3D DIRECT • December 11, 2000

2001: An Animation Odyssey

by Abby Albrecht

Extensis Products Group is offering a free upgrade to all of their award-winning design tools for Adobe Photoshop. The new versions of the Extensis products have been updated to offer compatibility with Adobe Photoshop v6.0. The tools are: Intellihance Pro v4.03, which streamlines image and color correction; Mask Pro v2.02, a collection of masking tools; PhotoGraphics v1.01 that provides a set of drawing and text capabilities; PhotoFrame v2.0, which creates image frame and border effects; PhotoTools v3.06, which contains a collection of real-world special effects tools for Web and print design. The free upgrades can be downloaded by registered customers from the Extensis Web site.

Computed Animation Technology (CAT), a Dallas-based production company, used Vicon Motion Systems Vicon 8 to capture several hours of character animation for a fully-animated music video for Master P entitled Soljas. The music video was so successful, that Master P chose to work with CAT to produce a second music video for the song I Don't Give a What.

CAT produced over three minutes of computer animation for the Soljas video which features dozens of soldiers marching, dancing, doing gun drills, exercising, and singing, culminating in a final scene with girls doing a team hip-hop dance, and hundreds of people partying in the street. Two days were spent capturing Master P and dancers and a gun drill expert performing routines that were applied to CG soldiers and characters throughout the video. CAT captured the motion data using an eight camera Vicon 8 system shot at their in-house 6800 square foot motion capture studio. The information was piped from Vicon 8 through Kaydara Filmbox and into NewTek LightWave.

Numerical Design Ltd. (NDL) and Nintendo of America, Inc. announced that the NetImmerse game engine is now available for developers who are creating games for the Nintendo Gamecube video game console. NetImmerse is a comprehensive set of software tools and includes the C++ run-time API, plug-ins that allow developers to easily import content from modeling packages, and optimization tools that enable the developer to combine visual quality with an efficient use of computing resources.

Onyx Computing, Inc. Tree Professional v5.0, a tree and vegetation creator and modeler, now supports Maxon Cinema 4D. The newly released version introduces sunlight and shadow casting, and is accompanied by Tree Library with over 330 parameter presets of ready-to-use plants.