Chaos Group

3D Talk Event in Hamburg Organized by Chaos Group’s Partner Picturetools

Location: Hamburg, Germany
Date: 14 December. 2011
Organizer: Picturetools
Venue:  CinemaxX Hamburg - Dammtor
Dammtordamm 1 20354 Hamburg - Neustadt
Featured products: V-Ray 1.5 for Rhino, Phoenix FD 2.0. V-Ray for Softimage, V-Ray 2.0 for Max, V-Ray 2.0 for Maya

We are excited to participate in the 3D Talk event in Hamburg on 14 December, organized by our partner Picturetools.

We are pleased to invite you at our booth where we will show demonstrations of our complete portfolio of rendering solutions: V-Ray for Softimage, V-Ray for Rhino, V-Ray for Maya, V-Ray for 3ds Max and Phoenix FD.

Event participants who attend our presentation will be among the first to hear about the features of V-Ray for Softimage which will be released in Q1 2012. Our presenter will also cover V-Ray for Rhino; its new version is also set to be released in the beginning of 2012.

Chaos Group will also be giving away a V-Ray license to one lucky participant.

Siggraph Asia 2011

Location: Hong Kong, China
Date: 13-15 December
Organizer: C/o Koelnmesse Pte Ltd
Venue:  Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre
1 Expo Drive
Wanchai
Hong Kong, China
Featured products: V-Ray 2.0. for 3ds Max, V-Ray 2.0. for Maya, Phoenix FD 2.0, V-Ray for Softimage

Link: http://www.siggraph.org/asia2011/en

For a fourth consecutive year, our team will take part in the Asian edition of the biggest global CG event – Siggraph (13-15 December 2011).

We are very enthusiastic about our participation, as we have lots to share with you. We have set up a special event page where you can see a full program of our participation and details about the presentations, which will be delivered at our booth. We are looking forward to seeing you there!

Chaos Group Presents New Developments in its Portfolio at the Russian CG Event

Location: Moscow, Russia
Date: 03-04 December 2011
Organizer: Sergey Tsyptsyn, CG Event
Venue:  Holiday Inn Sokolniki
Rusakovskaya street, building 24, 107014, Moscow
Featured products: V-Ray 2.0. for 3ds Max, V-Ray 2.0. for Maya, Phoenix FD 2.0, V-Ray for Softimage

Another year has passed, and it is time for the Chaos Group team to go back to Moscow on 03 and 04 December for the annual Russian CG Event which brings together top CG professionals and key industry players for a two-day series of workshops, presentations, master classes and many more.

We have set up a special event page, where you can see all the details about our participation and more information about the venue and tickets.

And, take note! We will give away two V-Ray licenses – one during the workshop and one during the presentation. Make sure you reserve your seat in advance by registering here.

Digital Drawing Days in Italy

Location: Arezzo, Italy
Date: 03-05 December. 2011
Organizer: 3DWS
Venue:  ETRUSCO HOTEL, Sala Auditorium, Arezzo, Italy
Featured products: V-Ray 2.0 for Max

Chaos Group’s team put on its radar an exciting event in Italy dedicated to the latest developments in the CG industry. The Digital Drawing Days organized by our partner 3DWS will feature three days of specialized workshops and exhibitions – Technology Day, Creative Day and Engineering Day.  Chaos Group’s portfolio will be presented as part of the Technology Day on 03 December. We are looking forward to this important industry event!

RENDE(E)R DAY in Munich

Location: Munich, Germany
Date: 02 December. 2011
Organizer: 3D Cyberdream
Venue:  Eschenstrasse 2, 82024 Taufkirchen bei München
Featured products: V-Ray 2.0 for Max and V-Ray 2.0 for Maya

Our friend Oliver Markowski of Full Blown Images will present three automotive projects from his portfolio for which he used V-Ray extensively. He will also provide some general V-Ray tips at the RENDE(E)R DAY organized by our reseller 3D Cyberdream.

