Month: July 2010

Sculptris + ZBrush

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The innovative free 3D sculpting tool Sculptris is to be merged with ZBrush. The developer and owner of Sculptris has been enticed to go to work with the ZBrush guys, so we should be seeing some amazing things from ZBrush 5. But I expect you’ll have to pay for it — so grab the free edition of Sculptris while you can. In the meantime, ZBrush 4 for Win and Mac is…

“to be released imminently on 8/9/10.”

SteamCarriage

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Prof. Null has a nice new “Steam Carriage” (Randolph, 1872) for free on Blendswap. It’s not texture mapped yet, which is why it looks like a toy. But no doubt a few nice copper and green-paint textures, and some wheel rotators, could have it puffing along nicely in an iClone steampunk short.

It comes out of Blender as a 160,000 face model, which is too much for iClone except for a very simple scene — so it may be best to remove a lot of interior detailing before/after export.

Muvizu competition – win top-flight 3D graphics workstations

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The makers of Muvizu are holding a £2,000 movie competition, in a partnership with Raindance.

First prize: WSM High-End Mobile 3D Graphics Workstation PC (a very powerful Windows laptop).

Second prize: WS1600 Mid/High End 3D Graphics Workstation PC (a specialist 3D desktop Windows PC).

Third prize: WS1400 Entry/Mid Range 2D/3D Graphics Workstation (a specialist 3D desktop Windows PC).

Time: 30 seconds to one minute. 1024 x 720 pixels. All audio, imported textures, etc must be royalty-free. Free to enter. Deadline: 31st August 2010. Full rules are online here.

A Lovecraft Dream

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Beautifully animated 2009 short, A Lovecraft Dream by Leonardo Manna (music/sound) and Michele Botticelli (animation). It looks at first as if it was done with paper and string, but — looking at the too-flexible waves on the sea — I suspect scanned drawings and After Effects…

Carrara 7 Pro for free – with the latest 3D World mag

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If you were happy with the give-away of Carrara 6 Pro on a magazine cover-disc earlier in the year, you’ll be happy to know that the very latest edition of the UK’s 3D World magazine (#133, just going on sale now) has…

“Carrara 7 Pro – full software worth $549”

… on the cover-disc. If it’s like the last release, it’ll be the full retail version. Not only that, but also a free lipsync tool for Carrara…

“Mimic Pro for Carrara – as sold for $99”

And even a free set of 176 ‘realism’ shaders for Carrara 7…

“DigitalPainters Shaders Vol II – as sold for $12”

Animidiot

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A classic idiot-ad from New York…

“We are looking for a Flash Animator to finish a project for 500 of Flash short films; each film is about 2~3 minutes long. The films are about lovely & cute characters’ cartoon. Pay $20 / per film, which is 500 films x $20 = $10,000. Thanks. City, State: New York, NY. Salary: $10,000. Duration: 2-3 months.

So that’s… 720 hours even if you work 60 hours a week. Each short can only take you about an hour and half from start to finish. Yeah…. I don’t think even iClone users can work that fast.

Tentaclii

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If you’re interested in the writer H.P. Lovecraft, I’ve started a new blog which I’ve been pump-priming over the last few days: Tentaclii. Scroll down the front page for 100+ freshly-found links, which have been categorised to provide a comprehensive up-to-date survey of ‘Lovecraft on the web’ in 2010. Tentaclii will only be an “occasional” blog, after the initial flurry of posts to get it started.

Blender 2.5 beta

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The first beta of the Blender 2.5 line is out now. This is the version that made Sintel, which has just wrapped up production. Once I have it downloaded and installed I’ll be able to tell if there are changes to the import/export — especially the FBX support.


Concept art for the Sintel dragon.

Ani mating

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For The Girls is holding an erotic film competition, for new short films that depict an erotic subject from a female point of view…

“We are seeking original high quality short films up to 10 minutes in length that offer an erotic experience from a female perspective. Films do not have to be explicit but should deal with erotic or sexual themes in some way. Ideally we want to see arousing, thought-proving and moving films that capture a woman’s experience of sex or sexuality. Entries don’t have to be made by professionals. First-time filmmakers are welcome. We are happy to see submissions from anyone with a desire to create good female-friendly erotic art. There are no fees to enter this competition. Deadline: 16th August 2010.”

“Animation or experimental film is welcome.”

See the website for the full rules.

Residential Space pack

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A preview for the new “Interior Elements Vol. 2 : Residential Space” pack from Reallusion. It’s not yet on the store, it seems, but here’s the taster…

But — unless perhaps the pack comes with pre-built sets containing beautiful preset lighting — I wonder who would buy it just for the props? When Archive 3D has 10,000 such high-quality models for free? Some of which are high-poly, it’s true — but there are many that are of a more reasonable size.

48-hour Machinima Filmmaking Challenge

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Fantastic Arcade’s 48-hour Machinima Filmmaking Challenge…

“On Friday, 10th September 2010 at 7:00 PM CST, teams will assemble on their hybrid editing consoles/gaming platforms to compete in the first Fantastic Arcade Machinima filmmaking challenge. Each team will have just 48 hours to conceive, direct and edit a short film, four minutes or less in duration using your favorite video games!”