Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge

Could you retrofit your sci-fi movie to take place in the Star Wars universe? The Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge 2010 is now inviting movies. Under 5 mins. / All nationalities welcome. / All types of films including serious expansions or fill-ins of the canonical story. / All assets must be your own or royalty-free content (if not using licensed Star Wars products). Full rules here.

Personally I always wondered what little mini-adventure might have befallen R2-D2 between the point he left C-3PO and his kidnap by the Jawas…

Helmet hair, begone

MIT’s excellent Technology Review magazine reports that The University of Geneva’s MIRALab has created software that allows use of a “virtual hairbrush” to comb and curl the virtual hair of 3D models….

“Animators also can apply color or gel, clip the virtual hair and even increase or decrease hair density and volume any place they want”

Academic article here (PDF). After working through the complex maths, they show some pictures at the end…

Machinima Expo open

The Machinima Expo 2010 submissions are open…

“The third annual Machinima Expo (2010) is now accepting submissions for it’s juried competition. […] the submission period will be from June 1st to August 31st, 2010.”

3d Motive launches

Just launched, 3D Motive website…

“High quality video training by game industry pros”

Some of the tutorials are free.

VXF

A new blog to me, VXF: blogging the world of visual effects, has a long detailed article on the use of previz (that’s “Hollywood speak” for machinima) previsualisation software in the film 2012 (Yellowstone Park sequence). There’s also the actual previz to download, and a “making of…” featurette.