3D Community Day in Spain

Location: Madrid, Spain
Date: 01 December. 2011
Organizer: Autodesk, Techex
Venue:  LAUGHTER MADRID - C / Atocha, 125, Madrid, Spain
Featured products: V-Ray 2.0 for Max


Autodesk and Techex invite you to the 3D Community Day where you can learn about the recent work of artists, animators and experts in special effects. As a proud sponsor of the event, Chaos Group will participate with a presentation of the capabilities of V-Ray for 3ds Max; Javi Martínez will acquaint you with his project The Accuracy of Time. We hope to to see you at the event!

Chaos Group to Participate in Autodesk University 2011

Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Date: 29 November – 01 December
Organizer: Autodesk, Inc
Venue:  The Venetian Hotel
3355 Las Vegas Boulevard South
Las Vegas, NV 89109
Featured products: V-Ray 2.0. for Maya

Our team is getting ready for another key industry event – the Autodesk University, where designers, engineers, architects and technology leaders will meet to share ideas, knowledge and best practices.

Don’t forget to stop by our partner's BOXX booth (booth #140) where our VP Lon Grohs will present V-Ray 2.0 for 3ds Max. Our Sales Representative Deyan Evlogiev will also attend the event and you can meet him if you are interested in collaborating with Chaos Group. Send us an email at sales.software@chaosgroup.com if you’d like to arrange a meeting with our team at Autodesk University. See you there!

Exhibit Floor Schedule
Tuesday, November 29
6.30 pm - 9.30 pm

Wednesday, November 30
11.30 am - 2.00 pm
6.30 pm - 9.30 pm

Thursday, December 1
11.30 am - 2.00 pm

Chaos Group’s Reseller Presents V-Ray® for 3ds Max and V-Ray® for Maya at the Ciclope Festival in Buenos Aires

We are happy to announce that our reseller Clacksoft is currently taking part in the International Advertising Craft Festival Ciclope taking place in Buenos Aires on 14-16 November. The festival is bringing together agencies and production companies from around the world and will be giving awards to the best creative teams.

Clacksoft will amaze you with its innovative stand where the latest technologies will be on display: there will be stereoscopic projections, 3D games to play live and reels from partner companies alongside product presentations. Visitors will enjoy this in a lounge area where they can relax, play and get information. What better way to learn about V-Ray?

Event Summary: The Making of “Real Steel”

When: November 3rd, 2011 7pm-10pm
Where: Escape Studios

Approximately 50 students and artists filled the main training room at Escape Studios’ newly opened facility in Santa Monica to watch Digital Domain present a behind the scenes look at the making of the VFX for Real Steel.

The Escape Studios Team

To lead off the event, Digital Domain’s Digital Environments Supervisor, Geoffrey Baumann, gave an in depth look at the photography and thorough documentation done on set.  Environment panoramas, HDRs, and camera and light locations were all captured on location, and terabytes of reference materials were sent back to the DD team.

Next, Animation Supervisor, Erik Gamache, walked through the challenges of creating believable robot animations and fight sequences.  Erik described how they were able to take the mocap provided by actors on stilts, which lacked the correct proportions and the necessary weight and gravity of 9’ tall robots, and modify the animations to achieve the final results.

Erik Gamache, Animation Supervisor

Digital Lighting Lead, Blake Sweeney presented how sophisticated lighting setups were created and rendered in V-Ray; and he described how they were able to use the VRayBlendMtl and a series of masks to reveal layers of damage as the robots battled it out in the ring.

Blake Sweeney, Digital Lighting Lead

The final presentation by the Digital Environments Lead, Justin van der Lek demonstrated how the various elements were brought into Nuke and composited for the final result.  He explained how they were able to achieve a sophisticated crowd set up using individual characters captured on green screen that were dynamically placed in their proper locations.

To round out the evening, raffle prizes were awarded by the event sponsors.  The first three winners took home Real Steel Crew Packages from Digital Domain, and another lucky winner received a free V-Ray course donated by Escape Studios.  The grand prize winner was awarded a free license of V-Ray for Maya, courtesy of the Chaos Group.

It was an exciting and informative event, and hopefully, it’s the first of many more to come.

V-Ray® Fall Events in London

We are pleased with the opportunity to participate in three key industry events in the UK this fall.  We hope to see you there!

Chaos Group Presentation at the London’s Autodesk 3ds Max Group Meeting

Location: London, UK
Organizer: 3ds Max London User Group
Date: 02 Nov 2011
Venue:  Upstairs at The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A
Who: Professional members from London's advertising, architectural and animation industries.

