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Entertainment
Benjamin Button Special Effects Guru On Creating a Human Face
3:20AM Mark Wilson | “It was really hard, it was really slow, it was really tedious, it was really expensive. And then next time we do it it’s going to be less difficult, and less slow and less expensive.” More »
Random Stuff
To Conceptualise a Trillion Dollars, We Require Computer Visualization
9:40AM Mark Wilson | While you will never see a trillion dollars in person (nature’s way of protecting your sanity amidst the bailout), computers can do the job without breaking a sweat—or worrying about retirement. More »
Entertainment
The 50 Greatest Special Effects Shots In Cinema
5:45AM Mark Wilson | Not only did the Den of Geek assemble a respectable (if not a little controversial) list of the top 50 special effects shots of cinema, the site also explained the tricks behind the illusions. More »
Software
This Man Isn’t Real, But Would You Have Guessed? (No.)
11:45PM Mark Wilson | Yesterday we showed you a clip of Emily, a product of Image Metrics facial mapping and animation. She looked very lifelike, but you could spot her flaws if you were looking for them. Then commenter totoro pointed out this other example clip (that uses the same techniques behind Emily) that’s, to my eyes, a generation beyond Emily. In fact, it’s…basically perfect…making it hard to believe that the model is not a real human. Truly, at least in this one particular circumstance/pose, the uncanny valley seems to have been crossed. Here’s the clip: More »
Entertainment
Emily Isn’t Real, But Would You Have Guessed?
11:45PM Mark Wilson | The woman above is not real. I mean, she was real once, when real actress Emily O’Brien provided Image Metrics (you know their work from GTAIV) with 35 facial poses in front of a pair of digital cameras. From there, O’Brien was dismissed so the animators could go to work. Apparently “ninety per cent of the work is convincing people that the eyes are real.” And the results–while not always perfect–are pretty extraordinary. Here’s Emily’s “interview”: More »
Entertainment
Footprint Fireworks Were Faked into Olympics Opening TV Show
7:04PM Kit Eaton | A local Beijing paper has revealed that some of the amazing fireworks in the Olympics opening show were digitally-crafted fakes, inserted into the live TV feed. The Beijing Times quotes the head of visual effects, who says that the 28 giant footprints that stomped through the air above the city, ending at the stadium, were advanced CGI. Though the pyrotechnics really were set off, the airborne camera view that the rest of the world watched was fake. Why go to these lengths? Apparently the Olympic committee decided that to follow the real trail of firework footprints was too dangerous for a helicopter camera. Instead a team spent almost a year crafting the fake segment, paying attention to even get the smog lighting effects correct. [The Telegraph] More »
Entertainment
