Topics in 3D

Dony Permedi's Animations

2012-01-28T23:30:00.000-05:00

I really wanted to use my first post as an opportunity to share two of my favorite student 3D animation short films. Both are created by Dony Permedi, a graduate of the School of Visual Arts in New York City. I've long admired his two shorts, Kiwi! and Pony. I feel Kiwi! is particularly relevant to our course because it was created with Maya and After Effects. Check it out below:

What I really enjoy about this short is how Permedi focuses most of his efforts on the animation aspect of the short. Because the short is lacking in certain areas, such as texture art, and because the kiwi is a silent character, the film relies heavily on the use of animation to convey certain points. Permedi did a great job of conveying emotions in particular. I always liked the part where he twirls down the rope because he looks so enthusiastic. The last shot of the kiwi's face is a very meaningful scene as well.

In an interview with the blog ISFAT, Permedi brings up a few points that I considered valuable advice for anyone starting out with 3D animation. He mentions how the animation took up his second year in graduate school and that taking the time to create storyboards and an animatic really helped the process of creating the short. He also brings up that he fouced on his strength in animation because he wasn't the best texture or lighting artist. He noted that had he focused too much on perfecting every aspect, he would have wasted too much time. Permedi also took the time to state that the CGTalk forums are a vauable source of advice and information for both fledgling and professional animators.

To learn more about Dony Permedi, check out his website! As for the Pony video I mentioned earlier, check it out below!

Green Lantern: The Animated Series

2012-01-28T21:09:00.004-05:00

I said in class that I want to work on animated programs, specifically for DC Comics, so I felt like my first blog post should pertain to my interest. Recently DC has released their first complete CG program; Green Lantern: The Animated Series. DC has done many 2D animated programs, such as Batman: The Animated Series and (more recently) Young Justice, but for them to jump on the bandwagon of many other production houses and dive into the 3D animation is very interesting. As a fan I was very tentative about this idea. I've seen many 3D TV series, and many have a great deal of fundamental problems; many dealing in the characters movements. I was afraid that DC's streak of well produced animated programs might be broken if they couldn't pull off the 3D very well. Bruce Timm; who is the artist behind Batman: The Animated Series; Justice League; as well as many others; mentioned his trepidations about this endeavor. "For a while, I was actually really resistant of CG because everyone was like ‘Oh, this is so much better and blah blah blah!’ So, I probably had a chip on my shoulder about CG, but then certain movies came out and it’s just like, wow, The Incredibles is amazing! To me, that’s like CG done perfect. And I really enjoyed Tangled. I thought Tangled was really awesome…. But it’s the difference between comic book line art and a painting. It’s not like one is better than the other just because ‘It’s a painting, therefore it’s better!’ Not necessarily. There’s a certain power in the black and white line art that you can’t get in the painting and vice versa." I think this was a very interesting analysis, especially coming from a man who made his name in 2D. What I think is remarkable about the show is that it retains his art style; the powerful jaw lines, the hour-glass bodies. It was iconic for my childhood and the idea that they are able to recreate that in a program like Maya is incredibly exciting for me. Everyone always says the possibilities are endless for these kinds of programs, and this just reaffirms that for me. The pilot episode has already aired and it was well received by fans and critics alike. Right now it has nominations pending for the 39th Annie Awards. Here's a 6 minute preview from the pilot:

The series returns Saturday March 17th at 10 AM on Cartoon Network.

One Two Three Four!

2012-01-27T16:06:00.003-05:00

I would like my first post to be about one of my favorite movies of 2010. I'm talking about Scott Pilgrim vs the World, A movie that my not be in 3d but which graphics are definitely going to change the way movies of this genre are made in the future. What I like about Scott Pilgrim is that the graphics used not only look "cool" but also help tell the story. I think that the fact that this movie combines reality with animation to communicate with the audience is what makes this movie so different and original. I like also that the style of the graphics bring you into this videogamish world. Some of them even suit each of the characters by the style of the font or even the color of the graphics. This movie made me think that we need to plan ahead before we begin our projects. We might need to ask ourselves, which style am i going for and which elements am I going to use in my design to create it in order to achieve the look we are going fore. Here is the trailer for Scott Pilgrim.

