La Noria

I'm not sure if you have seen this yet, but if you haven't I highly recommend that you check this out. This film, La Noria, which is currently in the works is an animated horror film in the animation style of 3D CG, its very creepy looking but beautifully animated. It's not being done by a particular animation company which is pretty cool in my opinion. It is the director, Carlos', passion project that he is working on with animators from all around the globe. They do sometimes work together in person, most of the work and meetings are help via Skype. While this film is still a bit of a ways away it is definitely something to keep your eye on.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/la-noria-film#/

3D Shorts

One Day, I'd really like to make a 3D Short. Wether I have a great story or not, one day, i want to be a part of the creation of something like the video's below:
Some of them are funnier than others, but, I think any of them would have been a wonderful learning experience to gain an Understanding of Animation Workflow, Group Dynamics, and General Roles for creating Animated Stories.

A drive through the uncanny valley.

So as I'm sure most of you are aware, there exists a pocket in the creation of cg elements known as the uncanny valley. The best way to describe it is through pictures so take a look at the image below and try to remember what your initial sensory response was.

It's kinda weird isn't it? It's hard to put your finger on what exactly it is about this picture that sets your senses screaming, but whatever it is it's certainly doing a good job. I'm sure others have posted about the uncanny valley before, but seeing as the new fast and furious movie had to have a CG Paul Walker inserted into many of the final film's shots I thought it might be worth it to have a gander at what the modern approach to avoiding the uncanny valley is.
Below are a few shots featuring the Faux Walker:

Fast and Furious 7 was very nearly finished with production before Paul Walker passed away. The studio had already invested too much money in the film so they hired Weta workshop to create a photorealistic CGI duplicate of Paul and use that instead of cutting major scenes. It's a little unsettling knowing that the character you're looking at is not only fake, but also modeled after someone who tragically died during filming.

You can find all of the shots with the Faux Walker in this gallery: http://imgur.com/a/EGj5r also the variety article they linked is a really interesting read if you're at all into VFX. Many of the shots look pretty true to life but there are certainly a few in there that set my uncanny senses off. Have a look and see what you think!

Le Petit Prince

The full length French & English trailers for the Le Petit Prince film were finally released the other day. Considering this is one of my favorite books as well as the book that made me fall in love with the French language, I'm extremely excited.

One of the most interesting and exciting parts of the film is the mixed mediums used to create it. There is a wraparound story of a little girl who is introduced to Le Petit Prince, and this "real world" is created with CG Animation. However, what makes this film truly special, is all the scenes inside the book are stop motion, combining cut paper techniques and wooden dolls.

Not to mention, the French voice actor for Le Petit Prince is exactly the one I imagined.

For those who don't know the story/don't speak French/want to know what's going on, here's the English version as well.

Meet the world's first fully CG animated television show: ReBoot

This is ReBoot. It's a show that ran from 1994 to 2001, and was the first fully computer animated television show. 

Due to the new technology required, production actually began in 1991, 3 years before any of the episodes aired! The show is jam packed with computer jokes and references. It takes place within a computer, and the mysterious "user" is often mentioned. Many of the characters have names that are references, such as "Dot Matrix", "Enzo", and "Phong". 

For being such an early example of computer animation, the show looks  decent. The characters move fairly fluidly and the backgrounds have a lot of life to them. 

One of the characters is literally the number 8. Your guess is as good as mine here. 

A fly through showing the neat backgrounds. Something hard to do with 2D, but easy with 3D!

Overall, the show hasn't aged as well as it could have, but I feel it's still worth a look. Here's an example of an episode. 

In it, a chaotic computer virus takes control of the mainframe's paint terminal. She uses it to wreak havoc on everyone and everything. Oh, and she has no face, just a bunch of masks. I picked this episode, as it shows off how little things like textures make a huge difference. 

Rumor has it that a re-boot of ReBoot might be in the works! How will the characters and world look when created in the crazy powerful engines we have today? I would love to see!

The LEGO Movie

I have heard so many people recently talking about The LEGO Movie. So many people even college students are excited to go an see the movies. Rottentomatos which is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films, widely known as a film review aggregator, gave The LEGO Movie a 97% saying "Boasting beautiful animation, a charming voice cast, laugh-a-minute gags, and a surprisingly thoughtful story, The Lego Movie is colorful fun for all ages." Here is the trailer for the movie.

The lego movie is mostly made for CG animation but there is some stop motion as well. The thing that I am really impressed with is how realistic the lego pieces look. The pieces have the seams just like they would if they were made as toys. The aim was to also make it look like the toys had been used or played with outside/before the movie. There is one character that really stands out in that spectrum, The Charlie Day, who is an eighties-era spaceman, looks like he’s been well-loved, stepped on and chewed on.

After reading from different articles and hearing things from friends I will most likely be seeing this movie in the near future. Who's in?

3D's Biggest Advancements Are Looking Very 2D

One of the neatest tricks in art is something called Forced Perspective, which can make things look 3 dimensional, even though they are only 2 dimensional drawings. Things like the picture below:

 For more information on drawings and paintings like this, talk to Arturo, he's done some impressive stuff with it, some even involving toilet paper!

So, you can make 2D art look 3D, that's pretty impressive! But what about 3D art? Things like animation, can you make those look 2D? Well, in a way, you can!

Disney's short Paperman used a style of CG that was reminiscent of a painting or ink drawing. The short went on to win both an Annie and an Oscar, and is a visual treat. But as interesting as the short itself is, the way it was made is in my opinion, definitely worth a watch:

Recently, Pixar has released info on it's new artist friendly rendering system that captures the look of traditional watercolor. The new technique involves painting over some of the CG frames, and even works on the studio's previous animated works.

Screenshots from "Up" with the new system

The painted style looks interesting in motion, however, footage of the system in action is not on youtube, and I cannot upload it. I cannot stress how much it's really worth seeing, and can be seen easily be following this link

Keep in mind, Pixar's new system only effects rendering, not the animation itself. The animation is already done when the system is utilized, at least so for. This is much more an achievement in rendering than it is animation, but it brings new possibilities to the final look and feel of future CG animated features. I have no doubt we will be seeing this new system in the future, likely in an animated short. Keep an eye out for it!

The Lorax

I loved Dr. Seuss growing up, so I was pretty excited when I found out that "The Lorax" was being turned into a film. When I first saw the trailer for the first time, I was even more excited, and thought that the animation looked so honest to the world that Dr. Seuss created.

As I was searching for what to write about this week, I found an article in Animation Magazine about making the movie. The producer of the film, Chris Meledanari, talks about the 2 year process that went into the animation process and how they created the world in The Lorax. He compares this animation process to others that the studio made in the past, and how this project was so different from those ones.