Big news this month. I’ll now be ranting about looks and raving about production management over at the AWN site. I’ll post pointers here when I do so, and will continue to post paleoart and personal projects here. The first post is about Walt Disney’s thoughts on education. So, head over to AWN if you’re interested!

Bring it on!

Watch the above talk illustrated / animated by the talented folk at cognitive media or this one illustrating Philip Zimbardo’s talk about time perception and its social relevance. (And let me know who it is doing these drawings so I can give proper credit - I’ll also be shooting off a mail inquiry). This is fantastic not just because someone is demonstrating the power of illustration to make complicated content (of admittedly wonderfully organized talks) accessible, but also because they are also recognizing the economic value of doing so. They are also conscious of the responsibilities involved, as the quote below illustrates.

Images are powerful and the suggestions they can make can be misleading and sometimes what you might think is a neat way to tie something up visually, might really be creating misunderstanding or promoting the unintentional ideas.

Definitely worth watching.

I have the feeling that Disney runs away from its own stylistic potential. As in Bolt, the innovative bold brush-styles that Disney has developed get pressed into smooth surfaces that are practically run-of-the-mill, as if they’re trying to emulate Dreamworks. At the very least, they’re not embracing their own heritage of bold npr (sic Tarzan). Why?
I could only watch this up to the Chameleon side-kick reveal. Its a feat to turn me off from something that has so much artistic talent oozing out of every frame.

Directors Luis Briceno, David Alapont and producer Jeremy Rochigneux present a must-see animated short. Its premise is simple and presented with brutal reduction. In this film, look development is elevated to story. As if with dialog, extrapolation of style is masterly avoided and so the impact is delivered with full force. Check it out by clicking the image above.

I stumbled upon this dedicated medical simulation software while checking out the open source dynamics engine Bullet. This is cool for a number of reasons… first, its a great example of the current tendency for animation technologies to target specific markets and second, its a wonderful example of the degree to which visualization must take temporal concerns into account. The leap from illustration to animation demands that we tackle an object’s movement as well as its static visual representation - and the quality of these two elements need to be synched with each other. All too often, the visuals are pushed to an extreme and the movements lag behind, resulting in a disconnect within the viewer. Click the heart to visit physigenics.

Ricardo Cabello is Mr. doob, and his work is - contrary to my headline - very harmonic. But since his harmony application is getting so much attention, I thought it fitting to call some well-deserved attention to his other experiments. Click the images to play (more below the fold). I love the bold graphic approach he takes, there’s no excuse for sprites that don’t  like perfect water drops - nor interest in having them do so. Perfect NPR therefore. Offers great background feel for his popular harmony tool.

Oh, and my harmonic drawing is at the bottom.
Read more »

http://www.vimeo.com/8837024
The title of this piece by Takuya Hosogane elicits a context of perspective and visibility. So its already interesting to see such a wild mix of photographic, 3D and graphic works intermingle with such success. A very cool clip that challenges interpretation.

Found this via Peter J. Richardson’s blog zoomy dot net. Check out his voxelization experiments.

CEO Bruce Robet Dell says “Unlimited Detail is basically a 3 dimensional search algorithm.” And the search query is your render resolution. Makes sense. Its a good thing when something reminds you how young and potentially unripe our current processes are, and how important the use of metaphor is in conveying this. Dell compares the poly race with the colors race, where an initial 2 colors were replaced by 4, then 16,  256 then finally 16bit and 32bit color - with the exception that the human vision system can’t perceive many colors beyond 32bit whereas it is much more finely tuned to registering contour and surface details. So whether this technology will grow to be the solution or not, Dell makes a very convincing case for this alternative approach.
Edit: here’s another point cloud approach, apparently an optimized voxel developed by atomontage:

Thoughts?

What are you waiting for? Click the dragon! At yahoo (not my favorite trailer viewing site) there is an option at the bottom to view in high resolution, so if you have the bandwidth, search for it. This is another film I’m very much looking forward to.

Todd Alcott is a must-read reviewer for anyone involved in making film. His crit of Inglorious Basterds (here, here, here and here - oh, and here) will easily cement this opinion as fact. So its particularly rewarding to see him adress the animated classic Bambi.And of course, the crit (which will be continued) is a must for animators, even his first, fairly brief installment.

None of this should work.  And yet, Bambi remains one of the most charming, most beguiling, most arresting movies ever made.

And what the heck, a quote from the Basterds review:

Movies are lies that tell the truth.  There is nothing real about them, and there is even less real about Inglourious Basterds than there is about most movies.

