When supervisors are on-set shooting and need good reference they often use lighting checkers that gives consistent reference of how the scene is affected by the different lighting conditions from shot to shot and scene to scene. Akromatic has released a variety of gray and chromatic spheres in different configurations for this use with the latest one named "Tiny". The name was chosen because of its size and portability. "Tiny" contains two spheres, one gray and one chromatic and both spheres are 9cm in size (it isn't specified if this is in radius or diameter). (more...)

Pixar has made available a teaser for its upcoming adventure film inspired by the Mexican holiday El Día de los Muertos. The film was co-directed by Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina. Watch the video on YouTube.

Itoo Software interviews talented Norwegian artist Rune Spaans on his work on the CG short film The Absence of Eddy Table. “Creating a short film can take a long, long time, so make sure you are really really happy with the script and the project. Even though it's been hard work, it's always been a pleasure sitting down with the project, and I think it shows. (...) the film is done with no commercial intent, basically we just did a film we wanted to see ourselves”. Read the interview on Itoo Software's website. (Note: expect content aimed at publicizing Itoo Software's software)

Marek Denko has updated his portfolio with his latest work "Her Eventual Hesitation", along with a making of video. More on Marek Denko's website.

Pixomondo shows us how they created a dynamic sand pile effect using Houdini, in episode 6 of Season 7 for The Walking Dead. Watch it on YouTube.

Nvizible has posted a breakdown of their work they did for the film, Victor Frankenstein. Watch it on Vimeo.

Some of Jeff Patton's latest automotive renders have been posted over at CG Record. The images were created using 3DS Max and VRscans.

Last week at GDC Andreas Glad held a presentation at SideFX's booth demonstrating in detail how DICE moved away from sprite based liquids to meshes generated in Houdini for Battlefield 1. Among other tips he demonstrates how they were able to keep it efficient without taking up too many resources on the current generation of consoles. This week he posted a recording of this presentation. Watch it on Vimeo.