On Friday 22nd of October four of the team dived into the interesting world of Stereoscopic 3D imagery at the ’3D IN YOUR FACE’ Convention in Bradford.

As we start to create more and more TV Adverts this new technology will inevitably become part of our workflow so it was very useful for us to get a detailed overview from some of the leaders in the field. First off we need to clarify that when we refer to 3D we are referring to Stereoscopic 3D [As viewed through glasses] and not CGI. According to one speaker the term 3D was coined in the early 20^th Century and adopted by the CGI community when this technology become prolific in the 70s.

So as everyone knows if you’ve been to the cinema in the past year, gone are the days of red and green 80s cardboard specs and in comes the dawn of £100 3D glasses and million pound 3D TVs. Both these technologies were at the event and one unfortunate attendee managed to break a pair to the disappointment of the organisers, nearly ending one of the talks!

The first two speakers Andy Shelley from On Sight and Angus Cameron of Vision 3, both having a wealth of experience, working on films such as Peter Jacksons King Kong, gave an introduction to 3D workflow and pipeline, giving insight into the difficulties involved in the creation, management and post production of live action Stereoscopic footage.

The complexities of traditional 2D live action are multiplied by the fact there are two cameras and two streams of data to manage and produce.  At any point in the shoot, differences in the cameras can have repercussions further down in the pipeline, when it gets to post production.  Things like differences in lens quality, camera rotation, focal length and lens flares etc can become major problems as any corrections will have to be carried out to both cameras, as any difference can cause buzzing in the final 3D output (Leading to a blinding headache).

Here are the 4 of us below from the official pictures.

Credit: Image courtesy of Screen Yorkshire

After a brief lunch and a mooch around the Kodak gallery, taking in a little history we ventured back into the theatre for the next of the guest speakers, Ben Smith of Red Star Studios.

Red Star Studios is an award winning animation studio, specialising in 4D animation shorts for use in public attractions and theme parks.  As well as an exclusive screening of their excellent short animation sleigh ride, Ben discussed how his company had achieved certain shots and explained how the company had overcome certain pitfalls whilst making the animation.  We found this talk much easier to relate to, as Red Stars workflow resembled more of our own here at Pikcells.

- Following Red Star, the next guest speaker, Professor of graphics and imaging at the university of Cambridge Computer Laboratory Neil Dodgson, amazed us with an insight into his life’s research in 3D Auto stereoscopic TV, having being involved in the industry for 30 years. Some interesting points covered by Dodgson included, the Anaglyph in 1915 and an overview of the history of stereoscopic 3D development.

Simon Gosling of Framestore discuss the making of James Cameron’s Avatar and demonstrated how they composited certain shots in the film.  Discussing also the problems encountered and the technology used to overcome the complexities of 3D stereographic film, especially when combining CGI and live action. This was great to see some behind the scenes information, like discovering that they actually pre-animated the whole film from top to bottom at low quality before doing any of the FX.

- Vicki Betihavas’ company “Nineteen Fifteen” is closely involved in developing content for 3D television.  Working mainly with music artist and events, having produced the first live 3D stream for SKY Broadcasting, her company are pioneering in many ways to try and change attitudes towards 3D TV.

Conclusion

Although Stereoscopic 3D isn’t new at all, the 3D of today has evolved to become another tool in the film makers kit but the consensus was, that 3D will never be a substitute for a compelling story, good characters and believable world but merely a tool to enhance the viewing experience. As one speaker put it, Casablanca is a great film even though it doesn’t have 3D, FX, Widescreen or even colour.

Just hope its more Independence Day than 2012!

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/universal/skyline/

I finally got round to putting some photos online and as promised in a previous blog post here are some of my more recent photos.

During a stay at Oban I was happy to have packed a camera as the weather and lighting was perfect.

My aim when capturing these images was to work on my creative composition and lighting as well as the ability to capture different moods and atmospheres from a landscape.

These are taken on a Cannon 1000D with a 18-55mm Cannon EOS.

Here is the link to a couple of images on flickr which I feel met what I was hoping to achieve.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cml_flickr/

Everyones had that moment when you open an old file and all the maps are missing as youve had a organisational reshuffle meaning you have the arduous task of finding them all . It can take hours of time using asset tracking but thank the lord, Colin Senner has this great script for automating the process in seconds.

