The guys at Adobe have released a sneak peak of a new feature they are developing for Photoshop CS5 called content-aware fill. It is quite impressive in what it can achieve; users are now able to fill areas of an image that are otherwise blank, or replace objects in a photo entirely, with one press of the delete key. The program then analyses all the surrounding pixels and fills the selected area with an approximation of what it thinks should go there.

Users of GIMP are not that impressed as this feature has been possible for quite some time using a GIMP plugin called Resynthesizer, created by Paul Harrison. Professional Photoshoppers are also wary that, while contnet-aware fill will reduce workload greatly in the future, it will probably cause hundreds and thousands of amateur Photoshoppers to add “Graphic Designer” to their resume. Clients already think computers do all the work in design.

Way back before Avatar had even been release, James Cameron sat down with Popular Mechanics to talk about how he ended up inventing a completely new way of creating CG movies with his Stereoscopic-Virtual hybrid camera. He also explained how CG animation will never replace real actors because it is not the geeks behind the computers who are driving the performance, but rather the actors themselves through the motion capture technology. Taken from the Popular Mechanics article:

In fact, Cameron doesn’t even like the term “motion capture” for the process used on Avatar. He prefers to call it “performance capture.” This may seem like semantics, but to Cameron, the subtle facial expressions that define an actor’s performance had been lost for many of the digital characters that have come before. In those films, the process of motion capture served only as a starting point for animators, who would finish the job with digital brush strokes. “Gollum’s face was entirely animated by hand,” says Weta Digital effects master Joe Letteri. “King Kong was a third or so straight performance capture. It was never automatic.” This time, Cameron wanted to keep the embellishment by animators to a minimum and let the actors drive their own performances.

It’s probably this misconception that caused Avatar to loose out on best picture at the Oscars recently. Perhaps those at the Academy see CGI as a threat to future acting talent. James Cameron thinks otherwise.

Question: How do you advertise a search engine? Answer: By telling a story of travel, love, marriage and parenthood. This advert for Google was shown during the Super Bowl half time, and features some very clever storytelling through online searches.

This is Immersive Media’s 360° interactive video of earthquake hit Haiti. This amazing new concept has been in development for years and uses a multi-lensed camera to capture all angles which are then processed later using their own post production suite. This will revolutionise the way we capture footage.

Immersive Media’s patented flagship, the Dodeca® 2360 camera system, captures high-resolution video from every direction simultaneously. It delivers 100 million pixels at 30 frames per second (2400×1200 pixels/frame) and supports a number of video formats. And at 2.5 lbs., the Dodeca camera head is highly portable and by using available accessories it is easily attached to automobiles, helicopters, backpacks and rigging equipment for any filming requirement.

A nice compilation showing the use of the chroma key technique in some popular TV and films. Using green or blue screens in the background, actors are shot and then composited into purposely shot footage from on-location by removing the chosen colour. This means production companies can save money by shooting footage in studios rather than closing down famous landmarks like Times Square (03:43) in New York.