In nuce: According to a recent press release from 10 November this year, the FMX (Film & Media Exchange) conference will also take place as a hybrid event in 2023. As part of the announcement, the motto of FMX 2023 was revealed – it is called Evolving. The press release states: “The Evolving theme will highlight projects and processes that address the challenges facing humanity and the planet” – always with a focus on the creative industries.

Filmmaker Jinko Gotoh as Programme Chair: Bafta winner and Oscar-nominated producer Jinko Gotoh has also been announced as Programme Chair of the conference. Jinko Gotoh is known for her work on films such as Klaus, The Lego Movie 2, The Little Prince, The Illusionist, 9 and Finding Nemo. The press release continues: “Jinko is committed to the advancement of women and all underrepresented people in the industry. She is Vice President of Women in Animation and a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, representing diversity and inclusion on various committees.”

When & where will FMX 2023 take place? FMX 2023 will take place from 25 to 27 April 2023 on site at the Haus der Wirtschaft in Stuttgart, followed by an online event day on 28 April 2023. As every year, FMX attracts creative professionals who are passionate about animation, effects, interactive and immersive media.

Click further: To the announcement on fmx.de.

The post Filmmaker Jinko Gotoh as Programme Chair of FMX 2023! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: The ICE conference, an event that aims to cover all areas of the creative industry – from entertainment to advertising to engineering – is starting again this year. According to the event’s self-promotion, the focus is generally on artists and the artworks they create, and is also aimed specifically at all those who work with 3D worlds. The cloud: the event is free of charge. The ICE conference is taking place for the second time this year. It is a purely online event.

When is the ICE Conference taking place? The event will take place on 8 April, i.e. this week on Friday. The ICE will only take place on this one day, starting at 4 pm German time and ending at 8.30 pm. If you would like to attend the event, you must register in advance.

What programme items can you expect? The programme for this year’s ICE once again covers a wide range of topics, including 3D environments, concept & design art, workflows, project budgeting, work-life balance and tips & tricks for newcomers to the profession. The programme items are placed one after the other. They are as follows:

• Creating a Place of Transformation – followed by a question and answer session
• Building a Career in the 3D Entertainment Industry – followed by a Q&A session
• How VFX can help create CG Content at a larger Scale for other Industries – followed by a Q&A session
• Roundtable Discussion – with the lecturers of the previous programme items

Click further: All further information can be found on ice.art. The promo video below will whet your appetite for ICE 2022. The second video is the complete video recording of ICE 2021, an ideal opportunity to get an impression of the conference. We wish all participants a lot of fun!

ICE’22 Promo: Manuel Thomasser

ICE.ART 3D Environment Conference 2021

The post The ICE conference takes place this Friday! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Ice.Art.

In nuce: During the four-day Nvidia GTC conference, numerous topics relating to the future of technology were discussed. Below we would like to introduce you to three of the thematic conference focal points that are important for the VFX industry.

• New Approach to Fashion Design with Adobe Substance 3D & Omniverse (in German: “Neuer Ansatz für Modedesgin mit Adobe Substance 3D & Omniverse”)
• Omniverse Cloud: New suite of cloud services that enables creatives to collaborate via the Omniverse platform
• New features and services are added to the Nvidia Ecosystem: new Omniverse connections, including 3D design and rendering (especially support for the Hydra Render Delegate)

New Approach to Fashion Design with Adobe Substance 3D & Omniverse

The aim is to provide insights into which tools and techniques will make working with digital textiles easier in the future. The presentation will be led by Rob Bryant Jr, Senior 3D Artist at Nvidia, and Pierre Maheut, Head of Strategic Initiatives and Partnerships at Adobe. The main focus of the presentation will be on the release of the Substance 3D material extension. This Material Extension is designed to make it easier for artists to create the right materials or to add the right textures to their 3D objects. Naturally, Substance 3D’s tools are now connected to Nvidia’s Omniverse.

Rob will demonstrate how to create materials and visualisations close to the real world. Rob’s demonstration will be set in the context of the fashion industry.

On the other hand, Pierre will discuss the collaboration with Nvidia and explain how to use Substance 3D – for example, he will answer questions such as: How do I scan fabrics? How do I remove seams? How do I add details such as pleats to my fabric?

In the video below, Rob Bryant gives you an insight into what you can expect from his and Pierre’s programme:

Omniverse Cloud

Omniverse Cloud is a cloud-based platform designed to enable creative professionals to collaborate comfortably on 3D projects – no matter where in the world your project participants are located.

Omniverse Cloud is joined by Nucleus Cloud, a small tool that allows artists to access and edit 3D scenes with just a few clicks. The great advantage of Nucleus Cloud is that it does not require the transfer of large data sets. You can find much more information about Omniverse Cloud in the corresponding press release in Nvidia’s newsroom.

Another component is the Omniverse Create app, which is aimed at artists who want to create interactive 3D worlds in real time.

Nvidia is also launching Omniverse View , an app for users with which scenarios created in Omniverse can be viewed via Nvidia’s GeForce Now platform – with full simulation and rendering functionality, as stated on the website.

Nvidia Ecosystem: New connections for 3D design and rendering

With Nvidia’s Omniverse, artists around the world are putting their heads together to collaborate on 3D designs. The new versions and updates for Omniverse that Nvidia has now announced are therefore particularly important for artists.

In order to further promote synergies with 3D designers and rendering professionals, there are now new Omniverse connectors and libraries that are intended to expand the platform in a meaningful way, making the platform accessible to artists and designers, among others. If you want to find out more about the innovations in Nvidia’s ecosystem, you can read the corresponding blog post by Richard Kerris, Managing Director of Media and Entertainment at Nvidia.

Support for Hydra Render Delegate

The improvement in terms of rendering primarily concerns support for the Hydra Render Delegate. This allows users to switch back and forth between Hydra Renderer and Omniverse RTX Renderer within the Omniverse app. This function is currently in the beta phase for the following renderers: Chaos V-Ra, Maxon Redshift and Otoy Octane. Blender Cycles and Autodesk Arnold will also be supported soon.

Integration for asset libraries

Content from the asset libraries of TurboSquid, Sketchfab and Reallusion ActorCore is now available directly in the asset browsers of the Omniverse apps. Here you can choose from around one million Omniverse-compatible 3D assets. New Omniverse-compatible 3D assets, materials, textures, avatars and animations are now also available on the A23D asset library.

Click further: For more information on the GTC conference, which runs until tomorrow, visit nvidia.com/gtc .

The post Music of the future at Nvidia’s GTC conference first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

FMX is celebrating its 25th anniversary under this year’s motto “Imagine Tomorrow”. You can still purchase tickets for FMX 2020 with an early bird discount here in the Ticket Shop until 13 March 2020. In addition to other programme items, the first episode of the official FMX 2020 trailer series Mulm is also online.

FMX 2020 new speakers

All speakers confirmed for FMX 2020 can be found on the FMX website. A full description of the FMX 2020 tracks and curators has been available on the websitesince the beginning of February.

Klaus – Sergio Pablos Animation Studios

Director Sergio Pablos (Sergio Pablos Animation Studios) will talk about the highly acclaimed film Klaus, which has just won seven Annie Awards (including Best Feature) and is also nominated for Academy Awards (for Best Animated Feature), BAFTA Awards and VES Awards – and is the first original animated Netflix film. Sergio Pablos is known for having worked as supervising animator on Disney films such as Tarzan and Treasure Planet, and for developing the base story for films such as Despicable Me and Smallfoot. His career in animation spans three decades. “If there’s one thing I’ ve learnt after 30 years of working in animation, it’s that you can’t predict the future,” he says. “So many predictions that were considered certain have not materialised, and so many unexpected developments have occurred that have changed the industry forever. But as a filmmaker working in animation, I try to focus on the things that are an essential part of human nature in my stories, things like empathy and emotion, because those will always exist.”