Maya featured in Academy Award Nominees

2012-01-26T00:43:00.005-05:00

There are many very impressive special effects being featured in this years Academy Awards. While look at Oscar nominees, I found a slide show that explains which software the movies used to create their special effects. Maya was featured in movies such as Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Harry Potter and even Transformers. The companies use Maya and other Autodesk softwares as the basis and core of their creative ventures. The programs ability to capture the lifelike characteristics such as hair, eyes, and muscles make for very realistic CGI. The story mentions that Harry Potter used MudBox as well for their digital modeling. The lavish art design of Huge and the CGI effects of Maya created an detailed set of 1930's Paris, taking of a year of work to complete and done by Pixonmondo. You really see the variety of how Maya can be used in films. In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, it is being used to create hundreds of animals that need to pass as realistic and in movies like Real Steel it is used to create two robots battling. There is the complete difference in textures, from fur to metal, and the movements which each character makes. Maya is the connecting factor between Transformers and Huge, two movies with very different art styles and audiences.

I definitely wasn't aware that Maya had such a prominent role in the art direction and animation of movies. The fact that it is featured in the best movies of the year makes learning the program that much more exciting.

Address Is Approximate

2011-12-18T23:08:00.004-05:00

Stop motion animation is the oldest form of 3D animation, where manipulating real 3D objects and taking many photographs to create a moving picture. This video does a good job of incorporating 2D (computer screen) with 3D objects. It's the equivalent of using After Effects to incorporate 2D objects with a scene created in Maya. According to the description, "All screen imagery was animated - there are no screen replacements."

The story is also set up very well, and gives you the same feeling in 2 1/2-minutes as if you had just watched a 90-minute Pixar movie.

Some behind the scenes photos are available on The Theory's Facebook Page. It's interesting to see how they set up the shots and "rigged" the scenes, using some fog and long exposures to create the unique look.

Up- Remix

2011-12-18T13:34:00.003-05:00

I found this guy on Youtube who remixes various films, like Dexter, Harry Potter and here I've attached his remix of Up and of Disney, the little videos remix both sound and video, and while the sound kinda sounds the same between all the videos, I thought the sampling of videos is a great example of creative editing and I thought they'd be a fun break from finals.

Christmas Card

2011-12-12T16:36:00.000-05:00

Christmas cards have become very creative and stay up to date on technology. This ecard I got from my Grandma is very cute. It is interactive and allows you to click on things which then are animated. Snowballs become a Snowman. People start to skate with the a click of a mouse and snow starts to fall. I assume the trees in the back are an image but that everything else is animated in a 3d software. The skaters movements were probably key framed. This is an interesting use of 3d. I mainly think of animation or videos but not ecards.

http://ecard.ashland.edu/index.php?ecardYear=2004adm

Christmas Movies Give the Greatest Ideas

2011-12-12T01:29:00.000-05:00

With Christmas only thirteen days away, i reflected back on my favorite Christmas Movie, Home Alone. Watching it reminded me of being a kid again. I remember wanting to be like Kevin McCallister defending my house from the Christmas robbers. While it may be over dramatic for a movie, it is an insanely epic and family-fun film.

There are various funny parts like when he orders a pizza and pulls a prank on the pizza guy by watching a movie about gang wars and firing a gun. I still get a kick out of it and have often thought about pulling that prank throughout my years; however, my parents would yell at me at even trying. "Keep the change you filthy animal."

Many of the stunts or tricks Kevin McCallister tried, I often tried to attempt. For instance, he sleigh rode in his house. As fake as the scene was, I got a lot of good and bad ideas from it. My stairs were positioned right in front of my front door and often would get yelled at by my parents but even better was when I watched Christmas Vacation and wanted to attempt this:

I would buy saucers to try and grease them up like Clark W. Griswald. Unfortunately it never happened. You know why . . . it's a movie!

My parents kept trying to tell me that but I didn't want to believe it because I was a little kid enjoying fun-filled Christmas movies. Who could deny me of wanting to do these activities. They looked fun and entertaining but not possible.

The Passenger

2011-12-11T23:52:00.003-05:00

I found this "cute" video the other day. I call it "cute" because it's fairly entertaining and while it's very dark, I wouldn't call it scary, it's more humorous than that, plus I really like the style they used for it. Even better, I found it on this site, which has a TON of animated short films, all seemingly of really high quality, I'm excited to go through and watch more of them.

Also, during the credits, it briefly shows some of the preproduction sketches and what-not in an advert for the dvd, and that 15 seconds alone is really insane, just to see all the work in Maya/on a sketchpad after having just watched the film.

Brain Control

2011-12-11T23:19:00.002-05:00

When my brain gets a great idea a lot of physical things get in the way when trying to move that idea from within my head to within my computer. First obstacle is my hands. I can't even draw a straight line, how am I supposed to move things around precisely. Then there's my mouse, but I forget that a lot so I end up using a track pad which is even worse. But when I do have my mouse i rarely have a mouse pad so its accuracy depends on the surface that I am on. Basically the chance that an idea isn't greatly effected by these physical obstacles is very small. I just wish my brain could be directly connected to my computer. But I saw something online that makes it look like this might be possible soon. The Emotiv Epoc Neuro Headset is now on sale for 299 right here. I was skeptical until I saw an IGN review.

And a guy playing angry birds with it.

Labrinth - Earthquake ft. Tinie Tempah

2011-12-11T23:08:00.003-05:00

One of my friends showed me this incredibly well done music video that has the artist interacting in a 3D environment the entire time. It's difficult to tell if the wide shots that take place in a warehouse video was shot on a green screen or on a practical set. With most of the close up shots where he's on a different "set" it appears as though he is on an entirely virtual set.

There are very few shots in this videos that are static. Nearly every shot incorporates some form of movement to it. While most of the sets themselves were created in a 3D program, most of the particle elements were likely created using an After Effects-like program with the same tracking data used for create the 3D environment. By using After Effects, you are able to view things quicker and in a more real time environment.

Overall, this video is incredibly well animated. The sets are incredibly realistic and they interaction between the artist and his environment feels very natural.

End of Semester Freak Out

2011-12-11T22:51:00.003-05:00

So my hard drive just crashed with my entire field and 3D project on it so Arturo I hope you have a heart and understand my less than superb blog right now... i'll make up for it and post a better one asap!!!! I'm currently facing 18+ hours of backing up and hope i lose nothing... yes i'm having a HEART ATTACK.

Anyways the things I want to address tomorrow in class are as follows... maybe one of you guys can help me!

1) Arturo showed me this graph that showed all the keyframes in a timeline... now I can't find it! Where is it, any hints for understanding it better so you can edit your keyframes faster?

2) Parenting, my animation is pretty much finished minus some minor stuff I want to clean up in the keyframes so how the heck do I parent it so it actually picks up my piece????

...hopefully tomorrow I'll finish it in class! GAH

Ice Carving

2011-12-11T22:31:00.004-05:00

Nice work Francine, I really like it! You have inspired me to elaborate on my intro which is pretty basic at the moment. I've found that I am far more interested in and excited about text animation than character animation.

A bit off topic but I was downtown at the ice carving competition this weekend and thought they were incredible. Two guys who I watched for a while were carving Kermit the Frog playing a banjo which they said was the hardest design they've ever done in competition. I got to take a look at their drawings which consisted of a pretty basic, overall sketch of the sculpture as well as scaled sketches of each individual piece. This technique seems like it could come in handy when doing 3D computer animation. Breaking a character or object down into simple shapes and sketching those beforehand would likely make the animation process go much quicker than looking at it in a "big picture" type way. For those of you who missed out on the action, here's an ice carving video!

Real-time rendering

2011-12-11T21:33:00.001-05:00

From recent experiences with Maya I've learned that rendering out both individual frames and especially entire sequences with multiple models and light sources takes some time and processing power. Because of this, I've gained a a new respect for the kind of optimization it takes for graphics in today's games to be pumped out in real-time. The linked video is an example of one of today's most graphically intensive PC games running on high-end gaming hardware. It looks incredible compared to our relatively simple chess scenes, yet it renders out much faster. The amount of optimization that goes into making graphics like this run smoothly must require a lot of engineering behind the scenes.

Progress, finally!

