ACM SIGGRAPH announced the program for the Computer Animation Festival for SIGGRAPH 2004, to be held on August 8-12 in Los Angeles, California. The Computer Animation Festival jury chose 83 selections from a record 643 entries. There are 40 international selections and 27 student pieces in the Festival. The trailer is already available online at Siggraph.org.   [ more... ]

An interesting program for those who like to practice figure drawing: Julian Khor reviews Virtual Figure Drawing Studio for CGChannel.com: "... The 'Quick Poses' feature provides just that. Comes with a preferred timer of 30 seconds, 60 seconds or 90 seconds, a countdown counter and also the ability to randomize the camera position at every pose so you never repeat drawing from the same angle twice."

3D Artists gallery updated with new pictures. Check 'em out!

According to the same rumor, Max 7 will not be the many times cited rewrite but an evolution of the Max 6 code base.

For the second year running Discreet will be offering SIGGRAPH attendees training seminars taught by experts in the field. This year they have expanded the line up to a total of 12 seminars on subjects ranging from "Mapping within 3ds max" to "3D Camera Tracking" and "Advanced Character Rigging". Find out more at Discreet.com.

News.com has the article.

Michael Dean and Spencer Lindsay review 3ds max 6 for Gamasutra: "... well worth the price." (Login required.)

Yes, Marsel Khadiyev's cure for Max's baldness keeps adding features. The second release of Ornatrix is now available. New features since the first public release include improvements in stability, an enhanced user interface and options such as geometric rendering and hair IK. Also of note, gallery pages at Ornatrix's website have been updated with new images.

Los Angeles ACM SIGGRAPH June meeting will be presenting the VFX of "The Day After Tomorrow". The meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 22, 2004 at the Aratani/Japan American Theatre. Visit la.siggraph.org for more.

The Animex Student Animation Awards are dedicated to the promotion of the art of animation and to the recognition of excellence in computer animation and other techniques in frame by frame animation. Artists are welcome to submit any frame by frame or computer assisted animated film or video created between June 1st, 2003 and October 1st, 2004. The animated films or videos must have been produced as student work.

Clive Thompson has written a very interesting article for Slate criticizing the use of realistic faces in video games. Our upbringing turns us into experts in reading emotions in human faces and this makes the accurate reproduction of a human face in any artistic medium particularly challenging. This is especially difficult for animators, who have the task of conveying realistic emotions through time. Clive argues that the best results obtained so far, based on our current inability to perfectly mimic human emotions, has been achieved by stylized characters.   [ more... ]

Ballistic Publishing and Oddworld Inhabitants are pleased to announce Oddworld: The First Ten Years, The Art of the Oddworld Universe 1994 - 2004. The book will feature a compilation of images from the first ten years of Oddworld Inhabitants, including production design sketches, color roughs, storyboards, game screens and CG/FMV stills. It will also show  how the company approaches the art/design process and the evolution of a coherent universe populated with distinct, recognizable characters.

The fourth issue of RenderNode Magazine is out: the June release includes articles on creating fire effects with Particle Flow (part II), compositing techniques in Combustion (part V), and texturing techniques, among others. More information at RenderNode.com.

Stephane Dubé and Tulay Tetiker interview Alexander Steshenko, art-director at Panzar Studio, for CGChannel.com.

Here is a roundup of what has been updated or released recently:

PaxRendus v1.0.1, a Renderman interface for max, has been released by Archonus
David Gohara has released sciAnaComp v1.0, which emulates PhotoShop blending modes in map form
Oleg Bayborodin has written a modified PositionObject operator for ParticleFlow
3D Aliens have updated their glu3D fluid simulation plugin
Martin Ridgers has released a new version of Jamlander, an UnrealEd export plugin for max

WavGen have released a wavelet shader for a number of 3D packages including 3ds max. TerraShader™ allows users to view, modify, compress, shade, model and animate enormous file sizes. Using the concept of 'Wavelet Shading', the system is designed to shade and texture files in excess of 100GB in near realtime without frame loss and no memory allocation problems. For more information, pricing and a demo version, go here.

Nathan Wapole reviews Kaydara Motionbuilder 5 for CGNetworks: "... A comprehensive piece of animation software geared towards the serious character animator."

Leigh Van Der Byl reviews Combustion 3 for CGNetworks: "...  Combustion's excellent and extensive toolset provides artists with almost anything they will need for great quality post-production work ..."

CGNetworks has an interesting article on the making of Pfffirate, a great animated short by Xavier André and Guillaume Hérent.