Category Archives: Digital ET

Digital ET, Etc.

How telcos lost the media plot

Where are the telecommunications companies? About five years ago, the bets were that telecom companies would become media majors – that they would acquire big media firms or destroy them through the sheer force of disintermediation. This is because selling entertainment and news on the mobile phone was till last year a Rs 25,000-crore business. Telcos that are bigger and more profitable than media companies controlled the billing, the consumer and, more importantly, over 80 per cent of revenues, earned by selling ringtones and so on. Unlike newspaper or television companies, telcos were not dependent on advertising revenues. Mobile phones reach almost 900 million Indians, and are, therefore, the single largest device in consumer hands after the radio. So it shouldn’t have taken Bharti Airtel or Vodafone long to overtake the Times Group or Zee in the Rs 83,000-crore market for media and entertainment in India.

It hasn’t happened.

Click here for the complete article at Business-standard.com

Digital ET, Special EFX

The Lone Ranger: the best VFX you never noticed?

Good article on the VFX that cannot be easily spotted and what it took to creat them. Complete article here

Here are a few excerpts:

  •  ..the best part of the movie may be the one that most critics never noticed – or rather, never noticed had been created by human hands. Industrial Light & Magic contributed 375 visual effects shots to The Lone Ranger, almost all of them invisible, including photorealistic trains and environments.
  • Although based on live background plates, Gore Verbinski directed ILM to make its digital environments “bigger and bolder” than reality, heightening the chase sequences’ sense of speed and drama.
  • We did most of the asset build in 3ds Max, but it could be in ZBrush [or other packages] if we needed it; there were a variety of approaches. The texturing is a mix of photographic work and hand painting. There are certain shots that are more matte painter-ish and you need a matte painter’s eye to pull everything together, but we had terrific photo reference, and that keeps you honest.

 The work I’m most proud of is probably going to be the work that people never recognise, and that’s because it’s invisible. I had people stopping me in the hall to say that they didn’t realise that the environments were CG until they happened to see the plates.

 

 

Digital ET, Gaming

Ubisoft, Sony to Produce Movie Based on ‘Watch Dogs’ Game with New Regency

 

“Watch Dogs” revolves around a brilliant hacker bent on revenge and inflicting his own brand of justice after a violent family tragedy. In the game, he hacks into Chicago’s Central Operating System, which controls the city’s infrastructure, including security cameras, traffic lights, and public transportation, as well as databases containing key information on the city’s residents and turns the city into his weapon.

The “Watch Dogs” game bows Nov. 19.

More at Variety.com

Click here for Watchdogs official Site