The CLIO Awards is the world’s most recognized global awards competition for advertising, design, and interactive. For nearly five decades, the CLIO Awards has maintained its original commitment to celebrate and reward creative excellence, honoring a powerful form of communication and its impact on modern culture. At the same time, the CLIO Awards remains focused on evolving with the industry in order to acknowledge the most current, breakthrough work. CLIO’s iconic statue is the most widely recognized and coveted symbol of the industry’s creative accomplishments.

“We are all really excited to receive the CLIOs! I mean, who would have guessed?” says Superfad Creative Director Rob Rugan. “We always thought this spot was going to be cute, but in order for it to work, we knew we had to go all the way. But then we also had to know when to pull…(pregnant pause)…back. I guess it all just came together. In the end, we are stoked about the award and would like to thank the agency, our balloon animal clown, the CLIO judges, and the smooth stylings of Barry White.”

About Superfad:
Superfad is a brand-driven design and live action production company, a collective of designers, directors, animators, and artists, their mission is to see brands in unexpected ways and to express a brand’s voice in an undeniably original fashion.

Superfad was founded in 2001 and has produced award-winning work for many of the most respected brands worldwide. Honda, Sony, Target, Adidas, and AT&T are just a few of the companies who have turned to Superfad for inspired branding.

Related Links:
www.clioawards.com
http://superfad.com

Join the Autodesk Imagine Tour and discover how Autodesk® 2010 creative software can benefit television and film professionals as well as game developers.

Sign Up To Attend

At this information-packed event, you’ll learn how to:

* Improve your production development process
* Solve real-world production challenges
* Gain a competitive advantage by using Autodesk solutions for film, television, and games
* Explore Autodesk 2010 media and entertainment solutions

Today, television and film facilities as well as game studios are being asked to deliver more content than ever before, faster than ever before. And with growing audience expectations, it’s crucial that the quality of this content be second to none. Fortunately, Autodesk offers industry-leading creative tools for film and television professionals and game developers.

Through these Autodesk solutions, and the Autodesk® FBX® technology, you can create a virtual production space based on intelligent assets. In this space you’ll gain support for creative collaboration, which can result in greater production efficiency.

Sign up now for the Autodesk Imagine Tour and put the power of 2010 Autodesk software to work for you. Registration is free, but space is limited, so reserve your spot today.

Sign Up To Attend

Who Should Attend?

* 3D Artists
* Animators
* Art Directors
* Creative Directors
* Game Designers
* Game Developers
* Production Managers
* Technical Directors
* Visual Effects Artists
* Visual Effects Supervisors

Upcoming Dates:

May 12 – Dallas, TX
May 28 – New York, NY
June 4 – San Jose, CA

The promotional material is based on this year’s Bollywood theme and is a sequence of moving portraits, as a parade of characters takes their turn on screen in their rawest emotional states. Bright, solid-colored background focus attention on each cast member as they play their part in the mini drama. The edgy, interpretive storyline is an ideal representative for the type of creative work honored at the One Show Awards.

The live action shorts will be showcased in Times Square, NYC, May 1 – 8, 2009, in addition to serving as the basis for all of the promotional and branding for the awards ceremony.

“The attendees at The One Show are the most discerning creative advertising minds in the world and we’re honored to have been selected by Kevin Swanepoel, President of The One Show, to craft this essential component of the award show’s promotion” said Ian Kovalik, Creative Director of Mekanism. “The materials we’ve created for the Interactive One Show offer rich, compelling visuals filmed with the best equipment we can get our hands on.”

A Phantom HD High Speed camera was used by Mekanism to bring to life One Show Interactive’s Bollywood theme. With a 1000 fps speed, the Phantom creates a unique high-resolution, super slow motion image that captures and highlights the drama of small moments found in the lives of eight fictionalized Bollywood characters that were concepted by Mekanism. Scott Barry, directed the shoot which took place in Los Angeles.

“Mekanism really nailed this work,” said Kevin Swanepoel, President of The One Show. “We’re always looking for that elusive combination of supreme competence and fresh ideas, and Mekanism delivered for us.”

About Mekanism:
Mekanism is a San Francisco and New York based creative production studio, housing film, animation and digital content creators. We sprinkle our love of good storytelling on viral campaigns, commercials and branded entertainment to inspire measurable brand loyalty.

