. . . and has started to become more and more an identity for this site. I present to you cubeBot, and glimpse at where this little guy is headed.

cubeBot character sheet

cubeBot render tests.

And a simple look at his natural habitat:

cubeBot environment test (13MB .mov)

A big collection of cubes driven by some simple MEL expressions.

A lot more coming up in regards to this project. (Including but not limited to) Original score by Ekahwerdna, crowd and character animation, and some sexy sexy UI work.

[andoru.projects]

Not being one to do things half-assed I present to you:

light table!

A glorious new web app for the iPad (maybe the iPhone if you’re in the flip-book mood) that displays an incredible white background image as far as the eyes can see. Just visit the above link (or type “andrewandoru.com/lt”) and add this to your home screen:

Visit the site using the home screen icon and you will see this:

Find a nice chip clip, and you pretty much have yourself one of these:

Animate!

[andoru.labs]

Probably the most valuable couple of megabytes on this site, my storyboard templates have continuously been one of the top sources of traffic. For me, storyboarding is simultaneously the most rewarding and frustrating part of the film making process. It is very rare that a scripted scene survives the storyboarding step unscathed. While you really don’t need anything special to produce a great sequence of storyboard panels (choices range from the lowly diner napkin to the highest end Wacom Cintiq), we live in a world where people offer up all shorts of wonderful options and tools free of charge, and you would be silly not to take a look at them. I never found anything I really liked to draw my panels on so I put together some of my own a little while back.

Recently I updated them just a bit and while I tend to do most of by story boarding on one of these beauties. . .

. . . I also put together some .psd versions for people that like to work digitally from start to finish. Working in Photoshop also gives you the ability to mask off panels and shuffle things around easily.

You can checkout some examples of these templates in use on my current Floating World project page.

Demo:

QuickTime Version 1280×800 (26MB)

iPhone Version (8MB)

Download: andoru.LABS 2010 Storyboard Templates (1.54MB .zip)

Log:
[feel free to use and distribute these in accordance to the CC license presented at the bottom of this site]
-2010.8.06 – Updated for 2010 and simplified
-2010.8.06 – Added .PSD templates for digital storyboarding

Like I already mentioned, there are many ways to create a storyboard. Being arguably the most important part of the film-making process I recommend doing it with some class. . .

If there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support. Also, these templates are free but feel free to donate if you find them useful.

[andoru.labs]

Brilliant work by Baptiste Rogron, Gaëlle Thierry, Rony Hotin, Maïlys Vallade, Jérémie Moreau, and David François.

As always make sure to browse the blogs to see some freaking amazing concept and making of stuff:

An amazing bit of animation, beautiful high contrast, grainy imagery, great music and sound, and great idea really all coming together. Bravisimo!

[Gobelins]

When I saw the trailers I shed a tear of joy:

When I got to play the demo, tears of joy flew from my face. I would have been incredibly happy just to see still images that looked this fantastic, but when they have been made to be interactive, and when it has been done this well, something magical occurs. The artwork is gorgeous and plucking at my heart strings with every new scene, the characters, the environments, aren’t just pretty, they are clever in many senses as well. The puzzles are put together in a way that actually make you do some thinking, and make you smile when you solve them. The animation is top notch as well, there are a lot of nice little touches throughout the demo with little bits of interaction that are fantastic.

I have never played a game that was just so gorgeous that I played through a demo many times just to checkout the artwork some more. Bravo!!!!

One more thing to just further my obsession with little robots, I welcome more! . .

[Machinarium.net]

Check out and vote for Maintaining Bohemia written by Harold Sipe and the one and only Buster Moody. It is currently part of a Zuda Comics March competition. Which ever one wins will actually be paid to create a monthly series.

I don’t know about you chumpsters, but I don’t think there is much of a contest here. Not only is this little gem much better written than others, B-moods sense of sequencing and drawing style fits it perfectly with Harold’s writing. It really goes beyond feeling like something one guy wrote and another guy did the drawings for. It just works so well as a complete idea, making it easy for all (even for people obsessed with drawing or writing individually) to enjoy.

[Maintaining Bohemia] via [BusterMoody]

(a film by Charles-André LEFEBVRE, Manuel TANON-TCHI, Louis TARDIVIER, Sébastien VOVAU, and Emmanuelle WALKER.)

2d, 3d, incredible animation, color, environment, characters, technique, brings a tear to my eye: