Frantic Films is pushing NVIDIA Gelato software to the limits. Conrad Wiebe, part of the Frantic creative team and guest speaker at the Gelato User Group meeting at SIGGRAPH 2007, showcased some of the progressive rendering work Frantic is achieving with Gelato at the event.

The ocean surface image below was generated using Frantic Film's Flood:Surf ocean surface toolkit and rendered in Gelato using the Amaretto feature.

For more info about Frantic Films, visit the company's Web site at www.franticfilms.com.

Industry icon Barbara Robertson made the rounds at SIGGRAPH 2007 in San Diego earlier this month and blogged about her experiences on and off the show floor. Check out her blog at CGSociety -- she gives Gelato and The Plush Life animated short some attention and links back to the trailer here at Gelatozone.

Thanks Barbara!

by Kelly Dove

San Diego was the scene of another successful SIGGRAPH, as thousands descended on the San Diego Convention Center August 5-9 to see the latest in DCC goodies. NVIDIA premiered "The Plush Life," short film by Timothy Heath and unveiled the latest features in the pipeline for Gelato.

Dan Ochiva, senior contributing editor of Digital Content Producer saw the newest and upcoming features of Gelato, commenting in the magazine's show blog on the software's impressive features. Read more in his article: "Got Gelato?" at the Digital Content Producer site.

Lundo and Flint, two plush characters with a penchant for joyriding in their 1969 Buick Electra, find themselves on a unforgettable journey in the new NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) animated short film “The Plush Life,” which is set to make its debut today at SIGGRAPH 2007 in San Diego, CA (NVIDIA booth 513).

The brainchild of animator Timothy Heath of the NVIDIA Digital Film Group, “The Plush Life” is the first in a planned series of animated short films that will showcase the advanced rendering features of NVIDIA^® Gelato^® GPU-accelerated rendering software.

From concept to final renderings, The Plush Life animation evolved over a period of seven months. Modeled and animated with Autodesk Maya 3Dsoftware, the film was rendered entirely in Gelato Pro software on NVIDIA Quadro^® professional graphics boards, utilizing the program’s advanced features such as depth-of-field, motion blur, ambient occlusion, and raytraced reflections. Also incorporated into the animation is subsurface scattering, which allows materials to absorb and scatter light, depth-of-shadows for rendering of the hair, and new shader technology used to create the velvety appearance of the “Flint” character.

“The Plush Life” will give attendees a firsthand look at the advanced rendering features of Gelato software, and a glimpse of future rendering technology from NVIDIA, powered by the latest NVIDIA Quadro solutions.