The Creds:
Client: One Show
Title: One Show Interstitials
Air Date: May 2009

Prod Company: Mekansim/SF
ECD: Ian Kovalik
Director/Art Director: Scott Barry
DP: David Claessen
EP: Jason Harris, Mat Lundberg
Producer: Stef Smith
Production Supervisor: Nolan Haener
Consulting Producer: Manjula Nadkarni
Flash Developer: Jamal Berkeley
Editor: Caitlin Parker
Compositor: Zachary Seidner

RELATED LINKS:
www.mekanism.com

MakingOf has four main features:

Filming Now: Come backstage and explore behind-the-scenes content captured during the creation process.  We’ll bring you on set, where you’ll learn about everything from casting to editing.  This section of the site will also offer interviews, movie trailers, photos, and unseen clips.  Stay posted as we add additional features and refresh our content.

Community: Coming soon to MakingOf is an interactive network for you to engage with industry experts and to exchange ideas, gain knowledge and connect with your fellow fans.  Register now

Wisdom from the Insiders: Hear exclusive interviews with leading industry insiders. Learn about your favorite filmmakers’ passions and inspirations. And — if you’re interested in the profession of filmmaking — get advice from the people who live and breathe film.

The Vault: Revisit movies of the past as we take you behind the scenes into our library of content that includes interviews, movie trailers, photos, and unseen clips.  Stay posted as we add additional features and movies.

Visit the site: www.MakingOf.com

Directed by: Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller
Starring: Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, Elijah Wood, Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Clarke Duncan, Carla Gugino, Josh Hartnett, Michael Madsen, Jaime King, Brittany Murphy, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Nick Stahl, Marley Shelton.

After the actors filmed in front of blank backgrounds, the SIN CITY effects team painstakingly brewed up the worlds they inhabit taken straight from Miller’s books. It began with Robert Rodriguez morphing Frank Miller’s books – frame by frame, entirely as is — into animatic storyboards. He than started developing the film’s look in the early experimental footage – a look he would continue to adjust throughout production. The idea was always to blend the photo-realistic with the graphic, but the trick was in finding the balance. By finessing the lighting and photography, Rodriguez played with variations on silhouette, shadow and extreme contrasts throughout. He also decided to add a few splashes of color to the otherwise high-contrast atmosphere. Rodriguez: “I was just salivating to recreate these really tricky images that Frank had drawn. Everything is so stripped down, that we would do as Frank did in drawing his comics. We’d build a background, but when in doubt, we’d black it out.

By stripping the backgrounds to their essentials, you get an unnatural style that feels right. Since I shot in color, we’d take the color out and make it a stark black and white, but at any time in post I could bring a color back in. You could then use color as a weapon; a really strong storytelling tool. So you have a character like Goldie who pops out with real flesh tones and blonde hair or The Yellow Bastard with his mustard-colored skin. And when I wanted to heighten a character’s pain I turned the blood red, which really brings it into the foreground, almost like a color close-up. At the same time, we could temper some of the more gruesome images, by making the blood that very cartoonish white you see in the books, which keeps it from being overwhelming. It becomes very abstract.

The background environment of Sin City was forged early on by Rodriguez’s trusted crew at Troublemaker. Then, when it came time to hire an effects house, Rodriguez made an unconventional choice. Instead of one, he would hire three – one effects house for each story. This would allow each story to subtly develop its own strong, distinctive and consistent look. Ultimately, Hybride Technologies, who were involved in Rodriguez’s SPYkids series, worked on “The Hard Goodbye,” the tale of Marv and Goldie; Café FX, whose credits include “Sky Captain” and “Blade: Trinity,” worked on “The Big Fat Kill” or Dwight’s story; and The Orphanage, known for their innovation on “Sky Captain” and “The Day After Tomorrow,” provided visual effects for “That Yellow Bastard,” featuring the tale of Hartigan and Nancy Callahan. With more than 600 effects shots per story, each house devoted itself completely to SIN CITY alone. The film was shot with the brand new Sony HFC-950s cameras – which currently represents the leading edge in high-caliber digital imaging. The camera, also famously used by George Lucas for this summer’s “Star Wars: Episode III,” raises the bar for cinematographic versatility. Visual Effects producer Keefe Boerner explains the appeal of the camera. “There’s simply no way you could make a movie like this on traditional film.

