François Tarlier's Blog > CG Artist, Matchmover, VFX, Open Source topics, Computer Vision, and geek stuff !

Before your say anything or think that this is not interesting check out this part of the video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KxjVlaLBmk#t=158 !!! Somebody said spooky o_O ?

If you want to know more about this research check out :

High-Speed Robot Hand Demonstrates Dexterity and Skillful Manipulation | Hizook.

Intresting article about Microsoft Project Natal via Pixelsumo .

“Microsoft bought 3DV Systems. I instantly thought they were going to use this camera and their own sdk after seeing the demos, however Eurogamer reports:
“Aaron Greenberg was even more direct. Asked whether Natal was derived from 3DV technology, he told Eurogamer: ‘No, we built this in house.’”

“Kim admitted ‘it’s a combination of partners and our own software’,…’ ”

There are rumors that Microsoft are working with & licensing patents from Prime Sense, another Israel company like 3DV …..

Full Article here : http://www.pixelsumo.com/post/project-natal

It happens to me several times to share a Youtube link with friends and tell them “hey check out this video at 2min25, there is something really nice!”. It’s a bit pain in the ass though, most of the time they don’t even go straight to the right time.

Today I found a nice tip that let you start the video at the second you want. all you have to do is add #t=numberOfSecond at the end of the Youtube Video URL!

For instance, let’s say I want to show you one of my shots on my Reel which is at 15sec :

• Link of my reel on youtube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iouun1-D6NI
• specified time at 15 sec : #t=15

So the link should look like : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iouun1-D6NI#t=15

I got the chance to have in my city one of the theater showing a sneak peak of Avatar by James Cameron (director of Titanic). First I must say, I really like the universe of Avatar, and I think it is really beautiful !

The show happens to be in Stereo 3d with polarized glasses. I’ve pretty much seen all the movies that came out since this new wave of 3d movies, and in my opinion the one which work the best was “Up” by Disney. After watching this Avatar 3d Sneak Peak, I’m a bit disappointed and would stick to my thought with “Up”.
Don’t give me wrong, James Cameron and his team did a great work on the stereo part, and some shots are really stunning, but in another hand I would say that most of the actions scenes I’ve seen so far are kind of messy and blurry .
What I liked in Disney “Up” was that the 3d was there only to give more depth to the picture, you could almost forget you had glasses on, or even that you are watching a 3d stereoscopic movie in a way that it was discreet and so comfortable for your eyes. They did master it without a doubt !
Some Avatar’s scenes are like that though, but on those 15 minutes, when it was about big action sequences, it looks like “hey check out the big 3D effect !!! wooowww you got a tree in your face !!”…. Come On !!! We got it now !

So to resume my thoughts, I don’t think Avatar will master the 3D Stereo quality of Disney’s Up, but still, it’s going to be beautiful and I can’t wait until December 18th for the movie to come out.

Check Out :
James Cameron’s Avatar trailer
Avatar’s website
Avatar on IMDB

I found out a nice Flash application which can help you to understand the concept of F-Stop, Shutter Speed and Exposure and how it affects your shoot.

You can try it on DryReading.com here : http://dryreading.com/camera/index.html

CameraDemo : Flash Application which let you play with ISO, F-stop, Exposure, ..

A nice video showing off the following movies  :

• 1900 – The Enchanted Drawing
  
• 1903 – The Great Train Robbery
• 1923 – The Ten Commandments (Silent)
• 1927 – Sunrise
• 1933 – King Kong
  
• 1939 – The Wizard of Oz
• 1940 – The Thief of Bagdad
• 1954 – 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
• 1956 – Forbidden Planet
• 1963 – Jason and the Argonauts
• 1964 – Mary Poppins
• 1977 – Star Wars
• 1982 – Tron
• 1985 – Back to the Future
• 1988 – Who Framed Roger Rabbit
• 1989 – The Abyss
• 1991 – Terminator 2: Judgement Day
• 1992 – The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
• 1993 – Jurassic Park
• 2004 – Spider-Man 2
• 2005 – King Kong
• 2006 – Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
• 2007 – Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
• 2007 – The Golden Compass
• 2008 – The Spiderwick Chronicles
• 2008 – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
  

Another evidence that cool shit can be made with Open Source software ! I must say, I’m not a huge fan of Fantasy universe, but still the workflow is nice, and the picture is there.

David Revoy did use mainly 3 softwares for this painting :

• Alchemy : download – manual
• myPaint : download – resources
• Gimp : download
  • Gimp-for-painter : download – blog
  • Gimp Paint Studio : download

He also used Blender for the video editing (video sequence editor)

This is a nice try with the new Blender 2.5 Smoke preview in the viewport.

I finaly found the trick to record what happens in the viewport into a Video.

TIPS : In Blender 2.5, you can record each frame of the viewport into a video file or an image sequence by pressing ALT+F3.

Some minor update on the blog, I changed the RSS Feed, please subscribe to the new one here : http://feeds.feedburner.com/FrancoisTarlier

Some other icons added at the top right so you can follow me on several Social network as Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, Vimeo and Youtube.

The first release of the 2.5x series is expected to be available in october 2009

This is what you can see at the bottom of the Blender Siggraph 2009 Flyer which you can download on Blender.org here : http://download.blender.org/institute/25_flyer5.pdf

So now we get official annoucement for the following features :

• Still free (no kidding :p)
• New Animation system
• New interface
• Macros, History and Search feature
• New Python Scripting API
• Custom Key Binding (let you make your own shortcut … swweeeeeeeetttt)

The entire Blender Siggraph Press Kit can be found here