For the past month or two I’ve been discussing a lot about
traditional art, mostly watercolor. However art isn’t just one medium and
doesn’t live in just involve coloring, sketching and painting. Art is one of
the vaguest descriptions in the dictionary and it describes so much. Knitting,
writing and traditional art are just a few to name. Today’s blog however will
be turning to a more digital form of art. While I have mostly been sticking
with traditional forms of art lately I haven’t forgotten my digital art roots,
or future. Video Editing, Visual Effects, Pixel Art and 3D Graphics are huge
interests of mine as well as computers in general. I’d be kidding if I wasn’t a
computer nerd and while I still have a lot to learn I’ve been an avid learner
of Video Editing and Visual Effects. There’s a certain conference happening
right now that encompasses the essence of every digital art form, SIGGRAPH.
Organized my ACM SIGGRAPH this conference short for Special
Interest Group on Computer GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques was established
in 1974 as a gathering place for engineering, graphic, computer, motion picture
and video game industries alike to present their new breakthroughs in computer
graphics and interactive techniques. So much occurs during this event it’s hard
to wrap your head around. SIGGRAPH is also the birth place of PIXAR back in
1984 when John Lasseter (Who was currently working for LucasFilm Computer
Group) debuted his first computer animated short, The Adventures of Andre &
Wally B. SIGGRAPH isn’t just a conference it’s a way of taking your computer
graphics/ visual effects or any kind of digital art career to the next level
and interacting with people with interests just like you as well as learn from
the pros. It’s definitely on my list of conferences to attend in the future. With that said let's dive into what will be shown off during this conference, some of this was announced a while ago but this is a good time then ever. First up NVIDIA with their recent research into AI and Portable Processors.
It’s no hidden fact that facial animation is the hardest
part of any 3D animation. Sure you can wiggle a few fingers but to animate the
face to encompass all the emotions humans make when we speak? Not easy.
Well
NVIDIA and Remedy Entertainment the studio behind Quantum Break and Max Payne
video games have come up with ways of making facial animation just a little bit
easier and a lot more fluid through the wonders of AI. (Artificial
Intelligence.) Remedy Entertainment has a large library of facial animations
and with this in hand NVIDIA has incorporated this library into a neural network
that can pull directly from videos of voice actors performing lines and create
near realistic facial motion. Of course facial recognition isn’t new in the
slightest but a lot of on hands work is still required to animate a face
afterwards, just imagine a game with a mass amount of cut scenes with a lot of
dialogue included, imagine how long all that will take. Well this AI should
make things just a little bit quicker if not better than current methods. You
can view the research publication here as well as the video demonstration
below. http://research.nvidia.com/publication/facial-performance-capture-deep-neural-networks
Also coming from NVIDIA are external GPUs dubbed eGPU
chassis by NVIDIA. These external GPUs boost the 3D performance and other
processes accelerated by your internal graphics card, which includes video
editing and visual effects of laptops. Immediately this caught my interest as
an avid video editor and visual effects compositor. These external GPUs have
graphic cards inside of them equal to those of workstation-class computers, aka
desktops. These will come available with Nvidia’s Quadro P400, P5000, P6000 or
even a Titan X gamer card that’s customary tuned for heavily compositing and
rendering software. eGPU Graphic Card Docks have existed but none of them were
cheap or of good enough quality until recently with what NVIDIA has announced.