Robert was able to constantly make changes on-the-fly, evolving the look to match performances and vice versa. You need that kind of flexibility to go this far out on the edge.” Because he was shooting in digital hi def video, Rodriguez shot in color using HD monitors – but tweaked one of his monitors so he could see the footage unreeling in black and white. Boerner: “We had the best of both worlds. Robert was able to create what is quite possibly the best-looking black and white film ever, but when we had need for color, we had the ability for that, too.” Each of the effects houses would have to dig deep to satisfy Rodriguez, notes Boerner: “He kept pushing each of them go further and further – to get deeper darks and bright whites. He wanted exciting effects but also for everything to remain very stark and graphic.” At various junctures, Rodriguez even subjected his footage to the ultimate examination. He took early footage to comic book conferences and fearlessly showed it to fans to get their reactions.

About Sin City (2005) – IMDB
“Sin City” is four stories inter-weaved telling tales of corruption in Basin City. The first story (The Customer is always right) is short, and is based on the depression of women that they need to pay a man to feel loved when they commit suicide. The next story is Part 1 of “That Yellow Bastard” about a cop who needs to save a young girl from being raped. The third story (The Hard Goodbye) features a man taking revenge on a heartless killer who murdered his one-night stand. The fourth story (The Big, Fat Kill) stars a man who must dispatch a cop’s body, but it will be a tough ride to do it. Following that are two conclusions to Sin City, the ending of “That Yellow Bastard” which is set 8 years later, and a short story that ends Sin City. Written by Jesse Hefford.

Related Links:

The Visual FX of Sin City

At the end of Crank (2006), professional assassin Chev Chelios took a deadly fall from a helicopter hovering high above Los Angeles. Miraculously, he survived. In Crank: High Voltage (which opened Friday from Lionsgate), the action picks up immediately after this fall as Chev is transported to an operation room in which his seemingly indestructible heart is replaced with a battery-powered ticker that needs regular jolts of electricity to keep working…

Despite the tone and even premise of the movie, directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor were adamant that Crank: High Voltage be absolutely real, visually, which meant that a lot of shots that might have been more easily accomplished via vfx were, at least initially, approached as shots to be done in-camera. Indeed, the total shot count in preproduction was… eight. However, despite all good intentions, not all that was planned to be done in-camera ended up being successful. Thus, the final shot count eventually reached 440, all supervised by Overall Visual Effects Supervisor (and Exec Producer) James McQuaide (Underworld: Evolution, The Cave, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans).

McQuaide has a strong track record of delivering hundreds of visual effects shots under tight budgets and tough schedules. Crank: High Voltage proved to be no exception. One of McQuaide tactics was to hold off starting work on any shot until the picture was locked. “On this type of movie, we cannot afford to throw anything away, so we wait as long as possible to start the work. On Crank: High Voltage, we had about two months to complete 400+ shots… but every single dollar that was spent on visual effects ended up on the screen. The exception to this strategy was the sequence where one of the main characters is on fire — because of the number of shots and the amount of CG required. Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor made it a point of editing this sequence first, which gave vendor Duran Duboi a whopping three months to complete these 21 shots,” he says sarcastically.

Another of McQuaide’s strategies was to rely on a network of proven vendors. “If you look at the credit lists of the 15 pictures I’ve supervised, you will see the same facility names again and again (i.e. Luma Pictures, Duran Duboi, LOOK Effects, Furious FX, Celluloid, etc.). First and foremost, it’s these facilities that make it possible to deliver work as ambitious and well crafted as anything out there, and to do so on budgets that are a fraction of what they could very easily be. Also, on every show, we do quite a bit of the clean-up work and basic compositing in-house. On all the pictures I’ve supervised, you will see a credit for a company called Sub/Par Pix, which is basically my longtime associate, Gary Oldroyd, and whoever else we can rope in to helping us out — we hire our runners based on whether they know Shake and/or After Effects.”

