Phil Vischer, founder of Big Idea Productions, explains how he turned a bunch of God loving vegetables into one of the hottest commodities around. Let's face itthese legumes are cute! Really cute! Rick DeMott reports.
Software piracy is costing the animation industry millions if not billions. Brett Rogers explains why the cost of software piracy goes beyond the losses suffered by the software manufacturers and affects everyone.
Annick Teninge profiles Sparx*, one of France's leading CG studios that seems to be following in the path of the U.S. majors -- turning commercial and service work success into short film success and then moving into the feature realm.
Pamela Kleibrink Thompson sits down with co-visual effects supervisor Dan DeLeeuw to talk about one of The Secret Lab's last effects projects, Reign of Fire, and creating the film's horrible winged creatures.
Scott Jenkins reviews Combustion 2 and checks in with a production in progress to see how Combustion stacks up against key competitor After Effects.
Today's hybrids that combine traditional techniques and new digital tools are creating some fascinating looking animation. Fred Patten asks a number of innovators how they created their animation.
Bill Desowitz finishes our series on the computer-generated effects of Star Wars Episode II. This time he goes behind the motion-capture process to discover the challenges of creating a clone army.
We all knew R2-D2 was cool...but in Star Wars Episode II he turns into a swash-buckling, damsel saving hero. Bill Desowitz speaks with Billy Brooks of ILM's "rebel unit" to find out about the transformation.
Rick DeMott swings in on Sony Pictures Imageworks to find out how they created visual effects amazing enough to match Spider-Man.
We've all been waiting to see Yoda in a light saber duel and Star Wars Episode II does not miss the mark. Bill Desowitz speaks with ILM on how they created Yoda in CGI and brought him to action.
Karl Cohen sits down with Rob Coleman, Episode II's animation director, and learns how the ILM team combines many different techniques into one seamless digital world.
Chris Lanier reviews the new Waking Life DVD. If you liked the film, or haven't seen it yet, this DVD is the way to go. Extra audio tracks, missing scenes, technology demonstrations, the short film Snack and Drink and more, are all included.
Chris Lanier explores the purpose and meaning of caricature from its very inception to its latest use in the "rotoscoped" Waking Life.
Gregory Singer sits down with industry veteran Frank Gladstone and learns that it isn't all gloom and doom when facing a career in today's market. The trick is to be flexible.
Surprised that Spider-Man is racking up such huge sums at the box office? Danny Fingeroth isn't, as he explains, there's a little Spidey in all of us.
In the midst of Spider-Man mania, Danny Fingeroth caught up with two of the most popular producers in showbiz Laura Ziskin and Avi Arad to talk about box office success, becoming a geek, creative changes and the new animated television show.
In building a more personal, varied animation future, Greg Singer offers perspective for collaborating online.
Paul Feldman goes behind the animated personas of the band Gorillaz to discover the creative team that put such a dynamic group together and the record label brave enough to take it on.
Greg Singer visited this year's Game Developers Conference and reports on the breadth of events and insights. From testing out the latest games to discussions of Wittgenstein as a means for simulating sophisticated social activity among game characters, there was something for everyone.
So, you've been reading the articles about how much work there is in gaming, but you don't know if your skills will cross over? Sylvia Edwards gives us an overview of the gaming production process and where its similarities and differences lie from more traditional animation fields.
Continuing with his reviews of the market's leading graphics cards, John Edgar Park takes on the ATI Fire GL4. This BMW of the graphics card world definitely has its high points.
Is Adobe's After Effects 5.5 upgrade a significant improvement for animators? George Maestri thinks so. Version 5.5 expands on Version 5's introduction of 3D and now contains over 90 different effects.
Don't work in a studio or live next to a school but want to learn Maya? John Edgar Park offers a solution and reviews the best Maya training videotapes around.
It is said that love is the mythology that two people create together. At Weta, Ltd., in New Zealand, it is love at first byte.
Want to get started creating animation on your own computer? John Edgar Park tells you how to start from scratch. Let's find out how to select and assemble the correct components and then get them working!
