Living Lines Library

Sorry for the delay, started a new job in designing and animating casino games. I will continue to post relative and inspiring posts about animation, concept art, user design and experience on this blog for inspiration. Thanks to all for following.

When you get a chance, check this website out. It features hundreds and hundreds of pencil tests from the animated movies that we love. We found it easy to get lost in the work, its absolutely marvelous. It also features documentaries and production artwork from the last fifty years.

http://livlily.blogspot.com/

All we need to make this better, is a way for Youtube viewers to step an animation so we can view a piece frame by frame. I know there are some plugins that exist, that add the controls via your browswer, but the controls I've seen are inconsistent and don't always appear in the ui.

Definitely check it out.

http://livlily.blogspot.com/

Below is an example from Glen Keane's found on the site.

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Glen Keane - rough penciltest - BEAST from LXP on Vimeo.

Fire It Up! Randolf

Next Level: Lucas Film Shows Off Realistic Customizable Game Engine Renders

This looks quite amazing and fun. More and more, our games are beginning to look a lot like the movies we are accustomed to seeing, or are we headed into an entirely new realm of entertainment, where games are now the focus and movies support the game. I could see it happening.

Urbance: Directed By: Joel Dos Reis Viegas

Had to post this one. Really nice work. Nice music, style, flare, hip and visual rhythm. Urbance is created by Steambot Studios. Roland, thanks for the heads up! Fire It Up! Randolf

"Paperman": Animated Short

If you watched "Wreck It Ralph" in theatres, you are familiar with the "Paperman" animation that played before the film. Nice for the guys at Disney to post it online so all of us can enjoy it. I also included a featurette below that describes the look and feel of the movie. Its nice to see CG getting a facelift. The sets and characters look as if they are done by hand, the textures and linework are quite detailed creating a new look and feel and the story is charming. Well done.

Art of Data: IBM Behind the Scenes

In this presentation, we see how code is used to create imagery that is not only beautiful and unique, but useful. Imagine seeing a heartbeat in a way that is unconventional, but dimensional in a way that is steps above a standard 2D EKG. Everything is driven by numbers and so presentations of this kind can only enhance our understanding complex mathematical concepts by giving all of us new ways to relate to the information. Enjoy! Fire it up!

Paths of Hate

Wow, this animated short is great. I can imagine the time spent in coordinating the entire sequence...a lot of work, but time well spent, this is a jewel. Great backgrounds, and unique look and feel combining a toon shader with hand painted/rendered textures. Nice sound too. Thanks for sharing Billy!

Firing It Up! Here we go!

Alma: Animated Short Film

No wonder I get creepy feelings when I'm around old dolls. We need more "creepy" animations.

Emil Madriansyah: Character Animation Demo Reel

Prep & Landing 2: Naughty vs. Nice

If you saw the first one Prep & Landing, you'll like this one too.

Happy Holidays Yo - Ho Ho.

Diablo III - Black Soulstone Cinematic

Guys, this is looking pretty good. Overall look and feel is pretty tight. The girl moves amazingly well. No release date set yet.

Tom Saville: Halo Reach Animation Reel

Thanks for sharing your reel with us Tom. This is inspiring. Great sense of weight throughout the entire reel.

Rango - End Credits

Once again, another fabulous end credit presentation. Great styling and music. Oh yeah, the movie was also very good...dark, grungy, dirty, cool.

Kung Fu Panda 2: Trailer 2

Hooray! The sequel to my bestest, most favoritest, awesomest, movie of all time! This looks great. The movie has more action, more characters, and bigger sets.

ILUVUXDESIGN & Yellow Submarine

If you have ever designed your own website, rearranged your livinging room furniture, or lost sleep over the colors of your fonts on your blog, you are, in the most common way, a User Interface / User Experience Designer. If so, this animation is about you.

Animation Peeps, its not always about slick realistic CG renders, as you'll see here sometimes its more important to get a clear interesting message across. The styling is reminiscent of the The Beatles animations in Yellow Submarine, not sure if the message was ever clear in Yellow Submarine, but it sure was a nice trip.

Fire it Up and Enjoy!

Backwater Gospel

This week, we came upon an incredible unique animation called Backwater Gospel. The look and feel is a mix between CG and 2D animation, but what made it incredible for me was the art direction responsible for achieving the gritty dirty and dusty look, that helped convey the story... add a dark murky cowboy western soundtrack, cutting edge variety in editing and compelling storyline, and what you got is something well worth while. Great job guys!

We are lucky, below are a few "making of" clips, character design tests and Bo Mathorne's design reel. Let's fire it up! Eve and Josh, thanks for the heads up, this animation was amazing.

His 2009 showreel shows the texturing process that helped to achieve the Backwater Gospel look and feel.

My Top 10 Superbowl XLV TV Ads 2011

Here are my Top 10 Superbowl XLV ads for 2011. I chose these based on shear giggle value, and if it had an animation / visual effects flavor to it. Enjoy!

NUMBER 10.... Kinda gross, but oh so funny...but that's why its funny, because it's oh so gross!



NUMBER 9.... I wasn't ready for this, but it blew my mind. Gotta be better than Transformers 2. Nice surprise.



NUMBER 8.... This scored high on my "Cute" scale. If you do a quick search, this is the number one commercial for Superbowl XLV.



NUMBER 7.... While we are on the Transformers tip, this commercial had me fooled.



NUMBER 6.... Very subtle, see if you can find all of the NFL logos throughout. Some of the composite work is outstanding.



NUMBER 5.... Ever feel like a "Kid in a Candy Store", or a .......



NUMBER 4.... Bud Light Hack Job - Pure silliness. Why so serious.



NUMBER 3.... Vokswagen Beetle - Great idea.



NUMBER 2.... Coca Cola Siege. Cool character designs. Epic and sweet!



NUMBER 1.... Kia Epic Ride - This is outstanding. Can they put anything else in here? Its got it all...so hang on!



Hope you enjoyed the game. Are we missing any others?

Surfriders PSA : Rise Above Plastics

I saw this animated public service announcement by the Surfrider's Association, and realized that I had to post it. Its a good message propelled by great animation. Enjoy!

Go green. Recycle.

Randolf

Mary the Braveheart

This is an animation for Sydney Children's Hospital. The animation has got a nice 2D/CG look to it. Its interesting and gave us some great ideas. Fire it up and enjoy!

Randolf

Be sure to check out the storyboard animatic for this project to see where pieces like this get made.

Designing "Toy Story": Featurette

As we start another exciting quarter here at (place your animation school name here), we must not forget the movie which started it all. This "making of" featurette can be found on many versions of the Toy Story DVD and I'm thankful that it was produced. It gives you a short introductory glimpse into what was needed to put the animation together, especially back in those days, when computer animation was new, when all that was available was a monitor, mouse and some tape.

For those of you animating now, you have vast computer processing power, advanced controls and slicker renders to make the entire process easier, just remember that it wasn't always this way.

Enjoy the quick history lesson. Hopefully it inspires you and puts things into perspective.

Fire it up! - Randolf

...and some behind the scenes animation footage from Toy Story 3.

Coyote Falls: WB 3D Animation

Really nice CG animation that captures the flair, exaggeration and spirit of the original Warner Bros. Road Runner cartoons that we all grew up with. Great to see that Mr. Coyote has never given up.

Keep an eye out for more of these animations in the theatres, each episode will be about 3 minutes in length...super geeeniusss.

Click here to learn more >>

Enjoy and Fire it Up!

Randolf