Wellington, NZ-based Weta Digital was the primary visual effects vendor on Avatar. Turns out they are also a longtime NVIDIA customer, and use both Quadro professional graphics solutions and Tesla high performance computing solutions for creating visual effects.

Now that 2009 is officially behind us, the games that were naught but distant promises last year shift onto the concrete horizon. Amid all the holiday celebrations that have just concluded, it might be easy to lose track of all the major launches fans are looking forward to in 2010.

That's why Gamasutra has decided to round up some of the most-anticipated releases in the year to come, from big sequels to promising new IP. We start with the major home consoles, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

“Autodesk tools are designed for creativity, flexibility and interoperability, freeing creative visionaries, artists and production teams to focus on the work as opposed to the technology.”

Hundreds of Visual Effects Artists Use Autodesk Software to Help Create Disaster Movie of Spectacular Proportions

What are game employers looking for when hiring in today's market? Square Enix LA studio head Fumiaki Shiraishi discusses what he believes development studios are seeking in applicants. For more from Shiraishi, check out this Gamasutra Q&A about the studio from earlier in 2009.

Hiring Tips

1. Dragon Age (BioWare, Xbox 360/PS3/PC)

BioWare once reinvigorated the Dungeon & Dragons-inspired line of PC fantasy RPGs with Baldur's Gate. After a decade of evolutions, the studio has attempted to bridge the gap between that early milestone and its modern refinements.

Apple

Apple has done tremendous things for the game industry this year. While we all now recognize that the iPhone has not been the faultless goldmine that developers hoped for in late 2008, the platform is still empowering real developers to make really interesting games and make real money in the process.

CryENGINE 3 ready for massively multiplayer future

Speaking to Develop for a special feature on Crytek's game engine Carl Jones, CryENGINE’s director of global business development, has predicted that soon most game genres will harbour massively multiplayer communities; something the third iteration of the powerful development platform is apparently ready for.

Unigine Corp. introduces the full support of DirectX 11 features in its top-notch 3D middleware. Updated Unigine engine has successfully incorporated the groundbreaking DirectX 11 capabilities, including the following core features:

• Hardware tessellation
• DirectCompute
• Shader Model 5.0

Without guts, there can be no glory: from Anvil to Unreal. by Chris Stead

Australia, July 15, 2009 - Webster's Dictionary defines a 'game engine' as 'the word you've entered isn't in the dictionary,' but if it were to define it, it would probably explain that a game engine is used as the overall architecture to develop and run a game – it gives developers tools to create the disparate elements of a videogame and then pull them together to create a functioning whole.

According to Epic bigwigs, the Unreal Engine 4 does have an estimated release date, but the timing might actually surprise you.

While the announcement that the Unreal 4 Engine is in development isn't anything new, Epic Games president Michael Capps' has revealed a rough release date for the technology. Speaking at Gamefest in Seattle, Capps talked about the engine's development and said that it won't come out until the next generation of consoles.

AAA video games usually take between 2 and 4 years to complete, and the trend is only growing longer. Perversely, this time period seems to increase as the technology improves... DVD's and bigger hard drives just mean we need to fill up more space! Faster and higher-resolution graphics capabilities mean more detailed artwork is possible (and therefore needed), and there are more pixels to push! Faster processors mean more complex gameplay and better AI are possible (and therefore needed), so more code to write and more bugs to find.

Comprehensive, informative and well written, it's currently the best resource out there for up and coming game artists. It's also a great tool for current game artists looking to brush up on their tech and terminology.

Book Description

Introducing GoZBrush

ZBrush has announced a new feature in Zbrush4 called “GoZ”, aimed to make moving data between ZBrush and other popular modeling packages even easier.

I found an article Game Career Guide's "Top Ten Tips" feature series, Robert Chang lists his top tips for industry artists.

I think this is useful, so I am posting these words here for my own reference and for other guys who read this blog.

1. Never turn in work that has technical mistakes.

Autodesk® Face Robot® is a combined technology and service solution for creating life-like 3D facial animation for games, film and television productions at incredible speeds.

Better Facial Animation – Faster

Autodesk® Face Robot® is a combined technology and service solution for rigging and animating 3D faces easily. It enables studios to create life-like facial animation at incredible speeds. Using Face Robot, animators are free to concentrate on emotion, expression and delivering unforgettable performances.

Face Robot Applications:

While surfing the net, I have read an article by "Keith Self-Ballard". And I found these are great and I should implement it into my life. So I am posting these words here for my own reference and for other guys who read this blog.

1.

Don't wrap up your ego in your artwork. People are going to criticize the work you do. Learn from those people.

Intel-owned middleware developer Havok boasts that titles powered by its physics and other middleware tech have earned six times more BAFTA nominations than titles using rival physics engines.

UK's British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Committee named 10 different games using Havok-powered tools and software for a total of 27 nominations in its video game awards categories.

Blur Studios will hold a presentation about their "Warhammer Online" cinematic, and how they used mental ray for all of it.

Watch the Warhammer Online cinematic

Click Here to View, Blur Studio: The Making of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Trailer.

Overview

The NVIDIA PhysX plug-ins for Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya allow users of these DCC applications to easily create and manipulate physics simulations.

The plug-ins support a wide range of features such as:

Piyush Patel is the CEO of Digital—Tutors, and aids millions of artists daily with online training and maintains a client list that includes top companies.