The Dark Knight : Movie Review

Great movie guys! If you haven't gone yet, go see it soon. I recommend seeing it IMAX if its offered in your area. Below is a quick featurette about the IMAX processes used in the film. Its not easy, the camera is heavier, cumbersome and there's quite a bit of additional set up,  but in the end, YOU (the audience), get exciting, one of a kind action sequences. 

Overall, the acting was great, great timing and build up, nice twists throughout and its got some some pretty awesome stunt/action sequences, (my favorite part). I think the hand to hand combat could've been better, but that's because I'm into that stuff. Does anyone else notice the drastic voice change when Bruce changes to Batman? Sounds like the suit is choking him. 

As far as Heath Ledger goes...bravo, well done! His portrayal of Joker is dark, unpredictable, and creepy. His portrayal is actually a lot tougher than previous Jokers, the disappearing pencil trick was nice right? Go see the film everyone. 

If you are visual effects student, check out the documentary below.

Enjoy!

Glen Keane on "Tarzan"

In my animation classes this week, we watched a short documentary of Glen Keane commenting on the animation of Tarzan. Glen was the supervising animator of Tarzan, and in this documentary describes the animation process, shares preliminary exploratory drawings, and talks about achieving emotion in the character. 

I've seen this many times, and every time I watch it, I learn something new. I think its about time to post it here on my blog for future personal reference and future inspiration. As an animation instructor, I hope it helps make you better.  

Take a few moments to learn from a master animator...Enjoy!

Hellboy 2 : Golden Army - Fight Scene

"Hellboy 2" premiered last week. Guillermo's fight and action sequences are among the best. He shows good timing and angles that create some pretty dynamic action on film. 

Check out the Hellboy Production page and find the clips on the lower right. Scroll down to find the link called "Red Fights Nuada". Sorry it can't be a direct link, the page is one big flash file. 

"Big Buck Bunny": Blender Animation

Premiering on the internet this week is "Big Buck Bunny". The movie is special because it was modeled, rigged and animated in a free open source 3D program called Blender. This animation really shows off what the application can do.

The environments display beautiful color and lighting and texturing, we see great examples of fur, water, FX animation, rigging and smooth animation. The animators were also able to create some pretty funny emotions in the characters. It has a great story that will keep you entertained. 

The project is entirely Open Source, if you would like to learn more check out bigbuckbunny.org. You can learn more about the project, browse through galleries, download the files (oh yes, you can actually download the actual models and play with them), and its also where you can also purchase the DVD, a good idea as sales of the DVD goes to help produce more projects like this. 

The idea of Open Source is really nice. The script is available for programmers to enhance and therefore, new and more powerful versions of Blender are always available to you. I often encourage my classes to check it out. The program is free....the only cost however is the learning curve. I taught myself Blender earlier last year and visited the Blenderwiki site to access some pretty helpful tutorials. This Blender tutorial will show you the basics of the navigation. 

Give it a shot. The Blender program can be downloaded off of the Blender.org site. 

Cheers to the group that created "Big Buck Bunny", well done. 

VG Cats: Online Comics Site

VGcats.com features online comics from a new generation of comic artists. I'm sure you'll recognize the subject matter described in these strips, they're different from what you would find in the papers. They feature a lot of great vector line art, which is key these days, the style is marketable, hip, clean, easy to produce and fits that "cute" character style well. The site is updated every Monday, so you can have your fill before beginning the school or work week. Check it.

Corel Painter Magazine Site & Digital Painting Thougths

Corel Painter publishes a magazine that's pretty amazing and it also has an accompanying Corel Painter Magazine website. Below is a link to the part of their site that contains tuturials for you to download.

Those of you interested in painting realistic characters, may want to check out some of the airbrush tutorials available on this page.

One of the features of the magazine that I love, is that it covers basic and advnanced level foundation knowledge, like drawing, layout, design, color, value and composition, and they cover how you can accomplish this is Corel Painter.

The magazine also features a contest for every issue...that's pretty cool. Contests are an excellent way to get your name recognition. They supply the photos and you turn it into great art. Give it a shot, you may win a prize, you might be featured in the magazine, you may win software, or you might have your painting printed on canvas.

I shall be joining the Corel Painter site shortly. I've used it for over three years now, and I've to say that its been an incredible tool for creating artwork. I get lots of questions from people about the differences between painting traditionally and digitally, and there really is know difference, and what I'm speaking about is the feeling that I get when I'm in the process of drawing of painting. The feeling is the same, and for some of you who have been drawing and painting for a long time, its that feeling that keeps calling to us, its the reason why we draw and paint in the first place.

Painting digitally offers many benefits. Its economical to be able to experiment with different visual styles, I don't have to worry about storage or flatfile cabinets, I can use it immediately in an online portfolio to market myself as an artist, and the most important reason of all, I don't have to worry about hazzardous materials like Cadmiumum and Turp that had once affected my hands. I know there are always precautions for working in this way to prevent this, but despite my careful attempts, I experienced bouts of handshaking that have since disappeared when I switched to painting digitally.

