Fantastic work by Isaac Botkin from OutsideHollywood on NPR techniques using displaced polygons synched with frame rate. The video does a great job of illustrating the technique. It also tempts me into dappling with this approach again… I’d tested this approach extensively back around 2004, and it was very promising.

A warm thank you to Paul Hartsuyker for the tip! Go here for dedicated Blender artists replicating the technique.

I had the pleasure of meeting Gray Hodgkinson  from the Massey University in New Zealand at fmx/09. In his presentation of student work was – among some other very fine animations – this very interesting pair of TRex animated by Mat Polaschek. The premise was that the close relationship between dinosaurs and birds may well have been evident in their behavior. Gray showed research footage of gulls in his presentation, which helped place this piece into context.

With so much conjecture and research mixing together into how we view dinosaurs, I can’t help but feel that NPR might have something unique to offer. The realism in “Walking with Dinosaur” type formats always gnaws at me as it presents a specific visualization – and behavioral biomechanics – with the authority of photographic ‘realness’. Wouldn’t it be much cooler to see these fascinating beasts in a more artistic visualization?

I’m always amazed when I stumble across some wonderful something that has been off my radar for years and years. Check out this presentation of the 3D drawing application Rhonda and follow the link to author Amit Pitaru‘s presentation from 2003.  Yes, 2003. There are very cool things going on here. The artist draws on the camera plane, creating wire-like line sculptures. The representation of these lines fades beyond the draw-plane, however, and a little point marks an existing line’s intersection with this plane – so you can see where you would be drawing in space. Clever. It’s also refreshing to see how smoothly the workspace flows… simply by rotating space instead of the object. I’ll be watching to see what this team continues to put out.

Side note:
I’ve been very slow on posts here lately. I’ll soon be active once again… the open source release of frapper by the Institute of Animation is around the corner. And a few aQtree nodes will be included.

Have a look at this animation by Lucinda Schreiber.
No… its not a fancy tech-fest. It’s nearly retro in its usage of chalk animation. I find it wonderfully engaging, though – the artist cleverly incorporates the medium’s association with chalkboards and education to underscore the song’s central theme of communication and memory to layer her film. In the beginning, one girl whispers in the ear of another, who whispers in the ear of another (text: tell me all you know) until finally a bird flies from her ear. The bird flies from one chalkboard to another and another, suddenly transformed to an owl.

Throughout the film, transformation combines nicely with the  to win a larger meaning felt through the materiality of chalk; an eye becomes a boat, sails away from its face and finally docks on a new face. Each drawing leaves its trace in smeared chalk and powder which gathers on the chalkboard’s frame, material artifacts very much in keeping with the song’s sentimental occupation with memory.

Watch it, and share your thoughts.