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Here are some resources we might think useful, like blogs, wikis, software or library pages. It’s focused on animation pipeline/research and development. You can contact us to update the list ! 🙂

LATEST UPDATES :

  • 2018-03-19 : PBR-book, Visualizing quaternions, Guerrilla CG project’s vimeo channel, 3d art in games list, VES Camera Reports, NeuralVfx Blog, Digipro event, Animal Logic Academy blog, Awesome raytracing, Libre Graphics Meeting event, youtube’s VFX Pipeline channel, Houdini’s C++ talk, CG Render DNA blog
  • 2018-10-07 : New academic section : thesis (phd or master degree) and some labs
  • 2018-09-26 : adding: sony’s imagework, BUF software, the awesome CG list, topologyguide.com, netflix tech blog, Le Forum des images youtube channel, DigitalFoundry youtube channel, math as code, expressive Symposium
  • 2018-09-15 : reorganising web sites section, adding Conference section, adding: Dreamworks research, Wonderunit, ffmprovisr, Blender pour le montage

Web sites

CG technical

  • ASWF: The Academy SoftWare Fundation, working on maintaining important open source tools and libraries used in the VFX and animation studios
  • VFX Reference Platform: provides the list of main libraries and framework version the industry should use to stay up to date
  • Histoire 3D: [french] wiki on the pioneers of 3D in France from the 80′ until 2000

Pipeline

Studios sharing knowledge and tools

  • Mindbender dev journal: Marcus Ottosson, developers, made that journal when he developed minbender studio pipeline. It’s very interesting.
  • E*D Films is a Canadian studio sharing a lot of tutorials and tools
  • Mikros Open projects: Mikros is a major animation/vfx company in France and they share some of their tools on that page. The photogrammetry solution Meshroom they co-create has its own github
  • Pixar graphics: pixar webpage listing their open source projects and papers.
  • Disney Open source projects: Apart from their repositories, Disney too has a cool Research website
  • Dreamworks Research: the dreamworks research website with their publications and open projects
  • Wonderunit: is a studio which is sharing as free software some of their tools starting by a good storyboard solution
  • Sony Pictures Imageworks: the open source website of Sony’s Imageworks studio, with major open initiatives
  • BUF Software: BUF is one of the oldest VFX studio in France, known for working only with in-house software. This is not open source but still some of the software they sahre. Including bview, a “free” pro video player

Miscellaneous

  • Limonade Stand: A handy guide to financial support for open source
  • Khan Academy – Pixar: Khan Academy teamed up with pixar to created powerful introductions to many themes of the CG work
  • Animator Checklist: useful articles on animation made by animators but readable by everyone. Available in french or spanish too
  • FFMPROVISR: for those using ffmpeg, and needing examples well organized
  • Blender pour le montage [fr]: is a digital book on why and how use blender for non linear editing of movies
  • Topology Guides: a series of very useful modeling and topology tips and tricks
  • Math as code: a very cool ressource to understand maths symbols and transform them in code
  • Pbr-Book: Physically Based Rendering:From Theory To Implementation, a free online book for lighters
  • Visualizing quaternions: ever wondered how to deal with quartenion rotations ?
  • Reference for 3D Art In Games (2018): An huge list of misc stuff for 3D art (oriented towards games)
  • VES Camera Reports: an initiative to standardise camera report from VFX sets
  • Awesome Ray Tracing: a great list of articles and notes on raytracing technics

Communities

Pipeline & IT

  • CGWire’s Slack: CGWire slacks, reunite a lot of TDs and devs around pipeline questions (also a blender section)
  • Tech Artists: one of the biggest CG tech forums
  • StudioSysAdmin: a forum for VFX/animation studios’ ITs

Blender

Youtube and video channels

  • Noclip: crowdfounded documentaries on indie games. Pretty cool
  • Archipel: that channel is focused on presenting japanese creators
  • Mark Brown: Mark is a former journalist, and he analyse video games
  • Double Fine adventures: could have been in the documentary section as that youtube playlist collects all the -great- docuementary episodes made during the production of Broken Ages. Many themes presented for hours of content
  • Gorkab [fr]: Gorkab is a french youtuber hosting his series CGM on visual effects
  • GameHut: hosted by the funder of TT Games (Lego games), he goes back in time and share great insights on how video games and real times works. It’s very detailed and impressive
  • Le Forum des images: [mostly in french] many keynotes, talks, conferences, on new medias, cinema hosted in this important parisian place for audiovisual cultures
  • DigitalFoundry: video games and hwardware reviews from the technical point of view
  • Guerrilla CG project: The Guerrilla CG project does not exists anymore, but the vimeo channel is full of cool videos on different CG topics, like subdivision issues
  • VFX Pipeline channel: A dedicated youtube channel reaching many topics

