Honky dory TAB

Tried to animate the C.A.T. rig that follows in Autodesks 3DS MAX 2011.

It wasn't as easy as I thought. Its a brand new system and as with everything else new, its a bit wonky at first.

I had big troubles with the hand following the barrel of the shotgun as "Link constraint" diden't work, so I hand-animated it. (also the gun is way too big for the arms, so the swivel angle of the arms flipps) The annoying thing is that C.A.T. puts a key on every link/bone made down the hierarchy, making it a bit unstable after a while. Fun test though

Labels: 3d, animation, own work

Ohh shiny future...

Labels: 3d, commercials, design

Story
As long as anyone can remember, the coming of The Undertaker has meant the coming of death. Until one day the grim promise fails and tension builds as the God fearing townsfolk of Backwater wait for someone to die

See it here:


I love the style! Its a great mix between "Borderlands" and "The Amazing Screw On Head" Beatifully animated and executed.

Best of luck in the future guys!

Labels: 3d, animation

Im not a huge fan of the 3D Zemeckis, though I really am digging the craftmanship and tech that goes into the movies. The CG looks incredibly good but the characters are lacking. Boardering on "uncanny vally" alot. His "preformance capture" is really quite incredible (despite still looking overacted and the "dead-face" syndrome) and a huge step over regular motion capture, but they have yet to make me really love the characters portrayed in his movies. I am however curious about his new movie..

Walt Disney Pictures has released the first movie poster for the Robert Zemeckis’ produced adaptation of Berkley Breathed’s children’s book Mars Needs Moms. The performance capture film is being directed by The Prince of Egypt/The Time Machine helmer Simon Wells and stars Seth Green, Joan Cusack and Dan Fogler.

Plot:
A young boy named Milo gains a deeper appreciation for his mom after Martians come to Earth to take her away.

This poster reminds me of something though....

Labels: 3d, animation, animation news, movie news, Poster

This is neat. It's a "Fake Gameplay Footage" video that was used to pitch a now-canceled project at Ubisoft Montpelier. Fanny Vergne, one of the two 3D environment artists who worked on this video, released it and a whole bunch of renders and other cool stuff on her personal website.

The game, which was to be a third-person shooter, was to be set in London in the year 2032. Somehow, society and machines were co-existing but, clearly, something would have gone awry with that.

The video is pretty, that's for sure. I dug the bit where he takes control of the giant robot and I'm sure that could be a fun thing to do in a game though I'm not so sure how it would really differ from jumping on the back of any animal in a game. And now we'll never know...

Labels: 3d, game news

It's been a long couple of years now since we first heard that Eric Powell's great monster/mobster comic THE GOON was becoming a feature film, courtesy of producer David Fincher (FIGHT CLUB, etc.) and FX company Blur Studios. So it's nice to see the project is still slowly coming to computer-rendered life. The Dark Horse comic revolves around a creature-punching mob enforcer and his mouthy buddy, and their misadventures in a bizarre monster-filled town.

Labels: 3d, movie news, Trailer

Toy Story 3 is released in US cinemas this weekend and I thought now would be the best time to show you some of the images that were drawn well before the movie was put into it’s now digital state. You’ll notice that some of the images have been signed and dated around December 2008 so you can really see how long ago they are drawn. Just think what’s being created in Pixar Animation Studios right now for two years time!




See more here:
http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2010/06/15/exclusive-concept-art-from-toy-story-3-part-1/

Labels: 3d, design, Drawing

So, Im curently working on a character... (Well, started tonight =D)

If he turns out really good I might make a small movie out of it. Im kinda done blocking him out for now. Needs hands and feet. I'm not to worried about the details such as edgeloops and anatomy as that will come later. Im also intentionally avoiding Modeling tools as Zbrush and Mudbox as I want to get into the nitty-gritty of edges and vertexes in Max

I intend to rig, skin and pose him as well as all the other parts of making a finished character (texturing, shading, lighting and maybe some post-production)

Check him out..



Also ran a fast skin SSS material on "him"

Labels: 3d, own work

Skhizein (Jérémy Clapin,2008) from Bertie on Vimeo.

Plot:
Having been struck by a 150-ton meteorite, Henry has to adapt to living precisely ninety-one centimeters from himself.