No prices have been said but there will be a variation of prices. This would
boost the capabilities of your laptop ten fold though making it a little less
portable with the giant GPU it would be perfect for those unable to have a
desktop set up or those who are constantly on the move, or just someone who
prefers laptops in general. Sadly not every laptop will be compatible with this
GPU, these will connect to the laptop via a Thunderbolt 3 enabled USB-C, which
is not a standard on laptops as of right now, you usually have to buy it either
custom or pay a bit more for a higher end laptop. You can read more here: http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-external-gpus-bring-new-creative-power-to-millions-of-artists-and-designers
During SIGGRAPH they have something called Real-Time Live,
which as the name might give away are demonstrations of new real time tech
demos all done in a one and three-quarter hour block. This is one of those
things you have to be there to really experience and even interact with the
full potential of these incredible creations that break boundaries. During the
Real-Time Live they demonstrated something pretty awesome that brings
watercolor into the 3D digital world in what they call Direct 3D Stylization
Pipelines. What this means is creating stylized computer graphics that allow
you to paint color onto the model directly leaving a stylized watercolor look,
the results is stunning and very unique so take a look at this video by clicking this link here: https://vimeo.com/200206363
Recently getting into watercolor this absolutely amazes me
and actually makes me jealous that I can’t paint this good yet. I never would
of thought watercolor would make for a great stylization for 3D animation. Research
into this type of animation and rendering is led by Santiago Montesdeoca at
Nanyang Technological University in Singapore where he is currently working
towards a PhD in this field. This process is done through Autodesk Maya with
real time rendering and is supposed to replicate the feeling of painting actual
watercolor, just in 3D and with a back button. I would love to see more of this
kind of animation in perhaps some short films or even a feature film so I’ll be
keeping a close eye on Montesdeoca’s research. You can read more here: http://artineering.io/docs/mnprDocsWC/ as well as try this out for yourself if you own Autodesk Maya as this is completely open source! http://artineering.io/projects/Maya-Watercolor/
Finally something else I want to touch on is Nuke 11.0, which has recently released. Nuke is a video compositor for visual
effects, grading and general touch ups and as a filmmaker this immediately
keyed me in. With the industry growing at rapid rates programs like Nuke are
constantly upgrading themselves to keep up with the industry standards. Nuke 11
is going to take some previous nodes and make them much more fast and efficient
such as Denoise as well as some new 2D and 3D tools. It seems Nuke 11 is going
to be a little more user friendly then the previous version so the learning
curve won’t be as strenuous on newcomers. Nuke 11 will also include features
from NukeX and NukStudio. There’s a lot more added that you can check out by
clicking this link here: https://www.foundry.com/events/nuke-11-webinar
Red Giant has also revealed it’s new version of its popular
set of After Effects plugins, Trapcode. Three of the 11 plugins have had a
makeover, Tao, Form and Particular. Want to create 2D particles, GUIs and other
high tech effects in a 3D space AND combine them with 3D models? This is the
pack for you. It’s actually released as of today and costs $999 for new users
while current Trapcode users can upgrade for just $199 USD. Check out more at: https://www.foundry.com/products/nuke
There’s so much I could talk about regarding SIGGRAPH 2017
and I can hope that I can get to this event one year to really experience
everything first hand. The digital age is ever evolving and we’re in a massive
experimentation phase right now, tipping on the edge of a new era. With virtual
reality, artificial intelligence and apparently 3D stylized watercolor
animations (Still amazed by that) I can’t wait to see what the future holds for
us.
Still on the subject of films I have a new movie trailer to
show you guys of a new film releasing called Dunkirk based on the real life
events from the fierce battle of Dunkirk during World War II. Dunkirk has been
made into a movie quite a few times such as the famous 1958 Dunkirk drama movie
directed by Leslie Norman starring John Mills, Richard Attenborough and Bernard
Lee.
This movie is being directed by Christopher Nolan, famous for his Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, Interstellar, The Prestige, yeah you know who this man is. As well as being composed by Hanz Zimmer the king of dramatic scores this movie looks pretty promising. Dunkirk (2017) stars Tom Hardy, Fionn Whitehead Damien Bonnard and apparently Harry Styles. It’s already been released since July 21st and has some high ratings. You can check out the trailer below, I can say it’s on my list of must watch movies.
© 2016 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Village Roadshow Films North America Inc. and RatPac-Dune Entertainment LLC
This movie is being directed by Christopher Nolan, famous for his Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, Interstellar, The Prestige, yeah you know who this man is. As well as being composed by Hanz Zimmer the king of dramatic scores this movie looks pretty promising. Dunkirk (2017) stars Tom Hardy, Fionn Whitehead Damien Bonnard and apparently Harry Styles. It’s already been released since July 21st and has some high ratings. You can check out the trailer below, I can say it’s on my list of must watch movies.
Finally before I leave you guys let’s get a little… Pink. By
pink I mean a certain round puffball that breaths in enemies and steals their
power. Mega Man? Are you crazy? I’m talking about the Kirbster himself, Kirby
who turned 25 years old yesterday here in America!