Simply run the script and follow the instructions to install. On openning you will see all the missing maps, on the left add the directory where your texture maps are kept then hit “Relink”. The script will searchthrough this directory for maps with the same names and relink them to your materials! Genius.

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/relink-bitmaps

We have just added 2 more people to our ever expanding team, Chris Lomax and Jane Carver. Here is some more info on our smiley new members;

Chris Lomax is our new Digital Artist and started off at Huddersfield University studying Product Design. Here he learnt valuable design and communication skills and after graduating he ventured into the world of freelance web and graphic design finally ending up at Devise in Halifax. While here, as a 3d modeller/ animator he honed his skills as a 3d modeller and specialised in lighting and rendering gradually moving up the ranks to a level where he was able to operate as an instructor, training various people on VRAY. Throughout this time Chris has produced work for a wide range of industries and companies such as Lang O’Rourke and Nightingales.

Apart from his severe dislike of the commute to Halifax, Chris came to us because of our more creative approach to projects which would allow him to develop his ideas further.

Chris has a number of hobbies that bring valuable elements to the team such as photography [Which hopefully we'll get some of these fantastic images for the blog soon], constructing websites as well as his green gardening skills (hopefully our plants might survive longer in the office).

Finally, we have managed to add a much needed feminine touch to the office and are very pleased to have Jane Carver join us as Secretary / Asset manager.
Graduating with a 2.1 Bsc Hons in Computer Animation and Special Effects from the University of Bradford, Jane  learnt core skills in this making her one step closer to her dream of becoming an animator at Pixar.
Working with friends she has recently studied motion capture and learned to edit and animate with the data as well as working on a number of freelance modelling and animation projects for different companies.
More recently Jane ventured to Dundee for an event named Next Level Dundee and spent a week animating and modelling a game with a fantastic team of strangers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJp-8CbL1BM).

Well its been a while since we posted anything, we’ve been working like crazy people trying to balance work with life while striving for perfection. We managed to take a day off last week to celebrate the completion of a few meaty projects and popped down to York Race Course to soak up some sunshine and Pimms…. but mainly Minster Ale.

Here are a few pics from the day.

Team photo in the Blue Bicycle.

The winners! Literally pounds richer.

The loser! After winning the World Cup sweep stake, the golden hour every Friday and the last 2 years Go-Karting, Dean wasn’t used to losing.

Jane looking pensive.

Ciprian trying to tip a young busker with Euros!

It was our christmas party a couple of weeks back so we ventured into Leeds for a trinity of karting, Japanese food and Karaoke.

The mainstay of our crimbo parties over the 4 years has been gokarting and this year was no different. Usually all the karts are quite equal and its a close call between a few of us. This year though there seems to be some disparities between Deans kart and everyone elses! I am sure Dean will argue otherwise but its not possible to lap everyone at least twice and some people, naming no names [Ciprian], 10 times without a better kart.

Needless to say Dean won and was awarded the token bottle of fizzy dish water. Loosing didnt seem so bad after a glass of that.

Next for some food in Leeds’ premier Japanese feeding establishment. If youve never been you are missing out, the bento boxes [as Anthony is demonstrating below] are a treat for the taste buds and the Ramen noodles are “superb”.

And so onto the main event, Karaoke! I think its fair to say that no one thought this was going to be as good as it was. Anthony and Steves duet of “I will always love you” was the pick of the night.

As is customary with these events, after many sambucas and relentless renditions of that journey song over and over again someone always goes for it big time and surprises everyone with some sick skills. Witnes Davy rapping to Run Dmc.

Winner of the best looking afro wig was awarded to Ciprian.

http://www.okkaraoke.co.uk/

http://www.ppik.net/

Huddersfield hosted its festival of light event on Friday in the town centre. Around 5000 people turned out to watch the aerobatics spectacle, here are a few snaps.

Good news from Pikcells UK, our director Steve and his wife Vicky had a beautiful little baby girl a few weeks ago, Annabelle Rose Mooney.

A few of us took a bit of a break from rendering excellence on Friday to do a bit of pumpkin wittling. We hope this is a warning to all the evil spirits which might put gremlins in our render farm or give us the blue screen of death the night before a deadline.

Left to right; Rich – Boosh skull, Ant – Tim Burton’s Jack frost?!, Deano – Your man Jack’ O ‘Lantern.