Special effects wizards Weta Digital have scored $5.8 million in Government funding for a research partnership. Science and Technology Minister Wayne Mapp said Weta’s investment would be on a basis of at least two-for-one. “It’s about growing new products and processes for export.” The joint partnership with TechNZ – the business investment programme of the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology – is intended to accelerate the growth of New Zealand’s strong creative digital industry. More..
Category: WETA Digital
Slave Boy Films was at Comic-Con last week and crept into TheOneRing.net’s presentation on an unofficial look at the pair of Hobbit movies. The TORn presentation was Thursday, only hours before Peter Jackson arrived at city of geeks (120,000 strong) who had assembled at San Diego to drink deeply of all the flavors of popular culture. TheOneRing filled every one of the 400 seats in its assigned room with plenty left standing outside in a line but thanks to Slave Boy, the presentation is now available for anybody and everybody. (Click inside to see the videos!) Continue reading “TORn Comic-Con presentation on video”
From thefoundry.co.uk: Weta Digital, New Zealand’s multi award-winning VFX studio has purchased a site license of Nuke to enhance their in-house pipeline. Paul Ryan, Chief Technology Officer at Weta Digital, comments: “With ambitious projects on the slate, we need to ensure we have the best tools at our disposal. Our long-standing relationship with The Foundry and our faith in their product development, support and focus on producing a truly useful artist tool set has given us the confidence to make this investment.” Read the full press release
Moviefone.com has a fairly extensive (if unoriginal) rundown on all things known about RTD’s ‘The Hobbit’ films. Take a look!
A Weta Digital researcher, Iain Matthews, has joined university academics in Britain and the United States to develop a way of “cloning” facial expressions. The computer scientists have challenged assumptions about human behaviour and what influences that behaviour when people communicate by tracking the expressions of individuals during live conversations on a video conference, and mapping the facial movements to models of faces. Weta helps to ‘clone’ facial expressions
From the folks at WETA: We are very excited to announce that Weta’s good friend and renowned Tolkien illustrator, Alan Lee, will be doing a book signing at the Weta Cave.
Saturday 20 June 1-3 pm
The Weta Cave, Cnr Camperdown Rd and Weka St, Miramar, Wellington
Entrance is free and you should take the opportunity to explore the rest of the Weta Cave at the same time. More…