You can check out my digital painting portfolio here. All of the images were created in Corel Painter iX and all but four were done traditionally in oil.

Enjoy.

Alberto Landeros : VFS Demo Reel

I couldn't resist. I had to post this for future reference. Alberto not only shows mad VFX and Compositing skills, but what I like the most, is his presentation and design sense. 

He's got a sensitive touch to his typographic presentation, something that we should all keep in mind as we prepare to show our work to professionals. 

Like many of these VFS Demo Reels, we appreciate the breakdowns. See if you can count how may passes he has for Shot III.

Thanks for posting Alberto.

James McPhail : VFS Demo Reel

This is a pretty nice presentation of some well executed compositing, and as always, we appreciate the breakdowns. The "Lego" theme is also very thoughtful, creative and lots of fun. I'm posting this because it serves as good inspiration for my Painter class this week, where they will be exploring special effects in the program. Its not After Effects by any means, most of the effects will be frame by frame, but its fun and his breakdowns show the layers he used to create the effects.

Video Box

Videobox is a script which enables you to show videos in your page as an overlay. It was inspired the Lightbox portfolio, which became popular with many portfolio students once we figured out to install and activate it. The presentation was nice, clean and beautiful. 

Videobox works in much the same way and is actually much simpler to set up and activate. What's cool is that it plays videos or demo reels from sites like Vimeo in order to save server space, it also loads very quickly. This works much better than linking to an actual quicktime file hosted on your site. 

The only problem is that a Vimeo embedded file lose their fullscreen feature once its integrated into Videobox. Otherwise, the presentation looks good. For those of you wanting to use this for your demo reels, you have to decide if the fullscreen Vimeo option is worth it. In my opinion, it is very important and so therefore, you're better off linking to a standard HTML page with your Vimeo video embedded into it. Feel free to use Videobox for your other videos.

UPDATE: 5/13/08

Found out tonight that Videobox doesn't work well in IE6, so I'm going to hold off before using it permanently on my site. I'll keep an eye out for a fix. The black overlay doesn't extend, but the player animates and plays fine. 

Adam Marisset : VFS Demo Reel

Adam's demo reel is exceptional. It shows awesome compositing, animation and rigging work. On top of all of all this, its pretty darn entertaining. One of the great things I like about the model turnaround of the robot, is that it looks at us as it spins...a nice touch that I appreciate and would like for students to remember. Keep up the great work Adam, thanks for posting your reel.

Kuler : Amazing Color Site

Okay, this site is amazing. Its called Kuler. As an art and design instructor, one of the most difficult things to teach is color. After you've done the traditional color wheel (by hand), the goal is to develop a personalized color sense. This means using color combinations that not only look good together (which is infinite), but that express who you are as an artist. This takes time and experimentation.

The site below can help speed up the process for you. If you ever need a quick recommendation for a particular color strategy, this is worth a try. I've also attached an image that I'm creating for a DJ friend, using the "watermelon" palette. The black line work and colors were executed in Painter

Hope it helps out. Thanks for the heads up Zach!

Painter IX Matte Painting Demos

Here are a few of the demonstration pieces created in the Painter class this week on matte painting. I'll see if I can work up a quick video tutorial on this stuff in the near future, its a lot of fun.

Be sure when you do your matte painting, that you keep atmospheric perspective in mind and that you have an idea of your composition. This means establishing your focal point. Case in point, just because the glow brush makes things look cool, doesn't mean that you add it everywhere. Be judicious and selective in where it is used.

If everything on a painting is shouting with glows, the viewer will not know where to look. Show some restraint, this is where your power resides.

Happy Matte Painting!

dylancolestudio.com
mattepainting.org

Francisco Moncayo : Demo Reel

Francisco sports another great VFS Demo Reel. I love this concept for its simplicity. His modeling, lighting, texturing and motion capture work together to make a believable and entertaining piece. For those of you who like sushi and animation, this one's for you. Thanks for sharing Francisco, let us know what you are up to next.

Animationpodcast.com

Hey guys, I close friend shared a link to animationpodcast.com. Its run by Disney Animation Supervisor Clay Kaytis. This is so informative and inspiring. Its great to listen to while you work or drive on the freeway. 

In his podcasts, Clay interviews top animators in the field (you name them, he's interviewed them). You get to hear and learn about animation techniques, animation lessons on the job, news about the animation industry, but what I like the most is its focus on the craft of animation itself (old skool style). 

For those of you hardcore 2D Animators, its definitely worth checking. Listen to it so you become more powerful. 

Thanks Ruel for the heads up!

Fire it Up!

Randolf

Color Comp Demo

Here is today's demo on matching color on the computer. In order to improve your color memory, its essential that you take time to look at color combinations from artists you like, and see if you can apply the same colors to your own piece.

When matching colors I follow this method:

Match Hue
Match Value
Match Saturation or Intensity

Work from the background to the foreground.
Block in the basic shapes.
Add atmospheric perspective by adding haze or blurring portions of your painting.