“Monstre…” again
Posted on February 8, 2010 |
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well well well, it looks like “A monstre in Paris” is still going despite all the problems the production went through and that s a good thing since what I saw at Annecy few years ago was really really cool
Matt Jones on “Monstre à Paris
Related posts:
Monstre à Paris short clip
Un Monstre à Paris
Lenticular hologram
Posted on February 8, 2010 |
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My friend Jay posted has a very fancy car but that’s not what this is about today ;-)
Jay posted a really cool video showing his “Lenticular 3d models” on Youtube.
I am not too sure how he does it exactly but that’s really cool. I wonder how this would work with animation…..
TC1100 vs Ipad
Posted on February 7, 2010 |
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Which one of those:
- supports Adobe Flash out of the box
- allows you to listen to music while doing other tasks
- allows you to run hundeds of professional applications
- has up to 1.2ghz processor
- has more than 50 gb hard drive
- allows you to draw with a real pressure sensitive pen
- doesn’t force you to buy an expensive Apple computer to develop applications
- comes with a free docking bay with keyboard
- costs less than $200 on Ebay
- came out 6 years ago
- is actually a real computer
Fresh and not so fresh ideas
Posted on February 7, 2010 |
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It is amazing how often the same ideas have to keep coming back in movies ….. no I didn’t mention Avatar…. well I just did .. The same ideas keep coming back but where the issue is the most acute is with student short films.
Last year I had an interesting conversation with Cedric Villain from french animation forum “Fousdanim.org“.
As a 2008 Annecy short film award winner, he was invited to participate in the selection of the 2009 Annecy nominees and went through 50 hours of program. After such an experience, he confirmed that the same topics or even stories kept coming back.
The reason I want to talk about this today is because my friend Joost posted a very very cool short film which really stood out aesthetically for me but not so much in term of story. Without further due here “Pivot”
http://www.vimeo.com/9178331Because I have been into design in motion for quite a while, I immediately thought about the Psyop arrows from the Lugz campaign which in 2002 led to the …. the “arrow fashion”…. Every motion design video had to have its variation at that time and even I came up with my own flavour. The Robot on my modeling showreel was supposed to fire them in an explosion of colours ala DeBlob.
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Overdoing it
Posted on February 3, 2010 |
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Avatar’s producer Jon Landau made a very interesting comments some time ago and a lot of people failed to understand what he was talking about.
Here is an extract from the article published in the Australian http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/titanic-director-james-cameron-grabs-films-holy-grail-in-new-film-avatar/story-e6frg8pf-1225766563195
To me, it’s the exact opposite,” Landau says. “Our goal on this movie was not to replace the actor, it was to replace the animator. If you think about it, what a great actor does and what a great animator does are antithetical to one another.
“A great actor withholds information. Dustin Hoffman in All the President’s Men can sit there and do nothing. No animator would ever allow that, they would put in a twitch. So our objective was to preserve Sam Worthington’s performance and have that be what you see in those characters.”
As animator we find it difficult to keep our characters completly still. Because we get paid to animate and because we love to see animated things we feel compelled to add twich, eye darts, shoulder raise. Top Disney animator Mark Hen made a similar comment in one of the Animation Mentor lectures and more recently the good people from the “Speaking of animation”.
The reason I am bringing this topic today is because I found a very cool clip that will illustrate something very similar.
The modelling industry has very specialised professionals called “Body parts models”. Don’t believe me? Hit the link (http://www.bodypartsmodels.com/home.html). Those people get hired for photo-shoots mainly when nice looking hands, arms, shoulders, bums …. are required. They are obviously cheaper than full body models but do the trick for close ups. Now the problem is that very often those “body part models”, similarly to animators, just… just overdo it! Instead of “straight acting” their part, and just display what they are supposed to display, they feel compelled to “hit the pose” and come up with the most unnatural pose that will justify their pay check.
Now I have a very cool clip where you can see one of those models illustrating this perfectly. Pay attention, well, how could you not pay attention to the silly hand gestures of the woman holding the Emmy award on the right hand side. It is so over the top that Ellen DeGeneres can’t help mimicking her towards the end of the clip.
Life drawing week 03
Posted on February 2, 2010 |
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Here are my latest drawings. Long poses. I tried to work on the composition of the first one and ended up restarting from scratch as I didn’t feel it was really needed to include the stage in the composition.
Things are getting better and better I feel. I did some sketches from imagination yesterday and I felt that those life drawing sessions are paying of. I was able to draw a foot without reference and a character with correct proportions.
“TACHAAAN!” short film
Posted on January 28, 2010 |
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The short film finally surfaced. Really, really nice. I think the pacing is a bit off in places but it is still very appealing visually.
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Annecy 2010
Posted on January 27, 2010 |
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Life drawing session 03
Posted on January 26, 2010 |
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Here is the pose we worked on yesterday with Marc again. 1h40 pose. Longer poses are great as they allow for corrections and trying different techniques. I got stuck with the feet so moved on to do some shading in order to define the belly a bit better and try to create some volume.
Contains nudity
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Craig Penn’s showreel
Posted on January 22, 2010 |
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I rarely go to CGTalk but looking for tips on rigging I came across that really cool Animation showreel from Mill/Framestore animator Craig Penn. He has everything that people would recommend to avoid. Fully rendered shots, funky Frutty Loops sounding music, animated titles ;-) . I still think it is great and I must admit that I love his low proxy pig animation on the end titles. Brilliant!
http://www.vimeo.com/7020377Life drawing session 01
Posted on January 21, 2010 |
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Working in Guildford is just as good as London as I found an Art center offering evening life drawing classes. I enrolled to two life drawing classes and 1 watercolour painting class. It has only been a week but this is looking really promising. The teachers in both classes are really good artists … which doesn’t mean they are good teachers but I have some of Glen Vilppu tapes and the Force: Dynamic Life drawing for animators book which are really helpful.