Crank: High Voltage presented the challenge of adapting a rigorous vfx approach to a freewheeling, almost documentary shooting style. Up to 12 cameras were constantly rolling, with the main cameras being usually handheld. “It was difficult to make sure we had accurate camera data — or as accurate as the digital cameras could allow for,” McQuaide observes. “And getting matching background plates for all the foreground plates was a challenge too. Even on the bigger shows I’ve supervised, like the Underworld movies, I have, philosophically, always tried to have vfx maintain as low a profile on set as possible, so production wasn’t hindered by our presence. On this picture, because of the way the directors shot, because of how fast production was moving, this was even more of an imperative but, at the same time, there were things we needed to have. So, finding and/or fighting for this balance was tricky.”

Fire Challenges
The most challenging sequence featured a character on fire. In a series of 21 back-to-back shots, the costume starts burning and the fire progressively spreads out until the whole body is engulfed in flames. All this occurs as the character is immersed in a deadly fight. The plan in preproduction had been for a stunt double to do almost all the shots. However, during production, the directors became frustrated having to try and hide from the camera the face of the stunt double in every shot. So, they abandoned this plan and simply shot the entire sequence with the actor wearing a bit of burn make-up, a sweatshirt with holes cut in it and tracking markers.

The shots were assigned to Paris-based Duran Duboi, which had already collaborated with McQuaide on Underworld 3. “The fire is entirely digital throughout the sequence,” says in-house Visual Effects Supervisor Thomas Duval. “The costume was never on fire. We had a lot of artistic decisions to make: Why is the character burning? Where does the fire start on his body? How fast does the fire expand and how? Is the skin burning too? If so, how far do we go in terms of realism? All these questions had to be answered. The sequence was especially tricky as it involved one of the main characters, and we needed to present a logical progression between shots.”

Continuity was Duran Duboi’s first concern, as the sequence had been edited for maximum impact, without consideration for the look of the actor in each individual shot. As often, shots that had been planned for the later parts of the sequence ended up being integrated at the beginning. As a result, the character looked dramatically different from shot to shot. “In some plates, he was wearing burnt prosthetics, in other ones, his skin was clean,” Duval notes. “His costume could be damaged or not, with tracking markers or not. So, our first task was to create a sense of continuity by painting out anything that was appearing too soon in the sequence, and adding patches to fill up unwanted holes in the costume or to cover the prosthetics.”

Duran Duboi’s team, which included VFX Producer Annabelle Troukens and VFX Coordinator Judith Bruneau, received a cyberscan of the actor’s head. The CG head was used to build a digital double that was precisely roto-animated to match the actor’s movements in every shot. CG Supervisor Julien Lambert and his team then placed flame emitters on the animated body to create the fire effects. The flames were generated via a FumeFX fluid simulation within 3ds Max, and rendered via V-Ray and proprietary tools. “The CG fire would naturally follow any move that the character would make, which created a very realistic motion,” Duval observes. “Early on, we looked into creating a visible progression within individual shots, such as showing the skin turning from white to red to black, but in the end, the shots were too brief for anything like this to read on screen. So, the progression was really created from one shot to the next. The skin was entirely recreated in CG and rendered via RenderMan.”

Duval says that a good part of the realism of the whole sequence relied on a very subtle effect. “There were about 15 burnt holes in the costume, and the fire was supposed to start there. So, we tracked those holes and created a matte for each individual edge. Then, using color correction tools, we turned those edges into a glowing orange that perfectly simulated incandescent fabric. It really blended the digital fire in the plate. We also did a lot of work on the CG smoke, using FumeFX again.”

Given the brutal nature of the effect, the team had to deal with a problematic gore issue. “The directors wanted a photoreal look for the fire itself, but something more stylized for the body injuries,” Duval explains. “We submitted a lot of iterations, trying different textures and maps, working on various levels of realism. It was clear that this was not a gore movie, and that the character should never become truly disgusting to watch. So, we eventually used a softened approach, using red and black textures, but avoiding really gross — but realistic — textures. In the final shot, the character’s face is entirely synthetic — and that’s in full close-up. The CG head was roto-animated to match the actor’s performance down to the most subtle facial movements.” Compositing Supervisor Cyrille Bonjean and his team assembled the various elements, included a 2D heat wave effect, using proprietary software Dutruc.

Duran Duboi also worked on a variety of 2D effects for the movie, including TV composites, Tazer electrical bolts, a cattle prod hitting a bad guy and even a horse penis for a humorous scene! Forty-one shots in total were produced in two-and-a half months with a team of 20. “We worked on a very tight deadline,” Duval observes. “For a sequence that involved complex fluid simulations and the digital double of a key character, that was rather tricky…”

When Plates Don’t Match
The other vfx-heavy sequence in the movie is a shootout in a limo — more than 100 shots assigned to LOOK Effects. In-house VFX Supervisor Max Ivins and VFX Producer Melinka Thompson-Godoy oversaw the project. Like with the rest of the picture, the sequence was shot handheld to give the audience the sense that they are part of the action. As a result, McQuaide and his team found out that it was virtually impossible to shoot background plates that matched exactly — at least technically — the foreground greenscreen plates. In the end, they shot as much background coverage as possible, from angles as similar to those used to shoot the foreground plates as possible, and then pieced it together in post.

McQuaide notes that, because of the aggressively handheld approach, the foreground and background plates could never match exactly. “Also, we had to deal with significant budgetary limitations, especially since the sequence required over 100 composites. Eventually, we decided to simply blow out the backgrounds, so that there was enough visual information left for the audience to understand that the limo was moving, but not enough that mismatched lenses/angles would be apparent. The interesting thing is that blown out windows are completely appropriate given the picture’s Los Angeles setting. So, while this approach was taken to save money, it actually ended up enhancing the sense of reality.”

LOOK Effects used Shake and Flame for 2D compositing software and Maya for 3D software.

The shoot-out sequence, among similar scenes, involved a great deal of blood squirts and projections, an effect that was originally intended to be realized practically. But a recent experience led McQuaide to surprisingly opt for a fully-CG approach. “If you had asked me 18 months ago about doing CG blood, I would have said, without hesitation, that practical blood was the only way to go. At that point on various pictures, I had tried compositing blood elements, as well as using CG blood, and the final results had always felt artificial. However, on Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, I started working with a Berlin-based company called Celluloid. They were able to achieve CG blood that looked remarkably spot-on. In fact, their quality was so good that the directors, who are strong proponents of doing everything in-camera, are now talking about using CG blood exclusively going forward. It will save them the production time required to set the blood packs and clean up the resulting splatter — particularly on wardrobe — while still providing the reality they require.”

All CG blood was simulated using Next Limit’s RealFlow, creating defined shapes of flying liquid rather than just a particulate spray. After simulating, the liquids were rendered using Chaos Group’s V-Ray renderer, which provided the opportunity to simulate accurate sub-surface effects and reflections. The finals were then output as multi-layered Open EXR files in unclamped float using The Foundry’s Nuke, which gave Celluloid complete flexibility to create the final look of the blood.

Additional visual effects were created by FAUV: title sequence and motion graphics (41 shots); RIOT: clean-up work (116 shots); Therapy: motion graphics (nine shots); Max Erdenberger: motion graphics (five shots); and Sub/Par: wire and signage removal (145 shots).

Going the HDV Route
One of the most intriguing aspects of the project was that it was entirely shot on “prosumer” digital cameras, most notably the Canon XH-A1 (along with the Canon HF10). “It was truly a revelation,” McQuaide says. “The picture easily looks as good as what you are used to seeing (if not better), but was shot with very little lighting and on cameras that cost less than $3,000. The image quality — even using the HDV format at resolution of only 1440×1080 — was such that it had no impact on how we dealt with vfx plates. It gave the directors the ability to cover the action in ways that the use of pretty much any other camera would have precluded. I believe this is the first time a major feature film has been shot on the HDV format and, given our results, can’t imagine it will be last.”

Alain Bielik is the founder and editor of renowned effects magazine S.F.X., published in France since 1991. He also contributes to various French publications, both print and online, and occasionally to Cinefex. In 2004, he organized a major special effects exhibition at the Musée International de la Miniature in Lyon, France.

George was raised in primarily New York city and currently reside there now. He has shot a multitude of commercials, music videos, promotional and corporate videos for some top leading clients. George’s experience with shooting and editing 4K, 2K, HD, and SD is quite useful when meeting the needs of his clients. He has been working as a DP and editor now for over 7 years.

