Finding like-minded creatives for any type of project can be a challenge.
But Artella, a new cloud-based production platform, is aiming to make finding teams, and creating animation, graphics, and VR projects just a little bit easier.
Created by Bobby Beck, Carlos Baena, and Shawn Kelly, animators from Pixar, Paramount, and ILM who have worked on a few films you may have heard of, such as Rango, Transformers, and Toy Story 2, Artella is a platform for creatives to make project pitches, find other people who are interested in working on that project, and then manage everything within one digital studio. Since it’s a cloud-based platform, everything works even if the team members are physically split up across the globe.
Artella gives creators the ability to bring people together by first helping artists connect to projects, and then helping creators on manage those projects, tasks, workflows, databases, and files.
The file management part of Artella is the core of the system. To start, a manager chooses a project type to configure the pipeline for that specific project’s needs. For example, a VR project would have a different file structure than a game project.
...the best stuff you get is not necessarily the stuff you have in your head.” Beck said. Instead, Beck feels the best ideas come from people working around you and he thinks that Artella breaks down these barriers for communication and collaboration very quickly.
Payment and contracts happen between the project managers and the contributors directly, with Artella not handling –or taking a cut — of the transactional side of business. It also doesn’t take any ownership in the IP or any equity in the project, with those rights staying with the creators. It’s currently free to try, and plans to stay free to join, but will eventually roll out monthly fees per user per projects billed to the creator, with different tiers ($10-$30/user) based on different creator’s needs.
Currently, Artella’s focus is on animation, VR, video games, film, and commercials, with plans to expand into other areas as the community helps shape what they want out of the product.
And with Artella projects now moving forward — Beck mentioned one company called High Fidelity that ran a hackathon on Artella at the Upload Collective to create 27 characters in three days
See the full story here: http://uploadvr.com/artella-cloud-based-collaboration-tool-aims-github-creative-vr-project-management/
The next part of our coverage from the Amusement & Attraction Expo (AAA) and the new technology on display:
-Virtual Reality
The big development that seemed to rock every corner of the vast five-hall inaugural Asia Amusement & Attraction Expo (AAA) was the explosive appearance of Virtual Reality (VR). The Chinese attraction trade has been experimenting with VR as a means to generate revenue long before the Western market came to grips with the opportunity. Part of the reason for the publisher of KWP's invite to the Chinese attraction trade event was to collect more intelligence on this emerging opportunity.
See the full Stinger Report here: http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?m=1103295952658&ca=cf3c121c-0add-45f3-8f7a-02c3bbbabd87
“In the early days of any new hardware, it’s incumbent on the hardware manufacturer to fund the creative community,” says Anthony Batt, co-founder of VR production studio WEVR. HTC, Kaleidoscope VR and WEVR have, for example, financed a VR “music video.”
Unfortunately, much nongame VR content, including so-called “360 video,” doesn’t support that illusion. Rather than feeling that you are in a place, experiencing an event, current 360 video tends to make you feel like your head is “in a fishbowl of video,” as Mr. Pinnell puts it. Such experiences make me fear that 360 video will be the next 3-D TV, something nobody asked for and few will use.
See the full story here: http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-virtual-reality-hype-is-about-to-come-crashing-down-1463976001
“What is reality to you?” asked a tall young man as I entered a tiny house at the entrance of Tower Hamlets Cemetery in East London. Charles Michel, a chef-in-residence and researcher at the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at Oxford University, was about to induct me into a multisensory cinematic VR experience dubbed the “the Feelies” as part of this week's Shuffle Festival.
See the full story here: http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/read/multisensory-cinema-adds-smell-and-touch-to-vr-worlds?utm_content=bufferdb136&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
“Seeking Pluto’s Frigid Heart” is the latest virtual reality movie from The New York Times, which takes viewers through space on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it made a pass on Pluto to take pictures.
The New York Times says it worked with the Lunar and Planetary Institute, and the Universities Space Research Association to construct a virtual representation of Pluto’s surface for viewers to explore.
It’s one of the most immersive and impressive VR videos to come to the app yet as you are placed directly on the surface of the planet viewing everything from the planes of icy rock to the pink mountains that seem vast in the distance.
See the full story here: https://www.inverse.com/article/15993-stand-on-pluto-s-icy-surface-in-virtual-reality-movie-by-the-nyt
“The Brookhaven Experiment,” a horror game for the HTC Vive developed by Phosphor Games, will soon terrify large groups of players in China with a partnership that places the VR game in 100,000 internet cafés.
To get as many people as possible to experience “The Brookhaven Experiment,” Phosphor Games is looking to license the experience to VR arcades, gaming cafés and — in the near future — casinos.
For “The Brookhaven Experiment,” the China deal made sense: The country’s $24 billion gaming market is the largest in the world. And unlike in North America where gaming is spread out across mobile, console and PC, Chinese gaming is dominated by mobile and PC, with gaming cafés playing an important role in providing access to games. Instead of purchasing a high-end PC, gamers can go to a café, spend a small amount of money, and get the best gaming experience possible. Even Atari founder Nolan Bushnell told IBT earlier this year VR arcades will be popular because, like video game arcades of yore, they offer an experience that can’t be replicated easily at home.
See the full story here: http://www.ibtimes.com/brookhaven-experiment-terrifies-its-way-china-virtual-reality-showcase-2370670
Imax is planning on launching six VR locations globally this year with the first such location set to be Los Angeles with further sites expected to be in China where the company has a big presence.
