San Francisco. Peter Litwinowicz and Pierre Jasmin, creators of Motion Paint (sm), a radical new visual special effects technology, have formed RE:Vision to develop industry-leading moving image authoring software. The San Francisco-based company will offer production services as well, drawing on the founders? extensive production experience.

Motion Paint captures the nuances of the motion in live action photography, such as plants blowing in the wind or the swirl of a coat as a character turns. Synthetic objects can then be driven by the captured motion and placed into the live action. Modifications and enhancements can be accomplished at a complexity never before possible, because every pixel in the scene is analyzed.

RE:Vision?s Services and software allow powerful cross-over between cinematography and visual effects. This enables clients to work with fewer restrictions on live-action photography, and for the most part, eliminates the need for the expense of motion-control rigs. The director and cinematographer can work more spontaneously, unencumbered by technology.

Mr. Jasmin first experimented in film animation and adopted computers as his primary medium in 1984, became a digital paint system software engineer and worked on five projects, including SoftImage Eddie and Discreet Flame, where he was the first software engineer. Mr. Litwinowicz has been creating software tools for created computer-generated images with a hand-crafted look since 1987. He spent nine years at Apple Computer where he developed many innovative animation and rendering techniques.

For more information about the founders, see the bio backgrounder.