33rd Square Website

Check out www.33rdsquare.com  for great information on Technology, Medicine and Art & Design.

It has been a slice!

After nearly four years in operation, Criteria Systems will be ceasing operations on September 3, 2010.  We wish to thank all of our customers, industry partners, vendors and fans that have helped us have a rewarding experience. 

All the best,

The Criteria Systems team.

Jenn Beaupre - "What If"

A friend of the site, Jenn Beupre has made a great video. Check it out!

2D to 3D Conversion

At Criteria Systems we can convert your 2D artwork, photographs and graphic designs into stunning 3D relief and full 3D pieces. Our foam prototyping systems is also ideal for art making. Artists have used our services to convert their 2D art into 3D relief and sculpture, for casting masters for bronze casting, and direct artwork production in foam.

Cebas Visual Technology Plugins available at Criteria Systems

Cebas Visual Technology products are now available from the Criteria Systems website.

Cebas software tools which were used to fulfill the demanding needs of complex 3D effects for such reccent motion picture productions as: “2012”, “Alice in Wonder Land”, “The Last Air Bender”, “GI Joe”, “Percy Jackson and the Olympians”, “Nightmare on Elm Street”, “Jonah Hex” and “Iron Man 2.”

For the movie “2012,” many first of a kind features and unique tools were developed to cope with the extremely demanding production environment, allowing for complete flexibility and fast turnaround times from start to finish. One of the most challenging tasks was the creation of a completely new Multiple Pass Render system, capable of outperforming the built-in 3ds Max system.

Criteria Systems is delighted to offer the following products:

• finalRender R3 SP2 (Standard Edition)
• finalRender R3 SE SP2 (Studio Edition)
• finalRender Stage 2 for Maya
• finalToon R3 SP2
• finalF/X Bundle 1.5
• finalFlares 1.5
• finalDOF 1.5
• pyroCluster 3.5
• psd-manager 2.0
• maxVR.qt 2.0
• scalpalMAX R2
• stairMAX R2
• thinkingParticles 4.0

and

• volumeBreaker 1.0 SP2

Check out http://www.criteria-systems.com/cebas.html  to learn more about these outstanding products.

Yoda Project Machining

We have machined the Yoda file in foam at life-size.  For this process we cut the file in four separate stages on a rotary-axis enabled CNC router, the FROGMill from Streamline Automation. The tool used was a 1/4" Ball nose foam tool.  This process allowed us to capture a great amount of detail in the piece. 

A short video of the process is available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODrwU1EfgdE

Yoda Project

For this project, a photograph of Yoda (the version from the Empire Strikes Back) was used as reference for digitally sculpting the character.

The head was the starting point for the Yoda model.

Next the hands and feet were modeled.  In this case, the same base shape was used for all four appendages.

The hands and feet were placed onto a basic body shape and posed.

The cloak and walking stick were created and further posing was undertaken to resemble the pose in the photo.  The source photo was of a puppet sitting without the operator (Frank Oz), so some liberties were taken.

 

Prior to sending the model for prototyping, a base was created.  The base is shelled to be more efficient with material and features a debossed title on the front, and a signature on the back.  The prototype model stands ~5" (125 mm) high. 

This short video of the project is also available on YouTube here.

For the next stage, we will be producing a life-size version of Yoda in foam.

Stay Tuned!