Vicon, the motion capture technology specialists for the entertainment, life sciences and engineering industries, has announced a series of customer presentations that will take place at its SIGGRAPH booth (#733) on August 12-14 in Vancouver, Canada. Customers spanning media and entertainment, education and virtual product design will share their motion capture expertise and provide insight into their latest projects. Vicon will also unveil groundbreaking new products, and enhancements to its existing motion capture software.
Framestore’s motion capture supervisor Ben Guthrie, and senior motion capture technical director Gary Marshall, will reveal how they used Vicon motion capture systems for the Academy Award-winning blockbuster, Gravity.
Leading motion capture studio The Capture Lab will provide insight into how they are creating unique, automated motion capture pipeline tools using Vicon cameras and Blade 2 software.
Autodesk 3D artist Lukas Faeth will present ‘3D Automotive Visualization with Autodesk VRED Professional’, demonstrating immersive virtual prototyping in action using Autodesk VRED 3D visualization software, a live Vicon system and Tracker software.
Karl Abson, lecturer in creative technology at Bradford University, will present "An Introduction to Quadruped Motion Capture," using motion capture of a horse in this beginner’s guide to capturing four-legged creatures.
James Brown, visualization designer at 3D visualization specialists Lumiscaphe, will demonstrate how the company uses Vicon Tracker software and the Apex tracking tool for virtual manufacturing and design.
Alexis Vartanian, CTO at 3D visualization solutions provider TechViz, will give a presentation on displaying high-resolution 3D virtual prototypes in real time directly from desktop 3D applications in a fully-immersive 3D virtual environment, using TechViz XL software alongside Vicon Tracker and Apex.
Throughout the show, display systems specialist Pufferfish will showcase their latest multi-touch stereoscopic 3D display with Vicon Tracker and Bonita systems. The new display represents a major step forward in virtual reality, whereby volumetric data exits the CAVE virtual environment and enters the room.
Videos of the presentations will be available to view after SIGGRAPH on Vicon’s YouTube channel.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More