Our team is joining the regular monthly get-together of 3ds Max people in London for an in-depth look at V-Ray® for 3ds Max.

The 3ds Max London User Group meets on the first Wednesday of every month at The Plough, opposite the British Museum, to discuss ideas, methods and projects in a friendly, relaxed setting. Started in 2007, the group enjoys a great number of professional members from London's advertising, architectural and animation industries.

Anyone is welcome to attend, event details posted at www.3dslondon.blogspot.com

Check out the topics that our V-Ray expert prepared and make sure you stop by and ask your questions.

V-Ray® 2.0 for 3ds Max - the latest trendsetting rendering technologies by Chaos Group

1.    Memory efficiency with Render time subdivisions
2.    Displacement geometry - cool tricks
3.    Rendering heavy geometry with V-Ray Proxy
4.    V-Ray RT accelerating the shading process
5.    Creating advanced layered shaders
6.    Light Cache improvements - retrace threshold
7.    V-Ray stereoscopic rig - shade map optimizations for rendering stereoscopy
8.    Distance texture - use procedurally generated textures to create a wide range of effects based on the distance between various objects in the scene
9.    Lens analysis tool - easily match the distortion of your real world and your virtual cameras
10.    Multi-sub texture – assign different textures based on object ID
11.    Light select render element – extract the contribution of each light to the scene, change their intensity in post-production and compose them back together
12.    Adding realism to your refractive materials with light dispersion
13.    V-Ray RT running on CPU vs. GPU

Second Chaos Group participation at the Bluegfx Expo in 2011

Location: Ravensbourne, London, UK
Date: 03 Nov 2011
Organizer: bluegfx
Venue: 6 Penrose Way, Greenwich Peninsula, London SE10 0EW
Featured products: V-Ray® 2.0. for 3ds Max, V-Ray® 2.0. for Maya, Phoenix FD, Pdplayer
Who: An industry day aimed at providing those who operate within the Media and Entertainment sector with the latest developments in technology

Chaos Group is coming again to London to participate in one of the newest industry events organized by partner Bluegfx.

Our team will meet you at the Chaos Group Demo Area to show you the latest in all our products, including V-Ray® for 3ds Max, Maya, Rhino, SketchUp and Softimage. Our product specialist will demonstrate some tips and tricks in Phoenix FD, the fluid dynamics system developed by Chaos Group, and the Pdplayer sequence player.

At 3pm, stop by the main stage to get more inside information on the newest in V-Ray 2.0 both for 3ds Max and Maya.

Shape to Fabrication

Location: London South Bank University
Date: 18-19 November
Organizer: Simply Rhino
Venue: The Keyworth Centre, Keyworth Street, London, SE1 6NG
Featured products: V-Ray® for Rhino, V-Ray® 2.0 for 3ds Max

Chaos Group is excited to announce we will be a sponsor for the upcoming Shape to Fabrication 4 Conference held at London's South Bank University on Nov. 18th and 19th.  A great line-up of presenters will be showcasing their cutting edge work in generative design and digital fabrication. Chaos Group will be sharing some stunning visuals of our customers' designs, and we'll be providing a sneak peek at the major developments and new features included in the upcoming release of V-Ray® for Rhino.

Presentation: "The Making of Real Steel"

Location: Santa Monica, United States
Date: 03 November
Organizer: Escape Studios, Digital Domain
Venue: Escape Studios, Yahoo! Center, 2400 Broadway, Suite D-210, Santa Monica CA 90404
Featured products: Find out how the robot boxing matches in Real Steel were conceived, planned and executed using an innovative process that gave the filmmakers unprecedented creative freedom and efficiency.

Source: Escape Studios

Want to take a sneak peek behind the scenes to see how the movie "Real Steel" was made? Join Escape Studios in partnership with Digital Domain, The Foundry and Chaos Group at Escape Studios’ Santa Monica campus to hear this unique story. Find out how the robot boxing matches in Real Steel were conceived, planned and executed using an innovative process that gave the filmmakers unprecedented creative freedom and efficiency.

