaboration, announced plans to launch a series of "satellite" versions of CTP, the company's 2D animation software, at this years' Siggraph. The launch of four CTP Satellites - Paint, Scan, Render and the already-released Pencil-test - will coincide with the release of CTP Version 1.3, also being showcased at the show.