NASA has a must-see visualization of the flow currents in our oceans. Must see. As in… go see it. Now. In HD (at the very bottom of the page). Beautiful, moving stuff. via FlowingData.

If you’re not an animation fan, you might wonder what’s going on in this documentary. Well, this is the infamous Sweatbox, the documentary of Disney’s implosion – coming off of a string of ever-greater successes cumulating in Lion King, pressure-cooker internal quarrels and Katzenberg’s departure. Still believing in the inevitability of everything going honky-dory, they gave the filmmakers John-Paul Davidson and Trudie Styler ‘film-whatever-you-want’ rights. The results are… infamous. Most will concentrate on the House of the Mouse and wallow in Schadenfreude. I find the little social reveals just as intriguing. ie. the quote below:

I was a nerd in High School because I drew cartoons. I mean, I was really spat upon.

I love the way Mark Witton adds his artwork to his papers… this time a group of Istiodactylus feeding on a Stegosaurus corpse. It makes them feel like a coffee table book. Speaking of which… looking froward to that finally coming out.

Where’s the image, you ask? It’s in the paper. It wouldn’t feel right to post it here… that’d be like ripping the page out. The context also helps appreciate the amount of work that goes into such a reconstruction – including the plausibility of the scene:

“Istiodactylid skulls – and particularly that of I. latidens – appear to show a similar blend of carnivorous adaptations without any reinforcement for predation, suggesting that the scavenging hypothesis is the most compelling habit for these pterosaurs suggested to date”

It would cost me the rest of my life.

I read this quote from Jason Ur at the Spiegel about analysis of satellite data in searching for promising archaeological sites. Dramatic, eh? Can anyone point me to other cases of dramatic efficiency increases due to digital workflows? Granted, I’m quote-mining. I’m sure there are loads of cool examples out there.

Full Spiegel quote:
Theoretisch seien entsprechende Untersuchungen natürlich auch am Boden möglich, erklärte Jason Ur. “Aber es würde mich vermutlich den Rest meines Lebens kosten, eine Gegend von dieser Größe zu begutachten. Mit Hilfe der Computertechnik bekommen wir schnell eine umfassende Karte.”

Theoretically, it’s possible to do the necessary analysis on the ground, says Jason Ur. “But it would likely cost me the rest of my life to survey an area of this size. Using computer technology, we’re quickly putting together a comprehensive map. (my translation, likely back into the language the quote was made in.)

Here’s the paper, by the way. Buried beneath a huge pile of french fries.

Hot off the presses: I’m proud to announce that I’ll be giving a talk at the Senckenberg International Convention in the afternoon on the 6th of June. Needless to say – I’m psyched. Will have to be at the top of my game to justify the kind of company I’ll be in. Topics revolve about digital assets and experiential learning. More from me later… and there’s lots from Senckenberg: check out the Project Senckenberg facebook pages and pencil the day in on your calenders.

The quantity of top-notch palaeo-art being done nowadays is staggering and 3D is playing an increasing role in the creation of stunning graphics, with the bar being continuously raised. Well, it’s been raised once more… Vlad Konstantinov‘s wandering Plateosaurs is indeed staggering… it feels like Vlad’s entered into a whole new realm with his work. The photographic details seem as orchestrated, the lighting as staged as a diorama from the Museum of Natural History in New York. Fantastic.

Incredible look, the power of hand drawn… looking forward to this one.

The Senckenberg Research Institute created these incredible portraits of our ancestors – wonderful reconstructions and wonderfully photographed. I’d love to learn more about how these were made – anyone with any good links?

Check it out here.
Joeri… Ulven… and the rest of the team… hoT!

Where’s the break-even point? Potentially project-defining decision… is the render time win and quality loss worth the extra time needed to create the lo-poly assets? Methinks not.

The new Microraptor paper is exemplary in many ways… a press package that offers clearcut interpretation, including a pre-recorded high-res video interview with Mark Norell himself, a scheduled live webcast talk (1:30p.m EST or 6:30 +1 Berlin time) with Mark & Mick Ellison – who created a jaw-dropping reconstruction (above left). As if that weren’t enough, Jason Brougham contributed fantastic renderings of the creature in its environment. A great opportunity to compare the best of both worlds – traditional and digital art work of the highest quality. Fantastic!

In case you’re wondering, I’ve been incredibly busy of late. One of the things I’ve been doing is herding massive swarms of lo-poly houses. Well, high-poly too. But here’s a glimpse of things to come… today’s tech test.

Waves of open access, digitizing and outreach are spreading throughout the internet. One needn’t be clairvoyant to see where it’s headed.  Following Emma Sherratt’s comment on Heinrich’s coverage of her work, I found this video presentation by Russell Garwood and feel it deserves a plug.

For me, these fascinating 3D scans raise the issue of what can and should a 3d artist such as myself be creating.

Kenneth Lacovara, a paleontologist at Drexel University is 3D printing bones and putting them together in robotic dinosaur models. Where do I order? gizmag has the story…

I’ve always avoided free hosting services. I always felt more comfortable that the long-term ownership of my thoughts and imagery was more important than free hosting. Years later and I have produced pitifully few thoughts and even less imagery, but alas – I was right. The payback is beginning. Science Illustration hits up a missing-e article about Tumblr’s grab.

Victore Navone slam dunks this animation… so spot-on!

Yes, I should be working. I should be working with one of these!

Edit:
video won’t link directly, go see it here
Or read the splash page here.

Houdini 12 is out. In the video above, the human characters are a bit stiff, but look great! LoL! Okay – those are the script-reading team from SideFX. Congratulations, guys! Impressive optimizations and feature set. Available for smaller budgets via their apprentice program. Hot!

I haven’t watched all of  “Viaje a la tierra del Quebracho” yet, but it’s got me excited anyway. An attractive, hand-animated film is interesting in itself, but this one has been made with the open-source graphics software packages MyPaint and Blender. That’s right, Manuel Quiсones built MyPaint up into an animation software. I certainly hope that Synfig will integrate this – but it doesn’t really matter. The software is out there code and all, so others can continue the development. That’s exciting.

Go watch the film in HD here. and an over-the-shoulder glimpse of the software in action can be had here, including an impromptu cha-cha-cha soundtrack
Almost makes me want to move to Argentina!

Note: they’re looking for sponsorship to get the film finished… tembecoop@gmail.com. The film is open, meaning they will be releasing the film with all its assets, so others will be able to use bits, remix it and see how the film was made, in all its parts.

Flowing Data correctly highlights a revealing infographic by Krisztina Szucs. Films of a certain genre (rant: animation isn’t a genre! end rant) are laid out on a bar according to their RottenTomatoes rating. This point is the source of a lightbeam which illuminates the film’s budget on one end and the profits on the other. An appealing way to present a matrix of information. Like!