Source Film Maker

So if you're a gamer like me, chances are you're very familiar with Valve's celebrated "Meet the Team" series. For those not in the know, "Meet the Team" is a series of 3D animated short films and biographies built around the characters of the 2006 game TF2.

What's truly incredible about this series is that all of the films are made in the games actual engine, meaning that what we're seeing are the actual characters as they appear in game. Now while this isn't necessarily rare for game developers to do, what IS rare is that Valve actually released that animation software to the general public and then allowing them to do essentially whatever they please with the games in game elements.

While I haven't played around with it too much myself, it seems to be a great tool for learning the very basics of 3D animation. And of course if you're already pretty handy with 3D animation, you can always use it to create content that you wouldn't have made otherwise for fear of wasting to much time on a project that comes across as completely ludicrous.

Silly I know, but in just trying your hand at making something akin to the video above I feel that you can truly learn a lot about the basics, physics, and properties that are needed to seriously pursue a career in animation.

Anyway if you've ever wanted to dip your toes into 3D animation I think that the Source Filmmaker would be a tool well worth your time and effort, and of course because the program is open source there are a wealth of tutorials available on YouTube. If you enjoyed the above film's I'd suggest going on YouTube and searching "SFM FILMS" some people have used these models to create truly gripping films, but then again for every piece of serious content there about a million videos of just unfiltered insanity.

Majora's Mask

As many of you probably know, I'm a massive fan of Nintendo's Legend of Zelda series. This past Friday, Nintendo released a remastered version of the game for its mobile 3DS platform 15 years after the original was released. I've been playing it pretty much non-stop all week and while I've been going through it I was really interested in how, 15 years ago, the base game was created. For the time, this was a really complex game, not to mention having only been made start-to-finish in a year.

Majora's Mask was Nintendo's second game using 3D graphics and they did use a lot of the character models from Ocarina of Time in order to meet their one year deadline. The remaster has added a host of new features and they're just as impressive as the original game.

When people talk about 3D Graphics and Animation, and the evolution of those, video games are frequently overlooked. I definitely recommend at taking a look at the original game if you haven't before, and if you have--the 3DS version is a new improvement to an old classic.

IC Grad Graphics Genius

My first semester in Ithaca was Spring 2013. During this semester on Ithaca College Television, the Station Manager was none other than George Ahlmeyer. Under George's time as Station Manager, he helped redesign the look of many ICTV shows with his extensive knowledge of After Affects along with several other programs. His work really revamped the look of not just the shows of ICTV but also ICTV itself as he created most of the graphics seen during commercial breaks on ICTV. This video posted below is the sizzle real from his website http://georgeahlmeyer.com .


George Ahlmeyer 2013 Reel from George Ahlmeyer on Vimeo.

Dubstep Guns

This is another example of something really cool that is more than doable using after effects. The only real problem with recreating this is making the 3D elements which would probably need to be done in Maya or Processing. Other than that it's possible for us to shoot the necessary footage and and combine that and 3D graphics in after effects. I really love this 80's neon look that these "lasers" have, It's a fantastic stylistic choice and is very underutilized in most media. It is sort of making a comeback though especially thanks to people like this who are doing some very high quality independent work.

After writing the top part here I did a little more digging and found this. Just in case anyone was curious about how these guys actually did it. I thought this was a very interesting and informative video on how they actually crated the shots, 3D elements, and motion in the video.

Never.no and Vizrt to be partners

Over the past two years and especially during the current presidential race there has been a growing trend of integrating social media into live television. Viewers can tweet everything from questions for a political debate to comments about a live broadcast with the chance of it showing up on television screens across the nation. I'm sure a few of you, like myself have wondered exactly how this is done. As it turns out the system is much more complex than I first thought. Apparently television channels like the BBC and NBC out source this function to a variety of companies offering various options for creating an interactive environment for viewers by integrating  social media and mobile phone applications with live television. On top of the company who develops the technology to make this happen an entirely separate group of companies are hired to design the real time 3-D graphics you see on the screen. According to braodcastnewsroom.com two of the leading companies on both ends of this new technology have just announced a partnership that will not only be lucrative for them, but also has potential to make getting access to this technology a lot easier for clients. The website quotes the CEO of never.no (one of the companies involved in the partnership) as saying "Vizrt is the world leader in real-time 3D graphics, and never.no is the world leader in social TV solutions. Together we bring to the market an unmatched end-to-end solution to connect the audience directly to the action on TV." So, will we be seeing more and more social media on our television screens over the next couple of years? My guess it yes. Let's at least hope they come up with some good looking graphics to go with it!