I regularly sketch from memory while commuting on the train but the first drawing proved really overwhelming. I didn’t know where to start!
Hit the link for my drawings. Obviously this post contains nudity
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Faking it
Posted on January 16, 2010 |
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“Fake it until you make it” they say. If you are interested in personal development and want to see some individuals pushing through their comfort zone to become the exact opposite of what they have been until now to eventually participate to a competition where they will have to pretend to be someone else.
From Kickboxer to Ballroom Dancer, Ballet Dancer to Wrestler, Webdesigner to Surfer, the series aired few years ago and is now available online for the UK residents. A lot of fun!
One of the funniest would probably be the one where a country boy fan of Haendel and 17th century french painter Poussin is challenged to become a Graffiti artist in few weeks. Getting ready for his new life he tells his mum: “I will have to pack some working clothes” to which is mum replies “you don’t have working clothes” ;-)
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/faking-it/4od
No matter your background, with the right mentors and a serious boot camp, you can achieve pretty much anything.
Jamie in “3d World” issue 126
Posted on January 16, 2010 |
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3dworld magazine
Following the release of his new book “Realistic Architectural visualization with 3ds max and mental ray”, my friend Jamie Cardoso was asked to write an article about Mental Ray for the january edition of “3d world” (issue 126).
I didn’t get a chance to read it yet but knowing Jamie, this is probably a very thorough article demonstrating the abilities of Mental Ray when used in Visualization.
http://www.3dworldmag.com/page/3dworld?entry=3d_world_126_now_on
Related post:
Mental Ray for visualisation second edition
Gaston the TV series
Posted on January 13, 2010 |
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Gaston
Gaston, my all time favourite comic by Franquin is finally airing on french TV. I wasn’t too excited when I heard they would be using After Effect rigs to give life to the useless intern but Normaal did a really nice job I must admit.
http://www.gastonlagaffe.com/anime/serie/
I would also like to mention an other one of my favourite comics, Leonard. That one has been given the 3d treatment by Ellipsanime and is looking very cool!
Related post:
Gaston Lagaffe by Franquin
Xbox gaming room
Posted on January 10, 2010 |
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Xbox Game Room
I am about to buy a new game console and didn’t know what to choose between the Xbox 360 and the PS3 since my Bluray movie library is increasing dramatically but this is something exciting coming on the Xbox 360!
This looks like a clever move from Microsoft. This looks like the Itune version of Arcade games and this is a great opportunity for the old Arcade developers to bring their old IPs out of the dust and fight against or conquer the illegal emulator scene. Pac Man at the click of a button on your Xbox 360 or what about “Ghost and Goblins” with portable achievements!!!!
http://kotaku.com/5443015/hands+on-with-xbox-360s-arcade+crazy-game-room
http://kotaku.com/5443104/more-hands+on-details-from-xbox-360s-game-room
I have the feeling “The King of Kong” will have a sequel in no time ;-)
Angouleme International Comics festival 2010
Posted on January 10, 2010 |
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Angouleme festival
Well, well, well…. It looks like I might be able to make it to the Angouleme International Comics Festival this year. It is running from the 28th to the 31st of January in the gorgeous town of Angouleme.
Just for a reminder, as well as some NLP and Reframing tips, here is what Bobby Chiu had to say about the festival after visiting it last year:
Bill Presing also posted some pictures on his blog last year:
http://billpresing.blogspot.com/2008/02/destination-france-final-chapter.html
Is anyone else interested in going? I have no clue what kind of accommodation I will organize but I am sure it will be fine.
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Drawing reverse engineering
Posted on January 8, 2010 |
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I just found that great website via Spungella.
RAD SECHRIST is a story board artist at Dreamworks who uses his blog to share some excellent tips on how to reverse engineer life models or finished drawings. I haven’t checked the entire website yet but that sounds amazing!!!
Isn’t that Rad?!
Thanks a lot Rad!
“Alma” finally online
Posted on December 20, 2009 |
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Story is not ground breaking but the shortfilm is a very enjoyable experience.
Related posts:
Alma teaser
FX and Mat
Posted on December 20, 2009 |
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fxandmat
I have spoken about those guys some time ago and browsing the net I realised they have a blog. I am not entirely sure who those guys are but they seem to be linked to the great british production company Nexus. Nexus is also a studio I have been admiring since the days of Satoshi Tomioka and his surreal short films like Justice Runners.
After the great Royal Bank of Canada advert, FX and Mat have created a very nice shortfilm for the next olympic games of 2010 and sharing with us some behind the scenes. Nice! {james I saw you ;-)}
Yep it is possible to animate in Max and rendering has never been an issue:
http://www.vimeo.com/6718548 http://www.vimeo.com/1276483“There is no such thing as a Gruffalo”
Posted on December 20, 2009 |
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Gruffalo
Some of the best European Animation Mentor graduates worked on that great looking Christmas short film done for the BBC by Studio Soi in Germany. The Gruffalo is a very charming child story books created by Julia Donaldson.
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About this blog
From IT to the animation industry. This blog is a collection of thoughts and a display of work related to my journey to becoming an artist in the Animation industry.
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