Archive notice: This article was originally published on August 20, 2013. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The Scientific and Technical Awards Committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has already selected 14 scientific and technical achievements for further consideration for the awards. The list was made public so that individuals and companies can still submit similar devices or developments that meet the current state of technology by August 27 at www.oscars.org/awards/scitech/apply.html.
Weta and ILM have good chances so far, as they each already appear twice in the selection. These are all the other candidates on the Academy’s list:
- Neutral density filters that remove infrared contamination: Infrared Neutral Density (IR ND) Filter Technology (Tiffen Co.)
-
Untethered HD video assist devices: Meridian (Boxx TV Ltd.)
-
Software tools for accelerated simulation and representation of smoke, fire and explosions: Plume (ILM) and Flux (DreamWorks Animation)
-
Physically based shading and lighting techniques for digital rendering: Efficient Physically Inspired Shading (Pixar Animation Studios)
-
Software tools for integrated sculpting and painting on digital models: Mudbox (Autodesk) and ZBrush (Pixologic)
-
Pre-computation technique for visibility and lighting in rendering applications: Weta’s Spherical Harmonics Lighting (Weta Digital)
-
Compositing systems that use per-pixel “deep” depth information: Deep Compositing (Weta Digital)
-
Software frameworks for integrated and extensible VFX and animation applications: Zeno (ILM)
-
Integrated software tools for performance capture, visualisation and manipulation: MotionBuilder (Autodesk)
-
Non-explosive car flipping devices: Pneumatic Car Flipper (Fxperts, Inc.)
-
Helicopter-based camera motion-control platforms: Flying-Cam 3.0 SARAH (Flying-Cam)
-
Digital workflow specifications for managing colour: ASC CDL (American Society of Cinematographers)
The 2013 Scientific and Technical Awards will be presented on February 15, 2014. All further information is available here.
Image: Richard Harbaugh / ©A.M.P.A.S