From robot animation and lighting to set extensions and arena crowds, the team at Digital Domain streamlined production from start to finish for maximum efficiency and photorealism. Watch while the team illustrates the techniques used to realize director Shawn Levy’s vision for this heart-warming story.

And, take note! One lucky person will walk away with a 12 month online V-Ray for Max course. You have to be present to get in on the prize drawing though!

Reserve your seat now at Escape Studios’ website.

Durban Digital Content Show

Location: Durban, South Africa
Date: 31 Oct 2011
Organizer: COA Group
Venue:  Blue Water Hotel, 175 Snell Parade, Marine Parade, Durban
Featured products: V-Ray® 2.0. for 3ds Max, V-Ray® 2.0. for Maya

The main purpose of this event is to showcase various vendors’ products and show how they collectively complement each other and create a working solution. Participants include government, advertising agencies, visualisation design companies, film producers, web & VFX freelancers and studios, and companies from gaming sector.

V-Ray® will be featured in Ravi Rabheru’s presentation about stereoscopic production and Luan Davis’ and Matt Nefdt’s case study about the making of the iTruck advert.

COA is aslo hosting a student competition, which will be discussed at the event. The students at the Smart Exchange will be challenged to conceptualize their vision of Durban in 50 years. Chaos Group is providing a V-Ray® license as one of the prizes in this competition.

Third Dimension 2011

Location: Frankfurt, Germany
Date: 21st of October
Organizer: weltenbauer. 3D Vertriebs GmbH
Venue:  Saalbau Gutleut Frankfurt
             Rottweiler Straße 32
             60326 Frankfurt am Main
Featured products: V-Ray® 2.0. for 3ds Max, V-Ray® 2.0. for Maya

Frankfurt will be hosting the Third Dimension event for the fourth consecutive year. This well-known user convention has attracted more than 360 visitors in its past editions and will feature interesting presentations on Movie/TV, Architecture/Design and Games.

V-Ray® will be shown together with the manufacturer for professional workstations, CADNetwork, and PNY as a vendor for workstation-graphic adapters. As part of the speaker lounge, representatives of weltenbauer will demonstrate V-Ray 2.0 functionalities. The focus of V-Ray’s presentation will be CUDA rendering on high performance workstations. Additionally, Chaos Group will be providing a V-Ray® license to a participant in the event’s raffle. We are looking forward to seeing you there.

GITEX Technology Week

We are excited to be taking part in the GITEX Technology Week in Dubai – an event which connects world class ICT vendors with senior decision makers within the thriving Middle East, North Africa and South Asian markets. Our colleague Javid Imanov will attend the event and support the presentation by our reseller MediaSys. Do not hesitate to send him an email if you’d like to meet with him there.

Location: Dubai
Date: October 09-13
Organizer: Dubai World Trade Center
Venue: Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre, Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai

Meet and Greet

On 30 September, our reseller Lichtblick 4D will host one of the biggest user-oriented 3D conferences “Meet and Greet” in Berlin.  Our colleagues Deyan Evlogiev and Dimitar Krastev “Jimmy” will also blend with the crowd and use the opportunity to showcase Phoenix FD and Pdplayer, as well as the latest features in V-Ray 2.0 for 3ds Max and V-Ray 2.0 for Maya. If you’d like to meet them at the conference, visit our demo pod or drop them an email in advance. Some highlights of their presentation include:

•    RT- CPU/GPU- unprecedented speed and flexibility achieved with the V-Ray interactive rendering system
•    Car paint material - create stunning car paint shaders complete with base, flake and coat layers
•    Distance texture- use procedurally generated textures to create a wide range of effects based on the distance between various objects in the scene
•    Multi-sub texture - assign different textures based on object ID
•    Light select render element - extract the contribution of each light to the scene, change their intensity in post-production and compose them back together
•    Stereoscopic helper - quickly set up stereoscopic images and animations
•    Lens analysis utility - easily match the distortion of your real world and your virtual cameras
•    Lens effects - add a full range of bloom and glare effects

Location: Berlin, Germany    
Date: September 30
Organizer: Lichtblick 4D    
Venue:     Forum Adlershof, Rudower Chaussee 17, 12489 Berlin

The VFX Tour in Colombia

The VFX Tour is a first-of-a-kind event for Latin America! Starting on 23 September, and traveling to four cities in Colombia (Bogota, Cali, Pereira and Medelin), the tour aims to educate the next generation of students looking to enter the animation and VFX industry. It is expected to generate massive attendance and set about the beginning of a series of such events in other countries in South America.

