A Blog dedicated to Animation

World Builder

elianac — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:36:55 +0000

Introducing 3D tools in a very original way, “World Builder” was shot in a single day followed by about 2 year of CGI Post-production. An amazing piece by Bruce Branit.

Beltesassar’s Short Animation Festival

elianac — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:08:21 +0000

Since the beginning of 2007, the largest collection of international animated films EVER has been circulating through peer-to-peer platforms, available for free download using Azureus client.
Packed into compact short film bundles, the film files go by the name of Beltesassar’s Short Animation Festival. The person behind the compilation calls himself Prof. Beltesassar and supposedly comes from the Netherlands.
The professor title gives the campaign a serious patina and is fitting as branding since the films selected are by all means of a calibre suitable for use in film education.
This professor doesn’t offer just any clips or trailers, like the ones that have been plying the Internet in the thousands for some time now, but rather animations of high quality that are even relevant to cinematic history.
Moreover, Prof. Beltesassar provides short, knowledgeable blurbs for each film programme.

In his own words: “To all of these letters, and to you, I say, “I am doing my part to download only the very best.”

While there is much Pixar fare, there is also much rare fare, in quite crisp quality. Stuff from France. Stuff from Russia. Plenty of stop-motion.
Here´s a small taste of the colourful and educative animation languages you can watch.

VIVA A ANIMAÇÃO!

You´ve got a case of the Humans!

elianac — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 02:08:28 +0000

Check the Home of Animation by clicking the image below.
Have Fun!

Are we the Strange (?)

elianac — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 02:27:06 +0000

Visit the Official KungFu Panda website by clicking the image above

All these astonishing masterpieces from Dreamworks.. they make me cry so bad (it´s the argument, the exquisite technique, the painting revolves and the worstations behind it you can only dream of getting such PC bliss for only US$45034. 16 GBs of RAM, two Opteron Model 248 chips.. omg

This definitely reminds me of MDotStrange. A rebel artist who decided he would never live up to such animation challenges and got awarded for exploring his own limitations with “We are the Strange”. “There´s a lot you can do before getting your dream-workstation.” I´m not into his style, but “Are we the Strange” Animation has some kind of raw artistic and social value that we should aknowledge – I believe we´re creating Frankensteins Misses Dreamworks, the poor and the strange.

Visit MDotStrange website by clicking above.

Hear about this story in first person

See Emily Play

elianac — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 02:48:13 +0000

Here’s the girl of the moment.

Watch the full story from Image Metrics

“Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself. ”
–Henry Miller

Full 3D tracking – SIGGRAPH

elianac — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:15:14 +0000

Original realistic 3D Tracking from SIGGRAPH festival.

You can easily use Boujou for tracking camera footage but Maya offers a really clean tracking solution as well. For those who got some sync problems and would like to try full 3D tracking, I´ve discovered a while ago MayaLive which I was surprised to see had very little sources online.

You can also do 2D motion tracking in AfterEffects and Shake but that´s kind of a limited solution for more complex shots. For me, the Maya help files were extremely useful.
So roll up sleeves, don´t forget to make sure MayaLive is loaded in the pluginManager, and give it a try.

And for those truly bored with the same old techniques and styles over and over, I suggest the inspiring SIGGRAPH festival reel?

So… what is SIGGRAPH?
Simple, they define it as a Professional Chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group in Computer Graphics.. In other words, geeks!

One of the most amazing tools they have is the 3D clay sculpting program where you use and pen-like mouse tool to carve the clay. The amazing thing is that you can actually feel the resistance of the clay through the mouse. There is also a 3D printer that uses a waxy, yet sturdy substance to slowly build a model of whatever you had built on the computer software. Geeks obviously have the best toys and now, they sure know how to have fun..

SIGGRAPH organizes a kick-ass Computer Animation Festival, with contributions from all over the world and they ask new artists to come forward and participate. If you want to see what no one´s ever seen before I highly recommend basic tickets to New Orleans this August, so you can watch the Festival at the Art Gallery and Electronic Theater. I´m really gonna try to make it this year, so let me know. Their site is at www.SIGGRAPH.org

Have fun exploring!

The amazing world of Meats Meier

elianac — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:37:17 +0000

Jack-of-all-trades or specialized Artist?

To me, Meats Meier pushes this question to the limit.
This artist developed his own workflow in an effective, fast and very personnal way. He starts with Zbrush, then goes into Maya to rig, animate, light and render the scenes, THEN TARAM! the 2D3 Boujou for video motion tracking does the trick and After Effects for final compositing. Who needs multimillionaire production companies?

This is the artist behind Puscifer´s artwork and he invented ZBrush techniques with such a creative twist everyone´s on fire now.. what a major influence.

But you know what, the greatest thing about Meier is his humility, good character and the heart to help and teach his skills to others. And these qualities my friends, not wanting to sound too flashy, I seem to find in every 3D character artist, because one has to work true expressions from the heart .

Check his intensive ZBrush Gnomon Tutorial >here<

Quick Overview of Digital Sculpture in ZBrush by Zack Petroc:

Puscifer´s “QueenB” by Meats Meier:

Not familiar with >PUSCIFER< yet? It´s worth it, believe me Here is a song I love from James, “Momma Sed” and his petit animation video.

If you feel like having a taste now from his vineyard, order the best wine in the world >CADUCEUS<

The Witcher – Behind the Scenes

elianac — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:33:11 +0000

Looking back again, at an awarded game animation – “The Witcher”. The movements of the character, the lighting and the complexity of textures and architectural details are breathtaking. No wonder, 3D artist Tomek Bagiński had a solid start with an Honour´s degree in Architecture (charmingly, I also attended 3years in Architectural Design but didn´t graduate, because I was on a one way trip to character Animation)
Knowing about this artist and his workflow brought me a lot of hope and resistance, and I was not the only one, a friend of mine was serious about moving to Poland because unfortunately, 3D Animation is a big-no-no in Portugal – but “In the endgame, it´s important to hold fast to where you want to go, to what you want to accomplish.” – Dariush Derakhshani, Editor-in-Chief of HDRI 3D couldn´t have said it better, so here we go.. a peak into Tomek Bagiński 3D artwork:

Witcher work in progress videos

Making Of NIN

elianac — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:15:50 +0000

It´s been 3 years since the release of the NIN video “Only” but I still find really cool the 3D techniques used by the CGI team at Digital Domain.

You can have a sneak peak at the making of – guess most of us thought that was a real setting right?

Gobelins Goodies

elianac — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 02:22:16 +0000

This school is definitely making a statement. Great paintings and designs all totally original!

I leave you one of the student´s short “Aprés la pluie” . Watch it at Gobelins.

And the making of is really worth watching: