Over 50 Marvel VFX Artists Bid for IATSE Unionization
The brave group have signed authorization cards to help bring the VFX industry towards union representation in the face of shocking firings, long hours, and 7-day weeks.
Watch VFX Breakdowns: Moonraker Brings Realism to BBC's ‘Earth’
The Bristol-based VFX studio delivers 13,600+ graphic elements and 360 photoreal CG shots on the historical series referred to as a ‘biography of our planet’ by presenter and naturalist Chris Packham; watch it this month on BBC Two in the U.K.
FutureWorks Delivers on Indian ‘Ray Donovan’ Adaptation
The VFX studio contributed 1,800 shots for Netflix India’s ‘Rana Naidu’ series, based on the popular American Showtime drama series; work included action clean-ups, greenscreen sequences, and CG elements such as the creation of a realistic snake that appears during a drug-induced hallucination.
Disney+ Drops ‘I Am Groot’ Season 2 Trailer
Streamer and Marvel Studios honor National Tree Day with new art and images starring the adorable little sapling who returns with 5 all-new animated shorts next month.
In Solidarity: An Open Letter from WIA President Marge Dean
Women in Animation’s president announces the ‘Animating Resilience: Surviving and Thriving in an Uncertain Industry’ series to empower and support industry professionals and students during ‘these tough times.’
Foundry Showcasing Expansive 3D Tools Lineup at SIGGRAPH 2023
‘Foundry Learn and Education’ meetups and presentations at the conference include techniques in compositing from Unity Wētā Tools, Boxel Studios, and Action VFX and lighting and 3D techniques from Foundry product experts.
Disney and Pixar Drop ‘Elemental’ Spot, Digital Release Coming Next Week
Set in Elemental City, the film features fiery Ember Lumen and the go-with-the-flow Wade Ripple. who find out how fire, water, earth, and air can mix; the original 3DCG animated feature comes to digital August 15 with 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD coming home in September.
AWS Releases AWS Thinkbox Deadline 10.3 for UE5
New Unreal Engine 5 plugin leverages existing render setups and scalability so cloud-based resources can accelerate final-pixel outputs; also updates DCC apps, including Adobe After Effects 2023, Autodesk Maya 2024, Autodesk 3ds Max 2024, Autodesk VRED 2023 and Maxon Cinema 4D 2023.
Unity Unveils New Unity Wētā Tools Division at SIGGRAPH 2023
Leading platform for real-time 3D (RT3D) content and experience creation will showcase groundbreaking work in character creation, environment building, rendering, and compositing; live keynote today from August 7 2pm - 3pm PDT.
Apple TV+ Drops ‘Strange Planet’ Sneak Peek
Streamer gives ‘Wednesday’ best day of the week status ahead of Dan Harmon and Nathan W. Pyle’s new adult animated comedy global debut, kicking off with the first 3-episodes… you guessed it, this ‘Wednesday’ August 9!
NIM Labs Launches NIM 6.0 Studio Management Platform
All-in-one system gets redesigned for speed and efficiency to help studios and freelancers bid for jobs of any size while keeping track of their bottom line.
Academy Software Foundation Launches OpenPBR MaterialX Subproject
The new open source shading model succeeds Autodesk Standard Surface and Adobe Standard Material; Open Source Days ‘23 event kicks off August 6.
DreamWorks Drops ‘Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight’ Season 3 Trailer
Jack Black’s Po and Rita Ora’s Wandering Blade head to England for an all-new epic adventure in the new season, premiering on Netflix September 7.
Movella Launches OBSKUR All-in-One Livestream Broadcasting System
Leading mocap tech company’s new application is the first such product built on UE5; OBSKUR Mocap Box, a mocap suit redesigned especially for streaming, also launches.
Crayola Getting Drawn into Animation - Launches Crayola Studios
The venerable Crayon purveyor’s new kids and family-dedicated studio announces its first animated series, ‘The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian,’ a co-development with Mimo Studios based on the award-winning kid’s podcast.
‘The Disney Revolt’ Coming in Paperback this September
Jake S. Friedman’s seminal book, 'The Disney Revolt: The Great Labor War of Animation’s Golden Age,' about an important, mostly unreported piece of Disney studio history, the 1941 animator’s strike led by the famed Art Babbitt, now available in hardbound, will arrive in a softbound version this Fall.
Lionsgate Acquires Hasbro’s eOne for $500 Million
The sale includes almost 6,500 titles, but notably omits popular franchises such as ‘Peppa Pig,’ ‘Transformers,’ ‘Dungeons & Dragons,’ ‘Magic: The Gathering,’ ‘My Little Pony,’ ‘Power Rangers,’ ‘Play-Doh,’ ‘Monopoly’ and ‘Clue,’ which will receive ‘significant development, production and financing capabilities.’
‘My Love Affair With Marriage’ Gets U.S. Theatrical Release
Signe Baumane’s award-winning animated feature about a spirited young woman determined to find love in a bewildering world will begin its U.S. cinema run at the Quad in NYC on October 6 and the Laemmle Glendale in LA on October 13.
CoreWeave Completes Conductor Cloud-Based Rendering Service Integration
Customers can now access expansive compute resources including NVIDIA RTX A5000-A6000 graphic cards for VFX, animation, and motion graphics workloads; check out the demo at SIGGRAPH 2023, running August 6-10 in LA.
NVIDIA GTC 2024 Announces Call for Submissions
The conference, taking place March 18-21, 2024 in San Jose, California, seeks submissions for talks, posters, and training labs by September 8, 2023.
Nick and Spin Master Celebrate ‘PAW Patrol’s 10th Anniversary with Season 11 Greenlight
The hugely popular preschool franchise gets the new season nod, while its spin-off series, ‘Rubble & Crew,' snags a Season 2 renewal; new 6-part special ‘PAW Patrol: Moto Pups’ hits Paramount+ August 11 with ‘PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie’ arriving in theaters September 29.
Exclusive Clip: ‘Praise Petey - Barn Wedding’
In the all-new episode, Petey and Eliza scheme to bring an honest income to New Utopia by renting out barns as wedding venues for the Manhattan elite – what could go wrong? Watch it on Freeform August 4, the next day on Hulu.
Podcast EP 219: Stop-Motion Animator Blake Derksen and His Film ‘The Other Space’
The LA-based animator discusses the challenges of running his own studio and dives into the realities of self-producing a stop-motion short inspired by his journey through cancer treatment.
AMD Announces New AMD Radeon PRO W7600 and W7500 Graphics Cards
The new cards, designed to enable top performance for mainstream professional workflows, leverage breakthrough AMD RDNA 3 technology to deliver 2X higher TFLOPS performance and 1.5X higher maximum total data rate for displays than previous generation.
Hollywood Execs, Actors Donate to Support Strikers
Many big-name execs and actors have now contributed to the Entertainment Community Fund, formerly the Actors Fund, to lessen the hardships of the work stoppage on actors and writers, with Seth MacFarlane most recently dropping a $1 million donation.