As a proud sponsor of this event, we would like to congratulate the organizers and the artists who are making this possible.

Through a series of workshops, the Tour will show professionals and students the steps required for the creation of a scene, tracking, layout, modeling, animation, lighting and compositing.

The VFX Tour has attracted some of Hollywood’s most talented and well recognized Visual Effects artists as speakers that will travel to Colombia to take part in this event:

"The VFX Tour is about taking 5 established Visual effects artists in Hollywood and creating educational content using cutting edge workflows with only the best visual effects software out of the box . The event features the latest in ptex lighting/plate techniques using V-Ray for Maya and Mari together with final compositing in Nuke.  This production is pure passion and 100 percent informative techniques we believe in.  We are hoping to inspire and teach on a tour across the world.  Fabio Zapata covers integration, Masa Narita for his modeling/Z-Brush wizardry, Steward Burris shows his moves with animation, Scott Metzger with texturing and lighting in V-Ray/Mari, and the final golden touches are being assembled in comp with Peter Demarest in Nuke. This is a full workflow of VFX from concept to final picture. First stop Colombia."

Scott Metzger, VFX Artist

Autodesk Forum Russia

Our colleague Javid Imanov will be traveling to Moscow on 21-22 September to attend the Autodesk Russia Forum.  He will be meeting with our partners and resellers there, and attending some of the workshops. Do not hesitate to send him an email if you’d like to meet with him at the Forum.

Location: Moscow, Russia
Date: September 21-22
Organizer: Autodesk
Venue: Holiday Inn, 24 Str. Rusakovskaya, 107014 Moscow

Chaos Group at SIGGRAPH 2011

Vancouver, here we come! Chaos Group team is gearing up for another great SIGGRAPH meeting with friends and partners.

Stop by our booth (#135) for in-depth presentations of V-Ray for 3ds Max and Maya, the latest in Phoenix FD 2.0 and presentations by industry experts (including Michael McCarthy, David Lesperance, Paul Ghezzo, Graham Fyffe and many others) every day of the event!

Check out the full program, and be sure to stop by our booth.
In partnership with NVIDIA, Chaos Group will also demo the latest developments in V-Ray RT for on GPU in Maya at NVIDIA’s booth. Stop by and ask our demo artist for a real time V-Ray experience.

Read more information here

V-Ray for the Layperson: Rendering for compositors event organized by VES, Chaos Group and The Foundry

Joins us and the super experts: Vlado Koylazov, Robert Nederhorst, Scott Metzger for a great evening with real work environment examples in V-Ray, Nuke and Mari! Take a closer look at rendering theory and how it applies at the compositing phase. Find out more on different possible render layers and what do they mean? Get insights on more advanced topics such as Glossy refractions/reflection along with GI rendering with HDR painted PTEX on geometry in V-Ray

Seats are limited! Read more and register NOW, here!

July 28th (Thursday), 7.00 -9.30pm

RFX building: 748 Seward Street, Hollywood, CA 90038

Chaos Group to support Mundos Digitales-the renowned international festival of Animation, VFX, Video games and Digital Architecture in Spain

Mundos Digitales is famous for its great community spirit and for bringing together the best talent in Animation, VFX and Games all at one place. Chaos Group is honored to be a part of this experience and contribute to the enrichment of the festival.

The four days of the festival will include interesting presentations from internationally renowned speakers, such as Víctor Pérez/CONCEPTO NAU, Jordi Bares/ THE MILL, Astrid de Busser/DOUBLE NEGATIVE, Gonzalo Rueda/ ILLION ANIMATION STUDIOS and many others.

If you are curious to know more about how specific effects from the movie TRON: Legacy were created, then you will definitely want to attend the presentation by Christopher Nichols from Digital Domain. Chris will be speaking and presenting, and will take a very close look at the Light Cycle sequence from the movie!

More information on speakers and full program of the festival is available, here.