Yeah it seems all the classic Video Game icons are having anniversaries lately it’s crazy to think Video Games have been around 2 times my age. Kirby’s appetite began with Kirby’s Dream Land for the Nintendo Gameboy, the original green and black one. Actually Kirby’s copy ability wasn’t even in his original game and wouldn’t make an appearance until his NES debut Kirby’s Adventure releasing in spring of 1993. Kirby is the child of Masahiro Sakurai as Sakurai’s first video game foray at the early age of 19 when he worked for HAL Laboratory under the late Satoru Iwata. Kirby since then has gone on to have many adventures though I have to say I haven’t experienced Kirby games as much as I should of. Kirby is a great and unique platforming series and games like Kirby: Planet Robobot is adding even more unique adventures to the Kirby library while keeping the same Kirby backbone. (Does Kirby even have a backbone?)
Yeah it seems all the classic Video Game icons are having anniversaries lately it’s crazy to think Video Games have been around 2 times my age. Kirby’s appetite began with Kirby’s Dream Land for the Nintendo Gameboy, the original green and black one. Actually Kirby’s copy ability wasn’t even in his original game and wouldn’t make an appearance until his NES debut Kirby’s Adventure releasing in spring of 1993. Kirby is the child of Masahiro Sakurai as Sakurai’s first video game foray at the early age of 19 when he worked for HAL Laboratory under the late Satoru Iwata. Kirby since then has gone on to have many adventures though I have to say I haven’t experienced Kirby games as much as I should of. Kirby is a great and unique platforming series and games like Kirby: Planet Robobot is adding even more unique adventures to the Kirby library while keeping the same Kirby backbone. (Does Kirby even have a backbone?)
Actually my first encounter with Kirby would be Super Smash
Brothers for the N64 which was also created and designed by Masahiro Sakurai. Kirby
was actually a complete boss in that game, from his copy ability to his float
ability, he was definitely a favorite of mine. Anyway my second encounter would
be Saturday mornings via the Kirby Right Back At Ya anime series and oh boy was
this series awesome. Kirby and the Dream Land residents would be at arms with
King DeDeDe’s monsters every Episode with the show featuring many of Kirby’s
power ups. Since then I’ve only experienced Kirby through the original Gameboy
game, the Yarn Kirby which I wasn’t fond of and Kirby Planet Robobot’s demo so
yeah I definitely want to experience the older games at some point. With this
anniversary it’ll be a perfect time to do so with a huge sale that’s happening
on all Kirby games available for Wii U and 3DS virtual console and new. This
sale will run through August 8th with all Kirby games being 25 % off
so be sure to take advantage of this sale before it ends! You can check out the games by following this link: http://www.nintendo.com/games/sales-and-deals/?eid=Kirby25th_36730357-8E41-410B-BD9A-F04A7555499F#kirby-25th-anniversary
Also I have to tell you guys about a new Pokemon event
happening this month at Gamestop, while last month we had the Lycanroc event
this month we’ll be getting a Salazzle event running August 14th to
September 4th via codes your local Gamestop will be giving out
throughout that time period. This Salazzle will be battle ready and come with
Fake Out, Toxic, Sludge Bomb and Flamethrower while holding a Focus Sash. I
only have information regarding United States right now so stay tuned. Don’t
forget to head on out to look for legendary raid battles, Articuno and Moltres
are now turning up with Moltres only available until next week.
Not so keen on the poster either, to be honest.
Other than that the new Pokemon movie “Pokemon: The Movie I
Choose You!” will actually be releasing worldwide in Theatres November 5th and
6th! Yeah it’s been years since a Pokemon movie has made it into theatres so it’s
great to see that. Sadly I can’t say I’m all too excited for this movie and my
excitement is dropping even further as we get closer to release. I never wanted
this to be a recreation of the original series, the original series is too
timeless for that I accepted the alternative storyline, even praised it as it
finally gives Ho-Oh the spotlight but I just cannot get over the fact Brock and
Misty are not in it, replaced by these two new companions named Verity and
Sorrel. For a movie that’s supposed to be the 20th anniversary of
the anime they’re leaving out two vital characters that made up just as much of
the show as Ash, Pikachu or Team Rocket. I’ll spare you guys my opinion however
and leave you guys for the day.
This was ZAK Entertainment
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