Podcasts

In the recent few years, there has been a huge increase in popularity within the podcast community. Spending a day going through and downloading quite a number of them through iTunes, I immediately found two great podcasts sources: the Animation Podcast and Spline Cast (featuring Brad Bird). Be sure to check them out for amazing and inspirational interviews there.

'El Dorado': An Amazing Feat of 2D Animation

This movie didn't have a great review when it came out. After this movie, Dreamworks went to create Sinbad which didn't do well in the theatres. Soon after that, Dreamworks decided to stop 2D films and focus on 3D...

As I watched this movie a few days ago, it still looked as great as when I first saw it. Story-wise, it probably could have been longer with a bigger climax towards the end. But technically, it was downright amazing! The flow, movements, acting are top-notch. And yes, the acting was perfect! For animator fans, this movie is highly recommended.

Starcraft II Cinematic Trailer

Blizzard has released their much anticipated Starcraft II cinematic trailer. Again, as in World of Warcraft, they have created another high quality CG work. For those who like to collect game video clips, there's a HD version which can be downloaded from GameTrailers (it's about 110mb in size).

Understanding Lighting (General Lighting)

Cesar Montero has posted links to his tutorials on understanding lighting within Lightwave. This is great for 3D users who's trying to grasp an understanding on how 3D lighting and shading works. Although the tools used are taken from Lightwave, the concepts are universal.

Click here to access to his tutorials.

Digital Paint

This website has great information regarding how light works in the real world, and how we can apply it into the 3D world. It goes deep into its explanations with both text and visuals. Although the author didn't finish it yet, it still is worth checking out. Click here to access to the webpage.

Character and Clothes (General Modeling)

Tony Jung's character modeling technique is one of the best found on the internet. He uses Silo for the tutorial, but his method can be applied to all the other 3D packages. Click here for the tutorial.

For creating clothing details (especially on tight fitting clothes), this tutorial by Angel Nieves will help beginners out. Click here for the tutorial.

'Tofu Thriller Dance'

Amazing animation done by Richard Lico! This was posted in SpinQuad, a Lightwave 3D forum. Below is his explanation of his approach in making this animation:

"To answer some of the questions, it's completely hand keyed. That includes the brains (chunck of tofu) and the zipper. I could have done dynamics on those, but I have more fun animating such things than trying to get a simulation to look right.

The whole thing took around 40 or so hours. I spent about 4-6 hours each Sunday for 7 weeks, except for the last weekend, where I must have done a solid 10. But to be honest, I wasn't paying much attention to the time as I worked. Having too much fun. (but VERY happy to have my Sundays back)

I used a hybrid pose2pose/straight ahead method. I'd pose2pose out a Sunday's worth of work, and bring it to completion that same day, not knowing what moves would be next. I relied on Mr. Jackson for inspiration. I watched a section of the thriller video for how he moved, then put my own spin on the whole thing. Not a very accedemic way of working, but I find it more fufilling.

Michael's dance style is one which purposely defies what seems real to people. Like the moonwalk for example. It's meant to make you think it's an illusion. And animation may not be real, but strives to give a sense of believeability. I had no idea just how difficult it would be to do a complete 360 like that. Trying to make a moonwalk look realistically unreal was a fun challenge.

Another challenge was proportions of the 2 characters. Michael was long and skinny in that video. Tofu, not so much. I had to take a lot of liberties with Michael's poses. Like when he arches his arms over his head... Tofu can't do that. Thus, much improvisation occured."

Click on the above image to view the high-res version of the 'Tofu Thriller Dance". Although there's a YouTube version (link), it doesn't do justice to this amazing animation. It's too small, and the colors are off. To view his dancing rig, click here.

Cool CG Website: Rustboy

While doing some research for our project, I came across Brian Taylor's 'Rustboy' website. In his webpage, he explained the techniques on how he accomplished underwater bubbles, raindrops falling down the window, etc.. Many of them are stuffs that we have experienced with, but never really thought much about it (let alone how they could be done). With Brian's explanation, together with pictures and video clips, I was able to understand them with ease. Plus, Brian's images are just plain beautiful :)

'Shades of Davey Jones'

There is an article from CG Society featuring an interview with ILM's Christophe Hery about how he accomplished the task of blending live action and CG for Disney's movie 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest' with a newly developed rendering technique.

You can find the article at this link.

CG Retrospective 2006

'CG Retrospective 2006' showcased the top 20 events that happened in the CG industry this year. Now that the end of 2006 is almost here, it's nice to look back and see what has happened.

Assassin's Creed Cinematic Trailer

 

Great use of camera work (such as when to use slow motion and when to apply handycam shots)! Everything in there was done with XSI, and the cloth was done with Syflex. As much of an XSI fan boy I am, I felt I could not afford the time to learn XSI at this moment. Learning Maya itself is taking up almost all the free time that I have.

Click here to view the trailer.

'Cubic Tragedy'

'Cubic Tragedy' is a very nice, but very sad animated clip. It reminded me of the days when I first learned Maya in school, as well as the frustration of some early applications that has only 1 undo (just like notepad only has 1 undo). Although users of the earlier CG era would be able pick up the catastrophic incidents, the film can be enjoyed for all. The film was created by MingYuan Chuan, based on the story by Chun Wang Sun. It was produced at the Department of Industrial and Commercial Design of the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, and won the people's choice award at Siggraph 2005.