New Syntheyes – Better Fusion Support
A new version of Syntheyes just has been released. It features updates to the Fusion export script, including contributions that I had made a while ago.
Since Fusion doesn’t support the Syntheyes distortion model by itself, Syntheyes will set up a UV map distortion/undistortion workflow for you on export. In my experience, the image quality might suffer a bit with strong distortion values since there’s no sub-sampling, but this technique has many advantages. One being the fact that it automatically contains the undistorted image’s resolution that you need for 3D via the UV map.
Every Frame a Painting
A video about how Jackie Chan directs his action scenes led me to the youtube channel of Tony Zhou called “Every Frame a Painting” which I can highly recommend. In each of his short but well-presented videos he dissects a specific directing or editing technique.
Here’s one about what makes Edgar Wright’s comedies (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs the World) funny on a purely visual level. Hating on mainstream Hollywood is always fun so Zhou contrasts it with comedy movies like Hangover (which make a shitload of money anyways so remember the central life lesson of cinema: success doesn’t depend on mastering movies as an art form and one should stop lamenting this fact lest one becomes a grumpy old film critic).
Check out his other videos on youtube or tumblr. I also recommend the one about Snow Piercer (since I’ve worked on it – the movie’s vfx that is, not this video).
Alles Fake im Fernsehen
Hier mal ein Einblick, was heute alles technisch möglich ist im Fernsehen 😉
(Video muss leider über YouTube direkt angeschaut werden)
Pop Culture at the Speed of Light
The new Star Wars Teaser made most people happy just by containing scenery that looked like the original trilogy.
Not even two days later there’s a pretty well-composited spoof of a “George Lucas special edition” that reminds you of how cluttered Episode 1 to 3 looked like:
And the only thing that was actually new in that teaser? A ridiculous light saber design reminiscent of a medieval sword (interesting trivia: in German, the light saber had always been called a “laser sword”). And of course, mere days after the trailer, this gets its own spoof as well…
source: unknown
I love the evolution of pop culture in the internet age 🙂
16th Century Portraits
The Joker by Sacha Goldberger
Super heroes, villains and Star Wars characters in 16th century style portraits including period costumes by photographer Sacha Goldberger.
The casting is also really great (unless there was some photoshopping involved to match the original actors that closely) and whole bunch people worked on the costumes (credits on facebook).
Reconciling Job and Family
Reconciling a job in the media or vfx industry with a family can be a tough task. I hope more companies follow the lead of Canadian ad agency Union. Once a year, on employee appreciation day, their employees are rewarded for their hard work by being allowed to see their families 🙂
(found via pixelsham)
Ok, that’s a joke. Obviously. But it coincides with another blog post from vfxsoldier about an article in ‘Variety’ where the frustration about the working conditions at MPC boils over in the comments section. The title of that article? Moving Picture Co. Finds Valuing Artists is the Best Effect.
Disclaimer: personally, I can’t judge any of this since I have never worked at MPC nor in the UK for that matter.
The Great Martian War
Man, World War 1 was apparently greater (and more awesome) than I’ve been told in school.
The video above, which seems to be a compilation from a mockumentary on History Channel, is so funny it makes you forget the horrors of WW1 as shown in that real documentary on ARTE (IMDB page – unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be much info in English).
The shot of horses grazing in front of broken Martian machinery reminds me of the art of Simon Stålenhag.