Beautifully done animation from france this time. Great concept,gorgeous and compelling visuals. And a great story about "distance" yourself

Labels: 3d, Shorts

For The Spine, director and scriptwriter Chris Landreth joins forces again with producers Steve Hoban (Copperheart Animation), Mark Smith (Copperheart Animation) and Marcy Page (National Film Board of Canada), who had collaborated with him to make Ryan (2004) – Oscar winner for best animated short. Entirely computer animated, The Spine is a bold film whose dazzling artistic style pushes the limits of animated film. The Spine uses uniquely bizarre but strangely believable imagery, to tell the story of an ordinary married couple whose lives are in turn tragic, absurd and beautiful. The Spine was produced by the National Film Board of Canada in association with Copperheart Animation and C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, with the creative participation of Autodesk Canada CO. and Seneca College School of Communication Arts.

Labels: 3d, animation, movie news, Shorts

The trailer for the newest instalment after the amazing Tron movie released by Disney in 1982 is now finaly here!. The movie did fenomenal at the box office`s in 82 as it took movie-goers into the very heart of computers as we followed lovable arcade game champion and dorky self proclaimed ubernerd Kevin Flynn (Played by Jeff Bridges) inside the electric gladiator ring as he was tricked by the movie villian "Master Control Program". He now must battle his way to find a way out again. The movie also helped a rather small effects company called "ILM" to be the most profitable CG Companys in the world, toutching every movie that comes out of America and England as it was the first movie ever too have entire 3d generated shots in a feature movie, putting it firmely in the books about CG history.


The trail has been cold after small-talk in Hollywood about a reboot or prequel but atlas Disney said "Screw it" and greenlight a fully fledged sequel with most of the cast from the first one reappering and hiring ILM once again to create some mind boggeling effects and once again capture the heart of millions of nerds. Lets just hope it dosent end up as Wargames 2 did.. direct to dvd with no charm or fun

The company produced this "teaser" a year ago and it was first show to a unsuspecting crowd at Comicon, and is now presented in HD as the official trailer for the movie which is due in summer 2010.


Plot:
Sam Flynn, the tech-savvy 27-year-old son of Kevin Flynn, looks into his father's disappearance and finds himself pulled into the same world of fierce programs and gladiatorial games where his father has been living for 25 years. Along with Kevin's loyal confidant, father and son embark on a life-and-death journey across a visually-stunning cyber universe that has become far more advanced and exceedingly dangerous.



The score for this movie is going to be done by none other then Daft Punk!

Que Nerdgazm...!

The trailer/teaser looks incredible and is 100% (last years) CG all exept jeff bridges scene offcourse and as almost everything ILM produces its mindblowingly awesome! Im going to be in Tron rush for a year now at least.

Fun fact: Back in the realy 80`s, it was so resource-demaning to work with 3d at that time, that the animators and modelers had to work in wireframe and moving the objects by punching in the X,Y and Z numbers to then wait a couple of hours just to see the shaded view inside the program. THEN it had to be renderd out

Labels: 3d, movie news, Trailer

Hey`al.. Started some mudboxing in my sparetime now. Been doing tutorials today and this is what I got after a couple of hours. Nothing too fancy but have to start somewhere right?

Labels: 3d, own work

It has always irritated us that there are no green screen and VFX plates around the internet you can just download and play with -- everything is owned by some production. So we decided to donate some of the interesting plates from Visual Effects For Directors to the community, so you can download them and practice keying, matchmoving, compositing, tracking, and much more! - www.hollywoodcamerawork.us

Labels: 3d, commercials, other

Sony Pictures has released the first full trailer for 2012, the next big disaster film from Roland Emmerich, the director of Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and Godzilla.

To be honest, I had kinda gotten tired of the disaster movie genre as a whole, and wasn’t really looking forward to 2012 at all. But judging from this trailer, 2012 looks like it could be the first fun disaster film we’ve seen in a long while. Some of the effects-infused scenes just look incredible. I don’t think I’ve been this excited about seeing a disaster film since first witnessing the alien ship blow up the White House in the Independence Day. Bigger IS better!



CG destruction galore of epic proportions!

Labels: 3d, movie news, Trailer

Finally some video from the developers of ICO and Shadow of the colossus, Team Ico about their newest game: TRICO (placeholder-name)



Two of my favorite games of all time and they are coming out with a new one soon! At least some more info. Not much have been shown since the reveal of a picture a couple of months ago. And this trailer is breathtaking! Its apparently "leaked" footage of the current game. Leaked or PR stunt? Anyhoo the games looks amazing and get this. The footage is apparently over a year old! Thats right. Old footage that are kicking current next gen games into oblivion!!