Sachform - makers of hi-quality HDR libraries - has now released their HDR viewer for free. Its a great app for perusing your hdrs and now at an unbeatable price.

In the aftermath of the professional debates concerning Avatar’s qualities as a film, whether its animated or not and how it could have been better, it’s humbling to witness how many people were authentically moved by it. This protest in West Jordanian might be easily written off as a curiosity, which would be a shame. There are true feelings of exploitation in the world and the film has hit a chord. What an achievement!

I’m really looking forward to seeing this film. Here he is, Sylvain Chomet - translated from French to German for the Berlinale, where it premiered. Stylistically, its amazing to see how much tact is used in integrating hand-drawn and 3D animation. The 3D isn’t hidden. Its integrated by finely pushing the frame behaviors and colors to settle into the drawn environment. Need to see this in larger resolution! It leaves me with a slight aftertaste that he’s pushed the flow of line almost too far towards polished sophistication. For me, this becomes evident in the behind-the-curtains scene where the singer struts towards center stage. That movement - as lovely as it was on its own - sticks out. Not to worry - no geek criticism will get in the way of pure enjoyment of what I hope will prove to be a masterpiece! Just…. when do I get to see it?!

Here’s another sculpting application, following in the innovative footsteps of the game-changer zBrush, competitor mudbox and the indy 3Dcoat. (sculpt by onim) What is very impressive is the haptic feel of the interface - this feels much less technical than artistic. Of course - its an early test version, but already very impressive. Kudos to Tomas Pettersson, from Sweden. I suspect we owe a lot to the long, dark winters up north. Check out his other, equally impressive projects and let him know you appreciate his openness!

By the way, I praised the aritistic feel that this interfacce conveys, but there’s no lack of impressive technical implementation in there. Check out the real-time mesh tesselation going on here, and the brush’s topology awareness:

Many of my students are fixated on the film and fx houses. The explosion of animation technologies and creativities has only just begun. Case in point: generative animation techniques and corporate identity. I can’t emphasize enough how much impact this will have. Check out this fantastic corporate logo from okdeluxe. It combines (to varying degrees) experiential marketing, user-generated interactive content, efficient corporate design and provocative, meaningful print visuals with moving imagery perfectly minimized to communicate the brand’s function and intent.

Now think back to those flying logos that broke new grounds back in the late 80s and 90s. How far we have come! And how meaningful this new, flying identity will become.

http://www.vimeo.com/9178331
Check out this film by Kevin Megens, Floris Vos, Arno de Grijs and Andre Bergs. Music and sound design by Alex Debicki. Script by Jan Eduards. Produced by il Luste. More info at the film’s site. Thanks to Keith Lango for the heads up!

Of course it has great energy, fantastic designs and bold cuts - all built about a very simple and effective dramatic concept. What I’d like to highlight, however is the stylistic consistency; they make a world rule that there is no gradient. The characters are hard-edged polygons, the city and props as well. A simple decision seen elsewhere. But what makes this take particularly effective is that the makers stick to their guns. Check out that sunset. Have a look at that camera flash. Harsh, bold angular color fields. And they possess energy.

I often observe this battle in my students - and it is a battle. You make a stylistic decision. Cool. But then there’s this image of what a sunset looks like and instead of plodding through the process of finding a method to communicate that from within your rules, you make an exception. And - in the worst case - the film comes undone. In the best, you lose potential. As Pivot clearly demonstrates. As David O’Reilly continuously demonstrates.

Check out the energy of those bold decisions. Consequence!

Check out this Sundance festival entry by Adrien Merigeau. There’s lots to praise here… this is a beautiful film that tackles more complicated emotions. In short, a young man returns to the forest of his childhood to see his father - and confront his memories. The young man is represented as a wolf, and he is accompanied by two friends, a fox and a cat. They are all very familiar, very tame - and beautifully animated. This animation is broken by filmed sequences of foliage and this jarring stylistic change works quite well… the brutal father is lent understanding (if not sympathy) by the ironic obviousness that he’s an animal. It’s the youths that are unnatural. The photographed reality of natural elements hammers this home, revealing two worlds without judgment that tragically fail to coincide.

Some of my regular visitors will be perplexed by my increasing occupation with things like dinosaurs, bones and long-gone ecosystems. Well, here I reach out to you: Good ol’ 2D aficionado Alberto Mielgo does some nasty cool animations with clever social sidewipes. His colors alone are worth checking out. Camera and all-round design are the icing on top.