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Softimage
Autodesk Softimage, or simply Softimage () was a 3D computer graphics application, for producing 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling, and computer animation. Now owned by Autodesk and formerly titled Softimage, XSI, the software has been predominantly used in the film, video game, and advertising industries for creating computer generated characters, objects, and environments. Released in 2000 as the successor to Softimage3D, Softimage, XSI was developed by its eponymous company, then a subsidiary of Avid Technology. On October 23, 2008, Autodesk acquired the Softimage brand and 3D animation assets from Avid for approximately $35 million, thereby ending Softimage Co. as a distinct entity. In February 2009, Softimage, XSI was rebranded Autodesk Softimage. A free version of the software, called ''Softimage Mod Tool'', was developed for the game modding community to create games using the Microsoft XNA toolset for PC and Xbox 360, or to create mods for games using Valve's Sourc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Softimage (company)
Softimage, Co. was a company located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada that produced 3D animation software. A subsidiary of Microsoft in the 1990s, it was sold to Avid Technology, who would eventually sell the name and assets of Softimage's 3D-animation business to Autodesk. Its first product, Softimage 3D, was used in the creation of special effects for movies such as ''Jurassic Park'', ''Terminator 2'', ''Titanic'' and ''The Fifth Element''. Its successor, Softimage XSI, was used in the production of the Academy Award-winning feature film ''Happy Feet'', '' 300'' and '' Charlotte's Web'' (2006) and the production of games such as Konami's '' Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots''. In 1997, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded Softimage a Scientific and Engineering Award for the development of the "Actor" component of Softimage, 3D. During the Microsoft years, Softimage also developed a non-linear video-editing and compositing suite named Softimage, DS, wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Softimage 3D
Softimage, 3D was a high-end 3D graphics application developed by Softimage, Co., which was used predominantly in the film, broadcasting, gaming, and advertising industries for the production of 3D animation. It was superseded by Softimage XSI in 2000. History In 1986, National Film Board of Canada filmmaker Daniel Langlois, in partnership with software engineers Richard Mercille and Laurent Lauzon, began developing an integrated 3D modeling, animation, and rendering package with a graphical interface targeted at visual artists. The software was initially demonstrated at SIGGRAPH in 1988 and was released for Silicon Graphics workstations the following year as the Softimage Creative Environment™. Softimage Creative Environment was adopted by major visual effects studios like Industrial Light & Magic and Digital Domain for use in their production pipelines, which also typically included software from Alias Research, Big Idea Productions, Kroyer Films, Angel Studios, Walt Dis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and has offices worldwide. Its U.S. offices are located in the states of California, Oregon, Colorado, Texas, Michigan, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Its Canada offices are located in the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta. The company was founded in 1982 by John Walker, who was a coauthor of the first versions of AutoCAD. AutoCAD, which is the company's flagship computer-aided design (CAD) software and Revit software are primarily used by architects, engineers, and structural designers to design, draft, and model buildings and other structures. Autodesk software has been used in many fields, and on projects from the One World Trade Center to Tesla electric cars. Autodesk became best known for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avid Technology
Avid Technology is an American technology and multimedia company based in Burlington, Massachusetts, and founded in August 1987 by Bill Warner. It specialises in audio and video; specifically, digital non-linear editing (NLE) systems, video editing software, audio editing software, music notation software, management and distribution services. Avid products are now used in the television and video industry to create television shows, feature films, and commercials. Media Composer, a professional non-linear editing system, is Avid's flagship product. History Avid was founded by Bill Warner, a former marketing manager from Apollo Computer. A prototype of their first non-linear editing system, the Avid/1 Media Composer, was shown at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in April 1988. The Avid/1 was based on an Apple Macintosh II computer, with special hardware and software of Avid's own design installed. The Avid/1 was "the biggest shake-up in editing since ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-uniform Rational B-spline
Non-uniform rational basis spline (NURBS) is a mathematical model using basis splines (B-splines) that is commonly used in computer graphics for representing curves and surfaces. It offers great flexibility and precision for handling both analytic (defined by common mathematical formulae) and modeled shapes. It is a type of curve modeling, as opposed to polygonal modeling or digital sculpting. NURBS curves are commonly used in computer-aided design (CAD), manufacturing (CAM), and engineering (CAE). They are part of numerous industry-wide standards, such as IGES, STEP, ACIS, and PHIGS. Tools for creating and editing NURBS surfaces are found in various 3D graphics and animation software packages. They can be efficiently handled by computer programs yet allow for easy human interaction. NURBS surfaces are functions of two parameters mapping to a surface in three-dimensional space. The shape of the surface is determined by control points. In a compact form, NURBS surfaces can rep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epic Games
Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, Maryland. Following its first commercial video game release, '' ZZT'' (1991), the company became Epic MegaGames, Inc. in early 1992 and brought on Mark Rein, who has been its vice president since. After moving the headquarters to Cary in 1999, the studio changed its name to Epic Games. Epic Games develops Unreal Engine, a commercially available game engine which also powers their internally developed video games, such as ''Fortnite'' and the ''Unreal'', '' Gears of War'' and ''Infinity Blade'' series. In 2014, Unreal Engine was named the "most successful videogame engine" by ''Guinness World Records''. Epic Games owns the game developers Chair Entertainment, Psyonix, Mediatonic and Harmonix, as well as cloud-based software developer Clou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game ''Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of genres of games and has seen adoption by other industries, most notably the film and television industry. Unreal Engine is written in C++ and features a high degree of portability, supporting a wide range of desktop, mobile, console, and virtual reality platforms. The latest generation, Unreal Engine 5, was launched in April 2022. Its source code is available on GitHub after registering an account, and commercial use is granted based on a royalty model. Epic waives their royalties margin for games until developers have earned in revenue and the fee is waived if developers publish on the Epic Games Store. Epic has included features from acquired companies like Quixel in the engine, which is seen as helped by ''Fortnite'''s revenue. Histo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polygonal Modeling
In 3D computer graphics, polygonal modeling is an approach for modeling objects by representing or approximating their surfaces using polygon meshes. Polygonal modeling is well suited to scanline rendering and is therefore the method of choice for real-time computer graphics. Alternate methods of representing 3D objects include NURBS surfaces, subdivision surfaces, and equation-based representations used in ray tracers. Geometric theory and polygons The basic object used in mesh modeling is a vertex, a point in three-dimensional space. Two vertices connected by a straight line become an edge. Three vertices, connected to each other by three edges, define a triangle, which is the simplest polygon in Euclidean space. More complex polygons can be created out of multiple triangles, or as a single object with more than 3 vertices. Four sided polygons (generally referred to as quads) and triangles are the most common shapes used in polygonal modeling. A group of polygons, connected ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inverse Kinematics
In computer animation and robotics, inverse kinematics is the mathematical process of calculating the variable joint parameters needed to place the end of a kinematic chain, such as a robot manipulator or animation character's skeleton, in a given position and orientation relative to the start of the chain. Given joint parameters, the position and orientation of the chain's end, e.g. the hand of the character or robot, can typically be calculated directly using multiple applications of trigonometric formulas, a process known as forward kinematics. However, the reverse operation is, in general, much more challenging. Inverse kinematics is also used to recover the movements of an object in the world from some other data, such as a film of those movements, or a film of the world as seen by a camera which is itself making those movements. This occurs, for example, where a human actor's filmed movements are to be duplicated by an animated character. Robotics In robotics, inverse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Skeletal Animation
Skeletal animation or rigging is a technique in computer animation in which a character (or other articulated object) is represented in two parts: a surface representation used to draw the character (called the ''mesh'' or ''skin'') and a hierarchical set of interconnected parts (called ''bones'', and collectively forming the ''skeleton'' or ''rig''), a virtual armature used to animate (''pose'' and ''keyframe'') the mesh. While this technique is often used to animate humans and other organic figures, it only serves to make the animation process more intuitive, and the same technique can be used to control the deformation of any object—such as a door, a spoon, a building, or a galaxy. When the animated object is more general than, for example, a humanoid character, the set of "bones" may not be hierarchical or interconnected, but simply represent a higher-level description of the motion of the part of mesh it is influencing. The technique was introduced in 1988 by Nadia Magnen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valve Corporation
Valve Corporation is an American video game developer, video game publisher, publisher, and digital distribution company headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. It is the developer of the software distribution platform Steam (service), Steam and the franchises ''Half-Life (series), Half-Life'', ''Counter-Strike'', ''Portal (series), Portal'', ''Day of Defeat'', ''Team Fortress'', ''Left 4 Dead (series), Left 4 Dead'' and ''Dota''. Valve was founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington. Their debut game, the first-person shooter (FPS) ''Half-Life (video game), Half-Life'' (1998), was a critical and commercial success; with its realism, scripted sequences and seamless narrative, it had a lasting influence on the FPS genre. Harrington left in 2000. In 2003, Valve launched Steam, followed by ''Half-Life 2'' in 2004. With advanced Physics engine, physics systems and an increased focus on story and characters, ''Half-Life 2'' received critical acclaim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Animation
Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating animations. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both static scenes (still images) and dynamic images (moving images), while computer animation refers to moving images. Modern computer animation usually uses 3D computer graphics to generate a three-dimensional picture. The target of the animation is sometimes the computer itself, while other times it is film. Computer animation is essentially a digital successor to stop motion techniques, but using 3D models, and traditional animation techniques using frame-by-frame animation of 2D illustrations. Computer-generated animations can also allow a single graphic artist to produce such content without the use of actors, expensive set pieces, or props. To create the illusion of movement, an image is displayed on the computer monitor and repeatedly replaced by a new image that is similar to it but advanced slightly in time (usually at a ra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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