Kansas City, MO | 09/2010

ready steady bang – 30 ways from Ed Barrett on Vimeo.

This game is a blast because the animation is amazing. Simple as that.

[Ready Steady Bang]

For a look at their process, take a look at this CGSociety article posted up awhile back discussing their early Cartoon Network bumpers. They are using the physically accurate Maxwell Render to do things that would be incredibly difficult to do with traditional stop motion but able to achieve using 3D packages and impeccable traditional animation skills. The only thing the computer is really letting them do here is have a more controlled workflow. I would love to see some storyboards, I am sure they have carefully keyframed these beautiful little shorts well before they even start thinking about rendering.

[Meindbender]

[ T2 | claudia.chagüi | chris waner ]

. . . 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 only does this MacBook look happy to be rendering frames, it is happy to be alive at all. Having a steady not-for-profit job is just icing on the cake. Although battered and bruised, this little guy is perfectly functional and can help get the job done.

Just using OS X’s built-in Screen Sharing functionality, some AppleScript tools, and some clever render setup it is easy to get renders offloaded from the main workstation.

Look how happy these frames are!

So, not really a “farm”, but I can guarantee this MacBook puts forward more effort per frame than other nameless render farm nodes. . .

(Peter Moxom wisely points out its closer resemblance to a garden rather than a farm)

[andoru.labs]

Full steam ahead. Dried Up (a film some good friends of mine made) received the Silver Medal in Animation at the Student Academy awards on June 12th in Beverly Hills. Even better the award was presented by Henry Selick.

From Right. Henry Selick, Isaiah Powers, Jeremy Casper.

If you haven’t already make sure to check out the film:

Congratulations to all those involved. Very well deserved!

[dried up] | [isaiah.powers] | [jeremy.casper] | [stuart.bury]

For your consideration:

Next task, Plastic Peephole. . .

[Stu Maschwitz | Plastic Bullet]

QuickTime Version 960×600 (95MB)

iPhone Version

An overview of some of the rigging/technical work I have done. Including:

-Maya Camera rigs
-character rigging
-layout/scene rigging
-camera projection
-dynamics

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments! A lot of this work will be appearing in fully rendered form in upcoming and current projects or on my next reel and some of these assets may soon be available on this site.

Rendered out at a very low sample rate (to avoid hilarious overnight renders) in RenderMan slapped together in Nuke:

Really just doing some tests for some IDs for a fake company, also have some new workflow tools coming up the pipe. . .

EDIT: Just had a Ahh Yes! moment with this one, you will definitely see something in the future involving this idea that should be quite interesting indeed!

720p

Just trying out a technique using the iPhone to capture some handheld camera data and use it in a comp. Even with only 640×480 pixels and an envelope with hand drawn tracker markers it still works very well.

Section of the iPhone camera track:

Watch it on an iPhone

This is a fantastic way to take the “perfect” out of the CG camera without messing with the CG methods of doing it. Randomization does not equal human, the way a human moves while holding a camera, large or small, is very far from random. Should be fairly simple to move data like this from application to application once a good track is put together.

Essentially the poorest, least efficient, laziest man’s version of James Cameron’s SimulCam without any of the benefits, except the human feel.

(Vimeo. . . I just can’t deal with Flash in my life anymore, I will still upload to you for continuity’s sake, but I want iPhone viewable embeds!)

And animators need some frame by frame action damn it!

A few storyboard panels:

And a quick scene layout demo:

More to come very very soon!

[Floating World]

QuickTime Version (26MB)

iPhone Version

Added my Spec board/reel of my work from 2009 to my Projects page.

Many of these projects were group efforts, if you would like to know more about my specific involvement on any project feel free to ask. My contact info is available at the end of the reel and on the right column of this site.

Thanks for watching!

Click image to watch High-Bandwidth version.
Low-Bandwidth Version (iPhone)

The amount of tools they developed, with the amount of people they had working (around 90), in the amount of time they had to do it, is extremely impressive. And another reason why anyone interested in vfx/animation/film should definitely take a very hard look at Nuke.

[fxGuideTV]
[Image Engine]

PSYOP is a fantastic example, not only have they been posting up most of their recent work, they have also been posting up breakdowns of how it was conceived from start to finish. As much as I enjoy the finished work I must say I enjoy these breakdowns and making of’s even more.

EDIT: Original video was removed by PSYOP, here is the complete ad:
>

Great stuff! Check out the rest on their Vimeo page.

[PSYOP - Vimeo]