2011-12-11T20:39:00.000-05:00

Hey guys guess what!?! I finally managed to animate, render, and create a movie! These are the "opening credits" for my animation. Parts of it are still jumpy and it is by no means perfect but it definitely made me smile to watch it, especially when I added the goofy music (yay for apple loops!). Just some advice in terms of key framing. It's definitely way harder to go back and key frames once you've done several after them. So, I suggest playing your animation in Maya every few key frames to make sure it is going the way you want it. In order to see it play through the camera view you have to have only that screen open, then you can just press play on the little timeline near where you see where each key frame is. It will play slower than normal here but at least you can get a feel for how the camera will move between key frames. Can't wait to see what everyone else has done!

Parenting/Constraints for Pawn & Hand

2011-12-11T18:25:00.003-05:00

So we have one week! Ahh. I am finally getting around to the actual picking-up and moving the pawn, sooooo this could be pretty helpful for those that are also in the same boat. This guy is pretty clear, goes pretty slow and explains what he is doing, and it is pretty much exactly what we need to complete the move. He even does a little jig with his guy. I kind of wish we all had our little people we made at the beginning of the semester. But you win some you lose some, and here is the tutorial. Goodluck this last week of classes!

2011-12-11T17:15:00.002-05:00

hey so i know weve talked about this in a few different classes so i figured id post something. as far as performance the broadcaster gives some details (mpg top speed etc). Cornell has a 3d printer and some cool info i didnt know about 3d printers, they use the same material for each print as a medium. the material changes for printing metals but a lot of the moving parts are plastic and the blueprints/schematics were all done on programs like maya! yeah. my question for this: do they key frame movements? or do they use the driven and set keys similar to our hand rigs? it makes sense because they have to make certain and precise movements.

we should print our chessboard

"Bath Time"

2011-12-11T14:11:00.003-05:00

Ok, so I'm running out of ideas. I've posted about 3D games, 3D rides, 3D tutorials, 3D movies, 3D awards, 3D magazines, 3D tvs, 3D drawings, basically 3D everything. I'm running out of ideas. So this what you're getting from me this week. This a cute little 3D short film I found online. I hope you enjoy.

Image Metrics... this is dope

2011-12-10T14:13:00.004-05:00

Image Metrics - Driven Facial Animation by kamandanu

Image Metrics is a 3D facial animation company that makes programs such as Faceware and Portable You. These programs use a markerless motion capture to film an actor's performance and generate a 3D animation. The process analyzes high definition video and maps it onto a 3D model, including very detailed movements of features like teeth, tongue, lips, and eyes.

I find this technology pretty amazing, and I can't wait till stuff like this becomes more commercial and consumer friendly. Could this potentially make character creation and animation in programs like Maya obsolete?

Why 3D TV won't catch on

2011-12-05T21:56:00.000-05:00

http://www.selectspecs.com/blog/10-reasons-why-3d-tv-sucks-and-why-it-will-never-catch-on-for-now-anyway/

Last week I blogged about 2D trailers for 3D movies and how so many films are coming out in 3D now. I found a blog that agrees with me and lists their reasons logically. I am fascinated by this technology and want to know if this will fade out soon or stay with us for a while. I talked about the health concerns for 3D TV in the last blog and the author of this blog says, "Research also suggests that watching 3D tv is actually bad for your eyes as it forces them to act in an entirely unnatural way which causes the eye strain, headaches and fatigue, this has been labeled convergence-accommodation conflict." This proves my point strongly. Also, the glasses can be very uncomfortable, especially for someone who wears prescription glasses. One thing I was unaware of was the price of the glasses. The author says Panasonic Active Shutter Glasses costs £100. If two pairs of glasses comes with a TV that is good but what about children!?

The TV and glasses are expensive and there is very little 3D content. The better the response from viewers, the more 3D content will be made, which will lower the price of production and TVs, so it won't take much to change people's negative views on costs and accessibility.

Waltz with Bashir

2011-12-05T00:12:00.003-05:00

Does anyone remember this movie? It came out in 2008 and won a bunch of awards in 2009. It started out at Cannes Film Festival, and then went on to get nominated for an Academy Award, and also got the Golden Globe for Best foreign language film. I thought this movie was really cool because it fell under the very uncommon category of animated documentary. It tells the story of writer/director Ari Folman searching his lost memories of the 1982 Lebanon War. Waltz with Bashir is one of the only two animated Israeli films to be relased in theaters since the 60s.

Fun Fact: Despite the huge success of the film, it is officially banned in Lebanon. According to the director it was created with a combination of Flash animation, Classic animation, and 3D animation.