Walking dead comic online

Today, the VFX team of ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) uploaded a new video showing more of their work on their recent movie Battleship and the creation of a completely new fluid simulation system, which had to be re-engineered completely from the ground up for this film. It includes interviews with Grady Cofer, Pablo Helman, Willi Geiger and Nick Rasmussen of ILM. As always, make sure to check it out in full HD below.

In 2007, Nick Rasmussen, Ron Fedkiw and Frank Losasso Petterson already received a Sci-Tech Award from the Academy for the development of the original ILM fluid simulation system. Simultaneously, Duncan Brinsmead, Jos Stam, Julia Pakalns and Martin Werner were awarded that year with a Sci-Tech award for the design and implementation of the Maya Fluid Effects system.

For this years Sci-Tech Awards, seven achievements have been selected from various companies for award consideration. Among them, Lucasfilm for Zviz, a previsualisation system, WETA Digital for Tissue, a Physically-Based Character Simulation Framework and PDI Dreamworks for their new Lighting tool. The 2012 Scientific and Technical Awards will be presented at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills on February 9, 2013. The event will be hosted by actress Zoe Saldana and actor Chris Pine (from the upcoming Star Trek: Into Darkness).

Reported figures also showed a loss of 27 percent over the last year, accumulating a net revenue of merely $825.8 million up to the end of March 2012. Take-Two shareholders however are still smiling, as the corporation expects to make up for its loss this year around, and forecasts a total revenue of 1.75 to 1.85 Billion before March 31, 2013 (so, in fact even better then the reported 1.13 Billion over 2010/2011), leading me to conclude that GTA V will definitely be released before that.

GTA IV sold 3.6 million units within the first 24 hours and six Million the first week, which made it into the Guiness book of records aka Guiness World Records. (the record for fastest selling game currently stands with Activisions Modern Warfare 3, which sold 6.5 million units on the very first day of sales). All GTA games by Rockstar, going back to the very first one, have been released in October, except for GTA IV, which was slated for October 16, 2007 but was delayed until April 8, 2008 (after the fiscal year ended) due to technical challenges, as the official accounts state.

Max Payne Comic.

Completely in style with the first two games (which used comic book panels instead of cut scenes), Marvel Comics just released the first of three comic books about Max Payne, written by Dan Houser himself with Sami Järvi aka Sam Lake of Finnish game developer Remedy Entertainment, the original creators of Max Payne. The limited comic book series titled After the Fall chronicles Maxs past, as shown in the original game from 2001 and the sequel The Fall of Max Payne released in 2003. It has great art by Fernando Blanco with stunning covers by Greg Horn. But dont run off to your local comic store just yet, as Rockstar has officially made the series available for free as downloads on their site (a PDF file becomes available if you hover over the cover artwork). Currently only the first issue is available, issue 2 will be available as of June 12, with 3 following after that.

Producers SND/M6 have announced theyre busy creating a new animated feature with Asterix: Asterix et le domaine des dieux (Asterix and the land of the Gods). Animated by French studio Mac Guff, creators of last years very funny and succesfull 3D animation Despicable Me, this new feature will be based on The Mansion of the Gods, the seventeenth volume in the Asterix comic book series by Goscinny and Uderzo from 1971.

The movie will be directed by Louis Clichy, animator on Pixars Wall-E (2008) and Up (2009) and Alexandre Atrier, known for his work on M6s medieval fantasy series Kaamelott.

This will be the first time well see Asterix in stereocopic 3D, after a series of traditionally animated features, his last being Asterix and the Vikings (2006). Louis Clichy confirmed on his blog hes busy with Asterix. Make sure to check it out ! The first screens from the animation tests have just been leaked! Check them out here below (thanks to Lyricis Interactive):

Today two sequences of production drawings from one of my favorite Disney shorts,  Goofy and Wilbur (production 2218), released on March 17, 1939. Directed by Dick Heumer, the amazing animation was in the hands of Art Babbitt, Izzy Klein, Ed love, Berny Wolf, John Meador and  Wolfgang Reitherman. In the short, Goofy goes out fishing and takes his small grasshopper Wilbur with him. Wilbur is smart and helps Goofy catch all the fish he needs, but not without bringing himself in great peril.

This second sequence is after Wilbur and Goofy have caught their first fish. Wilbur goes out hopping on the water again and taunts another big fish, who immedeately chases him. Wilbur runs across the water surface to Goofys rowing boat, where unfortunately another fish is waiting there for him. Both fish end up stuck in each others mouth trying to get Wilbur and Goofy has to pull them apart before he can put them into his barrel. Goofy then leans forward and gets ready to shout Hey Wilbur, bring me a fat one this time! to Wilbur, whos already out there back on the water. This elaborate scene was animated by Izzy Klein. Check out the first sequence here.