It’s great to see this kind of experiential perception work available and hands-on via internet. Follow the image link.

Latest, greatest cg technology catapults cgActors far over the uncanny valley!!!

Its not often that I post my work work here. Let me know if I should change that… here’s a still from an animation I just finished for Gasag AG, concept by EtwasNeu, art director Kai Brown.

Keith’sexplorations into toonish 3D has been fantastic, with background design and temporal color flashes. Now he explores boil… okay, he calls it squiggles, but it’s boil. And its in keeping with the whole series… namely, fantastic. Head over and read his own words.

Here’s the first blocking pass of two basic characters in pmG – basically just animating feet, hips and head. I kept fairly loyal to the footage, anthropomorphizing the figures just enough to reflect the character design. The end falls apart a bit due to the timing and the physics. What I’m interested in is the communication of status between two crows, in preparation of work visualizing how distant relatives may have behaved… procompsognathus. Stay tuned!

Head over to James Gurney’s Gurney Journey for some great insight into comosition and perception as studied via eye-tracking. It would be great, particularly on an image like the one used, to have tests done in i.e. Japan – as background information receives much more attention there.

Thought I’d share this advance view of a piece I hope to finish for the sauropod challenge at ArtEvolved. If you’re at all interested in paleoart, dinosaurs or evolution you should head over and either take part or subscribe. There are also ample links and previous challenge galleries… very cool.
What fascinates me about sauropods are their progression into these huge beasts. I’m hoping to manage 3 models; thecodontosaurus, plateosaurus and supersaurus. The plateosaurus physiology is based on the wonderful sculptures at the Stuttgart Museum of Natural History. If anyone knowledgeable has any tips or observations, please share… I’m new to paleoart.
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I really like this film by Stephen Irwin. The film consists of drawn sequences on index cards and portrays the unfriendly life experiences of a black dog. The word “progress” in the title implies some sort of goal, but what that goal might be is gratefully omitted. The drawn cards are additionally computer-animated to great effect, causing dis-coherent jitters, blaze-like rips and rapid overlaps that imply flipping of cards. Interestingly, this last effect is much more effective in drawing my gaze than is the use of a searchlight-like highlight used to underscore the most up-to-date calamity in the black dog’s life.
All of these effects are in keeping with the film’s materiality; index cards and black marker. And the music is incredible. Did I mention that? Sorenious Bonk delivers big time in his first animation score.

Enough! Watch the film and visit: http://www.smalltimeinc.com/

Found this thanks to John Martz at Drawn, a blog I visit almost daily. First off, I headline the director Richard rather than the illustrator (art director?) James Jarvis as its an animated film. John says he usually dislikes “3D animation modified to look hand-drawn” but he likes this one. What makes it different? Here’s my attempt at an analysis…
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Autodesk scientist Duncan Brinsmead offers cgTalk members an interesting edge blur method in response to enthusiasm generated by Isaac Botkin’s siggraph poster. While very interesting, methinks there’s a disconnect as to what makes something appear painterly – ie. there is little variation in blur along contour (stroke indications) and I suspect that temporal coherence will be too consistent. But nonetheless… mental ray has acknowledged npr! WooT!