Some of his clients include: Dunkin Donuts, Big Apple Visual Group, St. Johns University, Time Warner, Comcast, Diaspora and Dolphin Fitness, Pharoahe Monch, Centry (Magic Man), Power 105.1’s DJ Chuck The Tripple Threat, Wyclef Jean, Jerry Wonda (Fugees), Milk Dee, Smoke Records, Legend Records.

Related Information:

Contact George Steuber online at www.GSteuber.com, Cell: 718.772.7231 or Email: info@gsteuber.com

With a triple-punch combo of shows to develop creative for, NYC based boutique Broquard Studio needed to bring all of it’s expertise in 2D/3D design, animation and compositing to the project.

“The HBO Sports brand and the boxing packages in particular are the ultimate sports package to work on from a design and motion graphics perspective. It was important to deliver something that had an event-night feel. Incorporating rich finishes and slick glossed surfaces, while also maintaining the energy and vigor that comes from primetime fights was the focus.”
Jacques Broquard, Director of Broquard Studio.

About Broquard Studio:
Broquard Studio is a motion graphics, design, animation and visual effects boutique for entertainment and advertising. For information on Broquard Studio visit: www.broquardstudio.com.

About Digital Kitchen:
Digital Kitchen is a creative agency that focuses on film production, experiential design, motion graphics, brand identity, and interactive work for marketing and entertainment. For more information on Digital Kitchen visit: www.d-kitchen.com

Now in its third year, Dimension 3 will again be the crucial meeting-point for performers, technical and business professionals who create 3D stereo content for cinema, TV, video games, home entertainment, communications and training – underlining its position as the No.1 forum on the calendar for the 3D industry.

This year, Dimension 3 will take place at the National Dance Centre (Centre National de la Danse), Pantin, in the Seine-Saint-Denis region of Paris, an area that strongly supports 3D research and production.

For three days, visitors and exhibitors will discover the latest innovations in 3D stereo, whilst also evaluating the maturity of current creation and visualization solutions dedicated to the 3D imagery, and their diverse applications.

More than 60 international experts will gather at the International Forum dedicated to 3D images, to discuss technological, creative and economic matters in a series of illuminating Dimension 3 Lectures and Masterclasses. Details to be release soon.

A new feature this year’s Dimension 3 will be a space for professional 3D producers to present their 3D creations and technical know-how. There will also be a brand new Immersion Area showcasing cutting-edge 3D stereo experimentation in video games, telecommunications and business marketing tools. The Immersion Area provides a unique opportunity to discover, test and try all of today’s 3D novelties, that could become tomorrow’s commercial essentials.

Dimension 3, third edition, will continue its entertaining and educational ambitions with an absorbing exhibition about the history of 3D technologies. Dimension 3 will also offer bilingual (French/English) training programmes and support for the development of 3D content with a Writing Talent Grant.

SUPPORTERS FOR DIMENSION 3 2009:
Companies already supporting Dimension 3 2009 include: 3D Revolution, Assimilate, Attitude Studio, Auditoire, Autodesk, BskyB, Color Code, Dassault Systems, Digimage Cinema, Dolby, Doremi Cinema, Eutelsat, The Foundry, Imax, Inition, In-Three, Iridas, Iz3D, Futuroscope, Mercenaries Engineering, Panasonic, Principal Large Format, Samsung, Sensio, SMPTE, Tempere University of Technology, Thomson and Xpand.

KEY FIGURES FROM DIMENSION 3 2008:
• 325 professional visitors (up 62% from the first edition)
• 3,900 viewers at the public screenings (50% up from the first edition)
• 8 hours of 3D programs
• Special Premieres of Hannah Montana and Scar 3-D
• Over 25 exhibitors in 3D audio-visual, cinema, games, display and digital signage
• Over 50 expert speakers
• 150 attendees every day at the professional conferences
• 20 participants on the training course on 3D production (AFDAScertified training)

THE STATE OF THE 3D INDUSTRY:
• In France, screenings of the 3D version of Journey To The Center Of The Earth attracted four times more viewers than the 2D version
• Over 10,000 theatres in the USA will feature digital projectors by 2011
• Over 13 feature films in 3D are scheduled for release in 2009-2010 (including Spielberg’s Tintin and James Cameron’s Avatar)

Further Information:
For further information please visit www.dimension3-expo.com
Dimension 3 is supported by the Conseil Général of the Seine-Saint-Denis and is organised by Seine Saint-Denis Avenir – an agency for the economic development of the Seine Saint-Denis –in partnership with Avance Rapide Communication.

