Researchers from ETH Zurich and Disney have come up with a novel method for green screen keying that utilizes a new energy minimization-based color unmixing algorithm. According to the authors, the quality of the results is superior to any other currently available green screen keying solution, commercial or otherwise. Furthermore, these high-quality results can be generated in only one-tenth of the manual editing time that a professional compositing artist requires to process the same content with all previous state-of-the-art tools at one's disposal. Read the paper on Disney Research's website.

Researchers from ETH Zurich and Disney have presented an efficient alternative for creating interpolated video frames using a method that represents motion in the phase shift of individual pixels. The approach avoids expensive global optimization typical of optical flow methods, and is both simple to implement and easy to parallelize. (more...)

Lucasfilm's Doug Smythe talks to 3D artist about MaterialX, a new open source material standard being developed in partnership with The Foundry and Autodesk. MaterialX is a platform­-independent standard to describe the "look" of CG objects that can be used to pass assets from one software package to another or be shared between facilities. Read the full interview on 3D Artist or read the specification on the MaterialX website.

MPC modeler Andrew Hodgson, has released his latest demo reel showcasing work from various feature films over the past two years. Watch it on Vimeo.

UK based studio Ryzek, recently delivered two spots for the Sony Action Cam, called 'The Room', and 'Creature', that both have some great CG in them. You can visit their website to watch them both. They have also created a behind the scenes look at the production which you can view via their Vimeo channel. Watch it on YouTube.

SIM/NEBULA is a project that was commissioned by Ceska sporitelna, to celebrate 190 years of business. The project is an international collaboration that showcases 45 minutes of visual projections set to the Czech philharmonic orchestra. Watch it on Vimeo.

Sapphire 10 has been released for After Effects, Nuke, Avid, and more. This latest release of the plugin suite has new effects, over 150 new presets, and ways to build your own effects and transitions. For full details on this latest release, you can visit the Genarts website.

FX artist Josh Clos, has published a behind the scenes look at some of the effects he created while working on a series of Best Buy commercials. Watch it on Vimeo.