Blogs

  • Dorian Fevrier blog: pipeline and rendering topics, both in French and English.
  • CGWire’s blog: CGWires creates the open source production tracking software Zou/Kitsu
  • cgsupervisor: an apparently abandoned blog, but with pretty interesting articles on CG supervision
  • Blue Sky tech blog: the tech blog of the famous Blue Sky Studio
  • Piti Wazou blog: active blender artists and addon creator
  • Ian Wooten blog: Ian is a software engineer who has worked at Aardman and the BBC among others
  • Julien Duroure blog: Julien is a French Blender tech, creating a lot of good add-ons for rig and animation
  • Luciano Muñoz blog: Luciano is an animator and blender aficionado, sharing cool stuff
  • Mina PĂȘcheux: Mina is becoming and computer engineers, and share great articles
  • FX Guide: Great blog on VFX, also featuring podcasts
  • Francois “Coyhot” Grassard is a very curious guy, hard to track, so here is his wbsite, his mastodon or his facebook
  • Netflix Tech Blog: Netflix has much to say about broadcast, video encoding, compression, streaming, and they do so in this blog
  • Neural VFX: deep learning experiences applied for VFX
  • Animal Logic Academy: the joint venture between the studio and the University of Technology Sidney is publishing in depth articles on VFX technical aspects
  • CG Render DNA: tips and tricks for CG rendering

Books

Documentaries

In this section we include documentaries wich inspire us on our daily work.

  • Side by side: on the transition from analogic to digital cinema and what it changes, with many high-profile technicians and photo directors
  • The Pixar story: the complete Pixar story
  • 6 days to air: the incredible process to create a South Park episode, from writing to broadcast, in 6 days…
  • The sweatbox: the never released documentary on the -chaotic- production of Disney’s Emperor’s new groove
  • Waking sleeping beauty: a great documentary on the revival of Disney’s animation studio back in the 80s and 90s
  • The kingdom of dreams and madness: one of the very few good documentaries on Ghibli Studio, focused on the balance between Miyazaki/Takahata/Suzuki and the production of the Wind Rises
  • Lost in la Mancha: how can a movie production end in hell that fast? On the set of the (finally finished 15 years later) Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote, a usecase
  • Persistance of vision: the documentary about the crazy production The Thief and the Gobbler by the famous Richard Williams, master of the animators
  • American experience’s Walt Disney: a complete documentary on Walt Disney’s life and early career, very well documented
  • Dream on silly dreamer: on the brutal Disney’s studio’s decision to shut down the hand-drawn animation studio to focus on CG
  • Indie game the movie: famous documentary on video game indie creation, with the creators of Super Meat Ball and Fez
  • Branching Paths, a journey through Japan’s indie game scene is a documentary by Anne Fero on japanese indie video game creators
  • Confidences [fr] french documentary on the future of video games
  • Game in progress [fr]: is a french mini series of documentaries introduction to the video game industry and the creative process

Online talks

Conferences

Because you need to meet people and the serendipity of such physical meetings and conferences, we started this list of events we enjoy or find important, ordered by the month.

January

  • Paris Images, Paris – France: (previously Paris FX) is a conference on VFX and animation

May

  • FMX, Stuttgart – Germany: The european SIGGRAPH
  • EUROGRAPHICS: moving – Europe: Eurographics is a professional Computer Graphics association supporting its members in advancing the state of the art in Computer Graphics and related fields such as Multimedia, Scientific Visualization and Human Computer Interfaces. It has great publications and an annual conference
  • Libre Graphics Meeting:, moving (2019: germany) the annual international convention for the discussion of free and open source software used with graphics

June

  • Annecy, Annecy – France: the world’s biggest animation festival, with many work in progress and conferences
  • DigiPro: Los Angeles (Vancouver in 2018) The Digital Production Symposium focuses on brigging innovation to real world

August

  • SIGGRAPH, moving – North American: Who still needs a presentation ?
  • Expressive, is a Symposium on Computer Aestetics and Non Physical Rendering, co-located to Siggraph since 2 years (old-website)

September

  • Arselectronica, Linz – Austria: Ars Electronica is an institute which focus on the interlinkages between art, technology and society. The institute runs a great festival each year

October

  • VIEW, Turrin – Italy: VFX conference taking place in italy
  • Blender Conference, Amsterdam – Netherlands: The annual Blender conference gathering the main developpers and the community

November

  • RADI/RAF, Angouleme – France: A small but great conference on the state of animation production and training in France. The first day is focused on technic
  • Capitol du libre, Toulouse – France: The french main free software conference

Academics

The academic section lists labs and universities related to what we do, thesis and other publications we found useful.

Labs

  • ATI: Art And Technologies of Images is a veterant CG public training (Bachelor and Master degree) in paris 8 university since mid 80s ! Flavio and Damien are graduated from here
  • INREV: Lab from Paris 8 Saint Denis University, where Damien is doing his PhD. Part of ATI
  • ENSADLab: Art & Design Research Laboratory at Ensad (Arts DĂ©coratifs) school in Paris
  • INRIA: one of the most important digital image labs in France (50 years old!)
  • Filmakademie R&D Lab: The famous german movie and animation school have a great R&D department
  • imac: stands for Image Multimedia Audiovisual Communication, is a public french engineering school. Much like ATI but for engineers

Thesis

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