Colour Bleed

Fantastic short by Peter Szewczyk.
Watch from the BBC's FilmNetwork.

Better White LEDs

Researchers are reporting the first use of a fundamentally new approach in the quest to snare the Holy Grail of the lighting industry: An LED (light-emitting diode) — those ultra-efficient, long-lived light sources — that emits pure white light. The new approach yielded what the scientists describe as the most efficient and stable source of pure white light ever achieved. The advance could speed the development of this next-generation technology for improved lighting of homes, offices, displays, and other applications, they say. 

Image Engine talks "The Thing"

Watch FX Guide's podcast as they talk to Image Engine about the creature and environment visual effects work in director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s The Thing.

Jesper Kjolsrud, our VFX Supervisor for the show and Steve Garrad, VFX Executive Producer, talk about the challenges and accomplishments of working on this project.

Check it out at FX Guide's website HERE.

Touchscreen Distinguishes Different Parts of Finger

By attaching a microphone to a touchscreen, the CMU scientists showed they can tell the difference between the tap of a fingertip, the pad of the finger, a fingernail and a knuckle. This technology, called TapSense, enables richer touchscreen interactions.

More at CARNEGIE MELLON NEWS

Say hello to Lytro...

Lytro has unveiled a little something it calls the Lytro camera - the world's first consumer light field camera.
Within the anodized aluminum frame, the friendly camera totes an f/2, 8x zoom lens which utilizes an 11-mega-ray light-field to power all that infinite focus magic.
www.lytro.com

Immortals Trailer

A new trailer is available for "Immortals", Tarsem Singh's vision of the Greek myth of Theseus and the Titans.
I was senior digital artist on this project for a good chunk of 2010 and early 2011.
"Immortals" will be in theaters November 11, 2011.
Link HERE.

Google Ngram Viewer

Google has been digitizing books. MILLIONS of books...  Well, the goal is pretty much to digitize ALL books printed by humankind since the invention of the printing press. (not very ambitious. heh?)
Realizing that they had a MASSIVE database of words, they put forth a search engine (because, after all, they are Google) that allows you to search the occurrence of a particular word or words through their ENTIRE books database.
You may ask "why the heck do I want to do that?!"... Elementary my dear: besides satisfying whatever geek drive you may have in you, the tool allows you to spot and compare cultural trends through time.
Google's database holds printed matter from the 1700's or earlier, so you can actually see how popular has the term "fame" (for instance) has been through centuries. By entering multiple terms separated by commas, you can compare them all in the same graph and infer some interesting cultural repercussions around that. 
Click HERE to go play with Google's Ngram Viewer.
Well, if you still think it's dumb, I apologize. You can go back to watching "Jersey Shore" now...

VFX Bill of Rights

In response to the current production environment, the VES offers this visual effects Bill of Rights, and a dedication to work with the entertainment industry at large to transform the visual effects industry into a model that is mutually sustainable for artists and practitioners, facilities and studios.

Head over to the VES website for the complete text.

"District 9" - Lighting Reel

In lieu of a full demo reel with shots from most of my work for the past 3 to 4 years, I have included a lighting reel with the shots I worked on for "District 9".

Sorry, it's the only edited reel I have at this point. But I am working hard to finalize a proper demo within the next couple of months!

You can hop straight to the D9 Reel page HERE.

Image Engine Designs

I have been flexing my rusty graphic design muscles at Image Engine, creating pieces for our marketing department over the last months.
Worked on some banners, promo posters and crew t-shirts for "Disctrict 9", "The Thing", "The Twilight Saga" among others.
You can see a few that are available at the Personal Works area of the website. Direct link HERE.

Best 2011 Electron Pics

FEI, a company from Oregon that makes electron microscopes, sponsors a contest every year to find the best electron microscope images.
There's a whole world out there that we're incapable of seeing without the aid of very complicated an expensive electronics. On the large scale, we're talking about looking at the universe through telescopes, but it works the other way, too, using things like electron microscopes to explore the inherent beauty of the very, very small.
The images can be seen on FEI's website or available in desktop wallpaper-sized versions on Flickr here.
Also, do not miss their Nanoscale Bug Image Gallery showing some extreme close-ups of common bugs - GREAT reference material!

Fly away with GoogleMaps

Google Maps has long been my favorite way to get driving directions, but now they've added a cool new 3D preview feature that lets you take a virtual flight along the route before you hit the road.
To make it work, you simply enter your start and end points as usual, choose whether you're walking, biking or driving, and click the "3D" button at the start of the written directions list. The program will zoom into your start point, then take you along the route using an angled view from above as if you were in a helicopter. What's really cool, is that unlike a regular overhead map or satellite image, you can really see the terrain and what types of difficulties you might encounter when you actually travel along the route. That's cool if your driving, but it's especially useful if you're going to be biking or walking and want to know where the hills are.

Digital Scrolls

The Israel Museum welcomes you to the Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Project, allowing users to examine and explore these most ancient manuscripts from Second Temple times at a level of detail never before possible. Developed in partnership with Google, the new website gives users access to searchable, fast-loading, high-resolution images of the scrolls, as well as short explanatory videos and background information on the texts and their history.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, which include the oldest known biblical manuscripts in existence, offer critical insight into Jewish society in the Land of Israel during the Second Temple Period, the time of the birth of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism.

Five complete scrolls from the Israel Museum have been digitized for the project at this stage and are now accessible online.