Outsourcing in the CG World??

Here is a great article to ease the thoughts on outsourcing in in the US. I actually read it in 3D World last week at Barnes and Noble, ended up buying the magazine. I just had come across this article in PDF form. Check it out.

"How to survive outsourcing Outsourcing work overseas is a fact of life in the 3D industry. So why will no one talk about it? We take a look at the realities of such work, and provide five-point plans for freelancers and indie studios aiming to survive outsourcing"

http://mos.futurenet.com/resources/3dworld/TDW108.f_outsource.pdf

Architecture Modeling Examples

SPINE 3D

This company is one of the top examples of architecture visualization. As far as I know, the administrative side and the creative directors are located in the US - Majority of the modeling is done in China. (Source 3D World - Outsourcing 9/08) http://www.spine3d.com/

Free HDRI Maps

Here a few sites with free HDRI maps for creating great reflections:

http://www.aversis.be/hdri/index.htm

http://hdrimaps.com/ Go to the download tab.

http://www.debevec.org/probes/ Look at the bottom of the page.






Here is a free program that allows you to edit HDR images. I have not used it in a while, but it is a great way to edit your images and it is free.. http://www.hdrshop.com/

Experimental Digital Sculptor - Meats Meier

Meats Meier

I have been watching Meats work for a few years now and he is just amazing!! This site has great gallery and tons of video interviews. It is worth checking out.

http://www.3dartspace.com/

















He recently created a couple of fully rigged digital sculptures of a Copper man and woman for a surrealistic Levis Jeans campaign.

CLAYTRONICS . . . in the FUTURE?

I just came across an article about Claytronics and it really got me thinking of the future and direction of 3D. I always say there will be endless list of 3d graphics jobs out there and integrated in almost every field. The inventors are suggesting it is kind of like Floam, but with full interactivity from both a tactile input or from a computer interface. Claytronics are basically minicomputers housed in a tiny sphere shaped objects, which can be controlled and stick together with each over by little electromagnets. It is kind of like a 3D printer, but it could change in real-time both shape and color. I think it could have endless applications from medical and engineering to entertainment.

I shared this with my students and then had a classroom discussion on how Claytronics could be used from the perspective of a computer modeler/artist. The inventors are predicting that you can literally have an interactive model and be able to modify it with your hand as if you had a “real” liquify tool. Very Cool!

Check it out!

Here is the main site:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~claytronics/

Here is a video advertisement for claytronics:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~claytronics/movies/carDesign_12_vo_H264.mov

Claytronics are featured in the video from ETV (Engineering TV)

http://engineeringtv.com/blogs/etv/archive/2007/02/20/episode-14-magnetic-robotics-overview.aspx

Scholastic National American Visions Award

Last spring, senior Jihye Kim received the prestigious Scholastic National American Visions Award for her digital painting, Looking for Answers (20in X 30in). There were eight categories with over 100,000 entries and one chosen for each category. That June, at Carnegie Hall in New York City, she received this award, a National Gold Key for a sculpture, a National Silver Key for her portfolio and a number of scholarships.

And now . . In September, a select few artworks were recently chosen for an additional exhibition in Washington D.C and Jihye’s digital painting will be hanging! The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and the Department of Education are pleased to exhibit artworks by national award winners from September 2008 through August 2009.