2D/3D Program News

Photos courtesy of the distributors

The OSCARS® are coming and we’re counting down to see who wins the award for Best Animated Feature Film. Of course, we’re partial to The Breadwinner, since Moho was used in part for the making of the film – read more about that here.

But let’s take a look at the other films nominated in this category (not in any particular order), as there are some really great animated films in the running.

Congratulations to the team at Cartoon Saloon, who has once again produced an Academy Award® nominated film! This year, their film, The Breadwinner, has been nominated for Best Animated Feature Film. Based on the bestselling novel by Deborah Ellis, The Breadwinner tells the story of 11-year-old Parvana who gives up her identity to provide for her family and try to save her father's life.

But why are we so excited? Because Moho was used! In an interview with The Breadwinner director Nora Twomey, she indicates that Moho was specifically used for “the imaginary world…as a rig-based software to mimic cut-out animation.”

As 2017 winds down, Poser is heating up. Smith Micro has released Poser 11.1, an upgrade extension to Poser 11 and Poser Pro 11. The new release will include:

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! The holidays are a time filled with cheer, giving, and best of all, animated movies! At Smith Micro, we love animated movies just as much as you do so we wanted to share our top four of all time. Grab your mug of hot coco and get ready!

A New Chapter

Several years ago, we took on a challenge with a company called CELSYS. Our challenge was simple yet exciting: get CLIP STUDIO PAINT / Manga Studio 5 into the hands of American comic and manga artists. In this time, we helped build CLIP STUDIO PAINT into the world’s leading comic and manga creation software. Now, we are ready to embark on the next journey of putting our world class technical and business skills to work towards creating the next global brand.

We are pleased to announce that our good partner, CELSYS, is now expanding their capabilities beyond software developer. For Smith Micro customers of CLIP STUDIO PAINT / Manga Studio 5, as of October 28, 2017 you can now look to CELSYS for download licenses, support and technical inquiries.

One thing many artists have issues with when digital inking is keeping their lines steady. Often this is due to the disconnect or loss of control a person feels when drawing digitally as opposed to drawing traditionally on paper. When working digitally, you don’t receive the same feedback from your stylus as you would your brush or pen. This lack of feedback often leads to people being overly cautious with their strokes, which in turn, causes them to wobble as they go.

Get ready for the ZBrush Summit 2018! This September 28-30th, Pixologic will be taking over Hollywood’s prestigious Gnomon School facilities to bring you the ultimate ZBrush experience. This year the LIVE Sculpt-Off (online only) will take place the Thursday September 27th leading into the 3 days of presentations.

The annual Summit is the year’s biggest event for ZBrush community. This three day event streamed live around the world is a way for digital artists to connect not only with the Pixologic team, but also with luminaries from all segments of the industry. The days are packed with talented artists presenting a variety of ZBrush techniques used in real-world productions. Many of the demonstrations feature assets previously unseen outside of the studios.

Thanks to the combination of streaming technology and social media, viewers are able to become participants, interacting with each other no matter where they are located and even having their questions answered by the presenters.

Visit www.ZBrushSummit.com to get all the info, register to attend and sign up for news updates!

Elton John wanted to create a virtual reality experience recalling some of his most iconic performances from his early career and digital sculptor Kris Kelly was hired to help make it happen!

For the Legendary artist Elton John, Spinifex was tasked with crafting a VR experience recreating some of the most iconic moments of Elton John’s early career. My contribution to this project was creating the a high resolution digital double of young Elton John from the earliest days of his career. Working only from a present day scan of the artist himself, I had to use photo albums and images from the internet of performances from the 70s to rebuild, texture, and shade his face to a photorealistic quality.

Visit the ZBrushCentral thread to leave a comment on the project

Visit www.KrisKelly3D.com to learn more about this and other work by Kris!

We’re excited to share that we are joining our friends at Formlabs for their roadshow event in LA on February 8th and 9th with Pixologic’s own Paul Gaboury hosting a panel discussion!

Join Formlabs and the LA community for panel and networking on the intersection of design and manufacturing and how the Entertainment is being disrupted with Additive Manufacturing. Learn from experts from organizations like Hasbro, Formech, Ringbrothers, Solidworks and Blizzard Entertainment.

Seats are limited so reserve your ticket for the event! Use the promo code: “pixologic” for free entry! 

This month, HP unveiled their latest innovation: the Z 3D Camera at CES in Las Vegas. The groundbreaking new device aimed at simplifying 3D scanning earned HP the Best of Innovation Awards at this year’s show after showcasing the ease of taking 3D and 2D creative workflows to new heights with the camera’s small footprint, affordable price and impressive results.

ZBrush users will be happy to know that the Z 3D will allow them to accurately scan physical objects in a quick, intuitive way making creating a base mesh from scratch easier and quicker than ever in order to keep you sculpting with less cleanup and less fuss.

Watch the video below and read more about the Z 3D on HP’s website to learn more!

From HP:

HP Z 3D Camera empowers visual and physical design experiences for digital creatives with HP hardware and software innovations to create realistic 3D digital images from real objects by bringing the Sprout by HP experience to the PC.

Specific details include:

·         Reinvents creative workflows: Designed for CG artists, 3D designers, game developers and digital fine artists, the HP Z 3D Camera extends the Sprout Pro G2 experience to an accessory that easily attaches to a computer display17 and connects via USB to capture and digitize 3D objects, 2D documents and live video.

·         More human experiences: Allows for richer, more immediate remote live sharing by bringing into view the desk, hands, etc. to complement screen sharing, text and the webcam.

·         Unique design minimizes desktop space for real-time capture and visualization: It creates life-like digital images by rotating an object with the user’s hands or positioning under the camera. With tracking and scanning software that is easy to download, it constructs the 3D model in real time. Workflows are enhanced by scanning objects with computer-graphics-friendly resolutions that maintain separate texture maps for physical-based rendering (PBR) and AR, VR and mixed reality content creation.