Gelfond said that the VR experiences, lasting around 10 minutes, would cost betweent $7 and $10. He added that he was keen to develop VR content tied to film franchises. Imax expects to follow its screen tech business model, licensing the VR equipment to theater operators and malls and then take a percentage of the revenue.
See the full story here: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/imax-open-vr-locations-multiplexes-895993
by Phil Lelyveld
At Google’s annual developer conference it introduced Daydream, a new VR platform that is integrated into its latest version of Android N. Daydream includes several pieces: a set of standards for smartphones that will work to play virtual-reality content, reference designs for a Daydream headset that uses one of these smartphones (much like Samsung’s Gear VR) and an accompanying controller, and a range of apps that will include content coming from partners like HBO, Netflix, Hulu, and video-game makers Electronic Arts and Ubisoft. Clay Bavor, who heads up Google’s VR initiative, said that VR should be mobile, approachable, and for everyone; which is why they have worked to address common VR experience issues like rendering digital imagery at high frame rates and in high resolution, and minimizing the latency between when you move your head and when images you’re looking at update. The Google Daydream initiative matters because they are working to promote and deploy a general purpose VR platform that works on consumer equipment that will be available at a low price point. Phone manufacturers are working on sensors that will allow for phone-based lean-in experiences. They are also working to increase their processing power and screen resolution. While much attention is focused on the high end Vive and Rift HMDs, improving the VR experience in this lower end phone-base solution in a nearly manufacturer-agnostic manner (i.e. no iOS iPhone version) may be VR’s bridge into the mass market.
See the full story here: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601508/googles-plan-to-use-android-phones-to-dominate-virtual-reality/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20160519#/set/id/601516/
IMAX Logo. (PRNewsFoto/IMAX Corporation)
Google (GOOG) and IMAX Corporation (IMAX) today announced at Google's annual developer conference, Google I/O, that the companies are working to develop a cinema-grade virtual reality (VR) camera – the IMAX® VR camera – to enable today's leading filmmakers and content creators to deliver the highest-quality 3D 360-degree content experiences to audiences worldwide.
IMAX's team of engineers and camera specialists will work with Google to design the new high-resolution cameras from the ground up, leveraging IMAX's best-in-class capture technology that has become an integral tool for today's biggest and most visionary filmmakers including Christopher Nolan, J.J. Abrams, Michael Bay, Anthony and Joe Russo, and Zack Snyder, among others. The camera, which will be built to utilize Jump, a platform for creating and viewing 3D 360 video, will deliver the highest-quality, most-immersive virtual reality content to consumers.
IMAX will also provide Google with exclusive access to pre-existing IMAX documentary content for conversion and use with Google's VR technology.
See the full story here: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-imax-partner-develop-groundbreaking-190000579.html
Now Google is stepping up its VR game, too. At the company’s annual developer conference in Mountain View, California, on Wednesday, it introduced a new virtual-reality platform called Daydream that will be available in the fall as part of the latest version of its Android operating system, Android N.
Daydream includes several pieces: a set of standards for smartphones that will work to play virtual-reality content, reference designs for a Daydream headset that uses one of these smartphones (much like Samsung’s Gear VR) and an accompanying controller, and a range of apps that will include content coming from partners like HBO, Netflix, Hulu, and video-game makers Electronic Arts and Ubisoft.
Bavor, who introduced Daydream at the conference, said Google believes virtual reality should be mobile, approachable, and for everyone—an approach that’s very much in the vein of Google Cardboard, as opposed to pricey headsets like Rift and Vive, both of which have to be tethered to a high-end PC.
Bavor said the Daydream team worked on common virtual-reality issues like rendering digital imagery at high frame rates and in high resolution, and minimizing the latency between when you move your head and when images you’re looking at update. Phones that will work with Daydream will have to have sensors for accurate head tracking, displays with fast response times, and software that can make use of these capabilities while keeping latency “to an absolute minimum,” he said.
He presented a design for a handheld controller meant to go with the headset, too, which appeared very similar in style to the oblong one that Oculus ships with its Rift. This one, however, had fewer buttons, an indented, circular touch pad near the top, and as some video demos showed, it could be twisted and turned to control the same sorts of actions in games (for instance, to twist and turn an animated flying dragon).
See the full story here: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601508/googles-plan-to-use-android-phones-to-dominate-virtual-reality/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20160519#/set/id/601516/
“In the early days of any new hardware, it’s incumbent on the hardware manufacturer to fund the creative community,” says Anthony Batt, co-founder of VR production studio WEVR. HTC, Kaleidoscope VR and WEVR have, for example, financed a VR “music video.”
“What is reality to you?” asked a tall young man as I entered a tiny house at the entrance of Tower Hamlets Cemetery in East London. Charles Michel, a chef-in-residence and researcher at the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at Oxford University, was about to induct me into a multisensory cinematic VR experience dubbed the “the Feelies” as part of this week's Shuffle Festival.
“Seeking Pluto’s Frigid Heart” is the latest virtual reality movie from The New York Times, which takes viewers through space on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it made a pass on Pluto to take pictures.
“The Brookhaven Experiment,” a horror game for the HTC Vive developed by Phosphor Games, will soon terrify large groups of players in China with a partnership that places the VR game in 100,000 internet cafés.
Imax is planning on launching six VR locations globally this year with the first such location set to be Los Angeles with further sites expected to be in China where the company has a big presence.