Team ICO really pushed the capabillitys with the PS2 with games as big and grand as Ico and Shadow of the collosus. They werent highrez or had any fancy shaders/displacement/paralex mapping as the newest games have but they do have something that all other games are stuggeling with. Namely atmosphere. On top of that they have top notch animation and an unpresidented sense of scale unmatched even by todays standards. It also features a beutifull errie setting as you can never take things for granted. They are the JJ abrahams of the game industry. And by that I am talking about the "less is more" and "keep it simple stupid" approaches.


These games are my favorites because they dont really see obstacles in the game philosophy but new ways of using old techniques and they also challenge the gamers with some quite tough moral choices. Truly what games are about. Innovation. I also love these games because of the superb animation that are on display here. Timing, weight and the characters are well thought out and impressive to behold.

Ile stop now before I accidently write 500 pages of how I think every family should have a playstation 2 with a copy of this game, and each child would be required to play it once they had come of age.(In addition, sports franchises would be limited to releasing one game every 4 years!)

Looking forward to E3 for more candy from this game!

(PS: Dragonbaby dies)

Labels: 3d, animation, games, Trailer

Lately I have been getting into Vray as a proprietary render for my 3d work and so far its been a dream to work with. Much thanks to http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/VRayHelp150beta/ There are some things that Mental ray does better but Vray is faster and more correct at times plus its way more intuitive to work with. Atleast it feels like that. These are some minor tests.

Test of displacement map on sphere. Trying to emulate grass:


This is a speedmood I gave my students. they where to make a classic guitar within 2 hours. Seeing how much fun they hade with the assigment I decided to try it myself. This was done in about one hour + render time:



Test of caustics which also went pretty smooth:



This model is not made by me. I only did the lighting and materials. Vraytml (vray material is suprisingly strong and fast)

href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb6P4kLqac8GPo_f30Mwy3b6UB7C-lfmOYaDtUw-McFfY0DtSBHGbUBijmm6QJxeLtt9SLMtEbYuXPB0BZcZHJYuGm5OJ2t-qhv1w9Zc2Ky8QHdTe3tLFBFjdN3yJIT2Gel8N5/s1600-h/car_studio_render_10_Vray.jpg">

Labels: 3d, own work

Jesus christ... I feel sad for the ILM renderfarms

At ShoWest, Michael Bay premiered a scene from Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen which featured Shia LaBeouf having a heart to heart with Bumblebee in his parent`s garage about moving off to college while Megan Fox changes into a dress outside. This is of course followed by a new kick ass montage of clips from the film you`ll notice the first real look at Devastator). Well guess what? The two and a half minute video package is now online thanks to MichaelBay.com
- Slashfilm.com

Check it out here:


Also adding some high-res photos:










While Im not fan of the "emote/over the top charismatic stereo-typical" robots, "Shia le chitchat" or "Megan fucxy"... I must say that the CGI, action and soundwork both looks and sounds out of this world!

Summer cant come fast enough!

Labels: 3d, animation, movie news, Trailer

Now I know why America is having such a hard time fighting the war in Iraq. They aren’t using guinea pigs as soldiers!

Disney’s "G-Force",a film about a group of highly intelligent guinea pigs trained by a covert government program in the art of espionage, doesn’t come out until July 24, 2009. But we’ve got the teaser for it in all its furry goodness, thanks to the official Disney site. The film is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.



G-Force has a pretty solid cast of actors attached to it, with the likes of Sam Rockwell, Penelope Cruz, Tracey Morgan, Kelli Garner, Bill Nighy, Steve Buscemi and dare I say it, Nicolas Cage. The main problem I have with it, and many other animated films, is the tendency to make characters racial stereotypes. Penelope Cruz is “Agent Juarez?” Why didn’t they just name Tracey Morgan’s character “Agent, I Play Basketball Well” and have the guinea pig wear a skullcap and gold chains? Yay perpetuating of ignorance!

Labels: 3d, animation, movie news

Usavich is a series of animated short films being produced for MTV Japan by Kanaban Graphics since 2006. It's about an odd couple of rabbits being imprisoned in an russian prison. While the first season shows the absurd everyday occurances of the two rabbits' prison life, the second season tells the adventures of their escape and life on the run.

First season:
http://www.feinheit.ch/blog/2007/11/29/mtv-japan-prison-rabbit-cartoon-episode-1-15/

Labels: 3d, animation news, Shorts

Although these are some of the better facial tests Ive seen in, its still weird. Pendulum Studios have just opened their facial animation division, "Alter Ego" that will provide facial support for games to movies.

Labels: 3d, Shorts