News
Brian Pohl, former pre-vis artist at ILM and now supervisor at POV, will teach a second course in Previsualisation & Cinematography as part of the CGWorkshops.
ILM will be interviewing candidates for FX and Lighting TDs and Shake and Inferno compositors in Los Angeles this Wednesday December 6, 2006.
Vicon, makers of optical motion capture systems, recently announced that ILM has acquired 40 Vicon MX40 Cameras.
The official Star Wars site has an article detailing the creation of the planet Felucia from Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith. On the other hand issue 167 of the Star Wars newsletter profiles Michael Smith, who runs the Javva the Hutt cafe, while issue 168 mentions how the ILM Model Shop built the Princess Leia bikini costume from Return of the Jedi.
ComingSoon.net is reporting that former ILM member Joe Letteri will be supervising the VFX, provided by Weta Digital, for James Cameron's Avatar.
The August issue of the ZBrush Community Newsletter has an article detailing how ILM sued ZBrush in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Modeling artist Jung-Seung Hong explains some of the tools and techniques used to create the detailed models.
Drew Hess recently announced the release of OpenEXR 1.4.0. The major new feature is multithread support for reading and writing OpenEXR files.
An article by Variety has confirmed that Tim Alexander is supervising ILM's work in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, with Steve Rawlins supervising animation. VFX Supervisor Pablo Helman is working on The Spiderwick Chronicles with Tim Harrington in charge of animation.
VFXWorld has an article covering the VFX work in M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water. Digital Production Supervisor Kevin Barnhill discusses the creation of the Scrunt and the Great Eatlon digital characters.
Film and Video magazine and MovieWeb have interviews with VFX Supervisor John Knoll about the work in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, including the Imocap system.
The official ILM site has posted the schedule of the booth presentations during SIGGRAPH 2006. ILM members will discuss such projects as Mission: Impossible III, Poseidon, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and R&D.
CGSociety has an extensive with ILM Art Director Aaron McBride about his work in A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report, Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and his extensive design work for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.
Autodesk has issued a press release about how its products have been used in these year's blockbusters, including the use of Maya and Inferno systems (for Sabre) at ILM for the VFX in Mission: Impossible III, Poseidon, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Lady in the Water.
Rainmaker recently announced that it has acquired animation company Mainframe Entertainment. Former ILM General Manager Warren Franklin is CEO of Rainmaker Animation & Visual Effects comments on the deal. Also CGArchitect has an interview with former ILM artist Chris White about recreating New York for King Kong.
ComingSoon.net has an interview with VFX Supervisor John Knoll where he discusses the production and VFX work in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.
USA Today has a couple of articles covering the VFX work in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest with VFX Supervisor John Knoll.
VFXWorld has an article covering the use of ILM's Imocap system in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. VFX Supervisor John Knoll, Animation Supervisor Hal Hickel and R&D Director Steve Sullivan describe how the system was used to capture the performances on set.
The Visual Effects Society will be holding two screenings of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest on Monday July 17, 2006. VFX Supervisor John Knoll will do a presentation with Q&A at the Los Angeles Screening while Animation Supervisor Hal Hickel will do the one in San Francisco.
CG Supervisor Willi Geiger recently took time so time to talk to ILMfan about the VFX work in Wolfgang Petersen's Poseidon, with ILM's contributions supervised by Kim Libreri. Willi, who was in charge of rendering the ocean effects, discusses the opening shot, the rogue wave, their new fluid dynamics engine, the digital ship and its lighting setup.
VFXWorld has an article covering the creature work in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest with comments by VFX Supervisor John Knoll and Animation Supervisor Hal Hickel. They discuss the use of Zeno, the dynamics simulation for Davy Jones' tentacles, the Kraken and water simulations.