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The Screaming Edge of Change: Designing the Future in 5D

by Peter Plantec, Author
Artistry is not the part of Art Direction that you learn in school. It’s the glowing core bound within your DNA. It cannot be taught. Artistry combined with learned skills and tools of expression is what yields art. But you know all that. As Art Directors and Production Designers, Concept Artists and Matte Painters, we are the ones who gaze at thin air and imagine what could be. We use our skill to make our vision real. It may be beautiful or interesting or compelling or ugly as the job demands. It can be realistic or fantastic but it is always original.
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Lidar Scanning for Filmed Entertainment or How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love the Point Cloud

by Alan Lasky, Digital Effects Artist

The current trend of films, commercials and television programs featuring extensive visual effects has given rise to a new craft in motion picture production. Although this craft is divided into many separate disciplines (match moving, 3D integration, on-set data collection, etc), the domain can generally be defined as 3D Capture. The goal of 3D Capture is to construct an accurate three-dimensional representation of a set, location, object, or camera move in order to facilitate the creation of computer generated visual effects.
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A Question of Communication: Thoughts on Digital Set Design

by Tino Schaedler, Art Director For Digital Sets

Recently, computer generated images have taken a big leap from playing a minor role to becoming the lead act. In films such as Sin City (2005, Jeanette Scott & Steve Joyner, Art Directors), Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004, Kevin Conran) or Warner Bros. 300 (2007, Jim Bissell) digitally generated worlds set the entire look of the film. This has lead to a reevaluation of CGI. It is no longer simply an asset for the VFX department; instead it has become an indispensable part of the Production Designer’s creative repertoire. It is now necessary to give this asset a position in the work pipeline, both to guarantee artistic consistency and to insure that CGI is fully integrated into the film’s design process. Unlike miniatures or stage sets, digital set generation is still new territory for which no workflow has yet been established. We are currently in a transition phase where new strategies must be evolved that will lead to a standard process for digital set production.
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Managing Visual Effects

by Kurt Williams, Visual Effects Supervisor

In order to outline the tactics for comprehensive visual effects design in a movie, we must first dissect how the shots will be ultimately put together. I have watched, in recent years, the Art Department’s role on a movie expand along with the art form’s visual expectations. With films increasingly dependant on visual effects as a primary source of imagery, the potential for partnership between the visual effects and the Art Departments has never been greater.
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317 articles, 846 uploaded files, and growing! View the most popular pages or all article categories or most recent changes.

Art Directors Reference Guide — A resource tool for art directors, consisting of both conceptual and technical information to assist in day-to-day endeavors.
Digital Design Mandala — An attempt at visualizing the non-linear flow of communication through the progressive Art Department.
Perspective on Technology — Technology-related articles from the ADG news magazine "Perspective."
Reference Articles — Reference articles to assist Art Directors.
Stage Plans — Browse soundstages via Google Maps interface.
Tools — Current software and hardware tools currently used in Art Departments.
Training — Educational resources to learn the latest software and tools.

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