Contact:
Avance Rapide Communication, T: (+33) 1 41 14 05 70

Ronel Faustino E: ronel@avancerapide.com
Camille Couderc E: Camille@avanceapide.com

“Softimage Mod Tool gives the next generation of game artists access to professional tools, so they can learn while making their own games or game mods,” said Marc Stevens, Autodesk Media & Entertainment vice president, games. “Game developers can also use the software to extend the life of a game by building a community of modders. Game mods can go on to become commercial games in their own right, and they can be used by developers to identify talent for recruiting purposes.”

New Features in Autodesk Softimage Mod Tool 7.5
o New learning materials: Softimage Mod Tool 7.5 comes with training
materials from Noesis Interactive. These materials show users how to create a character and export it for use in Microsoft XNA Games Studio 3.0.

o New real-time shading API (application programming interface): Softimage
Mod Tool 7.5 supports the Realtime Shader API version 3.0, which helps make real-time shader development simpler and more flexible. The new version offers an architecture focused on programmable shaders (GLSL, HLSL) and file-based effects (CgFX and DxFX). With these capabilities, what game developers see in Softimage Mod Tool is what they get in the game.

o Interactive Creative Environment (ICE): ICE is an open, scalable platform
that enables artists to extend the capabilities of Softimage more quickly and intuitively using a node-based dataflow diagram. Artists can now quickly create complex 3D effects and tools without writing code.

o Support for Windows Vista operating system: Autodesk Softimage Mod Tool
7.5 now supports the Windows Vista Business operating system.

Autodesk Softimage Mod Tool (formerly XSI Mod Tool) software is a free 3D modeling and animation package for creating non‐commercial games and “modding” (modifying games). Softimage Mod Tool 7.5 is based on the same professional toolset found in Autodesk Softimage 7.5, used by game developers to create 3D characters, levels, props and animation. Game developers can use Softimage Mod Tool toextend the life of games and recruit talent with a modding community using. Softimage Mod Tool 7.5 exports to Microsoft XNA and add‐ons are available that enable export to Crytek CryENGINE 2, Valve Source and Epic Unreal Engine 3.

Realtime Shading API
Softimage Mod Tool 7.5 gives users unprecedented power in a free tool. A new realtime shading API
supports programmable shaders (GLSL, HLSL) and file‐based effects (CgFX and DxFX). This gives game
developers “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) abilities when programming custom shader
effects, so that what you see in Softimage Mod Tool, is what you get in the game.

ICE – now in Mod Tool!
ICE (Interactive Creative Environment) is an open, scalable platform that enables you to extend the
capabilities of Softimage more quickly and intuitively using a node‐based dataflow diagram. This
paradigm means that 3D artists can create complex 3D effects and tools extremely quickly without
writing code.

Create Compelling 3D Content for Microsoft XNA and Major Game Engines Softimage Mod Tool 7.5 can export 3D models and animation for use with the Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3 framework. Fledgling or independent game developers now have access to a professional toolset for creating original games on the Microsoft Xbox console or Windows platform.

Users can also download add-ons for content export to Crytek CryENGINE 2, Epic Unreal Engine 3 and Valve Source game engines. With this professional 3D toolset modders can produce characters and props for their favorite game.

Commercial Version for Microsoft Xbox Live Community Games Available Autodesk Softimage Mod Tool Pro 7.5 software is functionally identical to the Mod Tool, but has an End User License Agreement that allows users to produce assets for games sold via Microsoft’s Xbox Live Community Games.
Autodesk Softimage Mod Tool Pro 7.5 is available only with Microsoft’s XNA Creator’s Club Premium membership. For more information visit http://creators.xna.com.

Availability
Autodesk anticipates that Softimage Mod Tool 7.5 software will be available in April 2009. For more information, visit www.softimage.com/products/modtool.

*Free products are subject to the terms and conditions of the end-user license agreement that accompanies the software.

Autodesk Softimage and XSI are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product offerings and specifications at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document.

Main Header Image Credit
Fable II – Angry Hobbes
Image courtesy of Lionhead Studios.