Image Engine: Carnival Row

From werewolves to the Dark Asher, the design, look and animation of some of the murderous creatures from Amazon Prime’s fantasy series Carnival Row will be the topic of Animation Supervisor Jenn Taylor ‘s (Image Engine) talk at FMX 2020. She will discuss how Image Engine’s pipeline has evolved to create complex creatures for the small screen. In her career, she has worked on titles such as Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Game of Thrones and Lost in Space. Jenn Taylor on the future of animation: ” With the entertainment trend towards streaming media, we’re getting more opportunities to create high-quality , feature film-quality visual effects. I’m excited about the content that’s already being produced and I expect we’ll continue to see more, with higher and higher standards. This is positive for both viewers and artists! We all want to create content that we are proud of, and with the increasing number of streaming platforms and series releases, we continue to be inspired and incentivised to improve year on year.”

Phil Davies and Preppa Pig

Phil Davies (The Elf Factory) has been producing television programmes and animation projects since the early 1980s and has won six BAFTAs and an Emmy Award. Most recently he has produced two multi-award winning animated series for children – Peppa Pig and Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom. At FMX 2020, Phil Davies will give a talk about Peppa Pig , which has been sold in over 180 countries worldwide and has spawned a huge licensing programme. It is currently the number one pre-school brand in the UK, Spain, Italy and Australia, with major rollouts in the USA, China, South America and Russia. Good prospects for the future – how does Phil Davies himself envisage the future? “‘Tomorrow’s world’ was one of my favourite shows as a child. I always loved exploring new technologies, new ideas and new ways of working. Technology may evolve, but the basic rules of storytelling still apply, no matter what marvellous new device might be invented, either next week or in the next millennia.”

Half-Life: Alyx

Joe van den Heuvel is a software engineer at Valve, where he focuses on improving real-time animation. He is responsible for developing the Source 2 engine’s new runtime animation system, which is being used for the first time in the game Half-Life: Alyx, as well as SteamVR’s Skeletal Input API. After nearly two decades of developing animation and physics technology used to bring characters to life, he is more excited than ever about the new opportunities VR offers audiences to connect with virtual characters.

FMX 2020 Trailer Mulm

The FMX trailers are traditionally created by the students of the FMX organiser Animationsinstitut der Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. For the 25th anniversary, the animated short film Mulm forms the basis for a trailer series with four episodes, which gives the FMX its design for the year 2020. Mulm (Director: Carol Ratajczak, Tobias Trebeljahr | Producer: Laura Messner | Technical Director: Seyed Ahmad Hosseini | Sound Design: Marc Fragstein | Film Music: Alexander David Wolf) shows a visual trip through the distorted perception of the protagonist, an obsessive physicist who observes a distant celestial body that emits impulses. But something is constantly nagging him, keeping him from his work and driving him mad… Watch the first trailer here:

FMX 2020 Forum

Foundry is back on board as a main partner at the FMX Forum this year – the software company is inviting the public to its Company Suite. Golaem, BenQ, Qualisys, Rokoko and Substance by Adobe will be represented with stands in the Marketplace. Workshops will be offered by Substance by Adobe, PocketStudio and Pixar’s RenderMan. Scanline VFX, Electric Theatre Collective, Rise FX, Framestore, Blue Zoo, Axis Studios and Spellwork Pictures will be participating in the Recruiting Hub. The Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, the University of South Wales, the TH Mittelhessen, the Merz Akademie – Hochschule für Gestaltung, Kunst und Medien Stuttgart and the Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf can be announced for the School Campus.

Early Birds availability

You can still purchase early bird tickets for this year’s conference in the Ticket Shop until 13 March 2020. For all four days (5 to 8 May), students can currently still get the conference pass for €180, professionals for €400.

Further information: To the FMX 2020 website

The post FMX 2020 mit Early Birds, Trailer und Programm first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.