Category: Visual Effects

Digital-Tutors announced the Season's Savings Sale and companion gifts at Digital-Tutors. In celebration of the holiday season, Digital-Tutors is offering 20% off all training titles and free USB Flash Drives on select products purchased now and through Dec. 29, 2004. To receive the discount, enter dtseason as the discount code for all purchases.

Double Negative's work on FINDING NEVERLAND, which recently won The National Board of Reviews best film prize, involved previs (Jesper Kjolsrud), on-set supervision (Hal Couzens), impossible camera moves, magic-moment enhancements and a host of invisible effects such as crowd replication and the removal of modern anachronisms and safety rigs.

Softimage Co. and the National Animation and Design Centre (NAD Centre) launched NAD Centre Internet Academy (NADIA), the first realtime, interactive learning program for SOFTIMAGE|XSI digital content creation software. NADIA allows 3D artists to access professional instruction for SOFTIMAGE|XSI software directly from a desktop PC connected to the Internet. Participants can choose from a series of 18 modular courses supplemented by an extensive library of material and scenes.

Leading game developer Ubisoft has purchased several licenses of Alias MotionBuilder 6 Pro. With more than 45 animators already trained on the software, Alias MotionBuilder 6 will be an integral component of Ubisofts production pipeline for animating characters in several of its upcoming games.

Just in time for the holidays, The Gnomon Workshop has produced 14 more instructive DVDs for release on Dec. 15. These new Digital Library titles, from artists Kevin Hudson, Matt Hartle, Ethan Summers and Sean Mills, give you a multi-layered look at modeling, Paint Effects and mental ray.

In addition, The Gnomon Workshop introduces the industry's first ZBrush titles. Artists Meats Meier and Zack Petroc take you from the fundamentals of this powerful application, through pipeline, sculpting and workflow Maya.

Debbie Denise has been promoted to evp, Production Infrastructure, and exec producer at Sony Pictures Imageworks, Denise, who joined Imageworks with Ken Ralston in 1995, is a highly respected executive visual effects producer who most recently completed production on the CG feature THE POLAR EXPRESS, on which she also received credit as associate producer. It was her sixth film with director Robert Zemeckis. With this promotion, she continues in her role as an exec producer along with oversight of Imageworks production infrastructure. Together with recently appointed Jenny Fulle, the two evps lead all aspects of Imageworks production, from client relations and bidding to production management and staffing. Both continue to report to Imageworks president Tim Sarnoff.

3Dconnexion, a Logitech company, has announced that visitors to CGI Festival 2004 will be able to test-drive its award-winning line of 3D motion controllers as part of a free, no-obligation 21-day evaluation.

CGI Festival 2004 reconvenes at the Business Design Centre in London from Dec. 7 to 8 after commencing last month in Leeds.

Kim Libreri, former vfx supervisor at ESC Ent., played a key role in the inception and development of Iridas FrameCycler Digital Daily System and SpeedGrade, the new non-destructive color grading and film finishing application. Both products were used extensively in the two MATRIX sequels as well as CATWOMAN.

Tom Hanks will play famed symbologist Robert Langdon in Columbia Pictures upcoming film adaptation based on Dan Browns best-selling thriller THE DA VINCI CODE, slated for release May 19, 2006. Ron Howard will direct from a script by Akiva Goldsman, who previously collaborated on Oscar-winner A BEAUTIFUL MIND. Brian Grazer and John Calley will produce. Presumably vfx, with lots of potential for virtual environments, would be handled by Sony Pictures Imageworks.