Creating the Adventure. A fantastic new advert for GWR trains by Friends Electric that mixes 2D and 3D animation styles. It harks back to the original artwork from the 1940’s books:
Below is a great how it was made documentary piece.
The Last Bastion is the latest animated CGI short from the Blizzard, game developer. For the most part, the CGI animation process uses Houdini FX. The superior SideFX software works seamlessly with Maya and Cinema 4D objects loaded. The modelling of the moss on the robot happened in Autodesk Maya. Xgen is the provider of the required mini frond-like fibres that gives the moss the correct appearance. The team had to be careful that the data would track in both packages.
The 3ds max Grow FX plugin handled the initial creation of the widespread background foliage. It was then brought into Zbrush for specific alterations for that special touch.
Breakdown videos of one of the largest CGI studios’ CGI Rendering intro for the new DropZone game by Gameforge for PCs using 3ds max, V-ray and Houdini:
A breakdown of the character animation work:
Here is a break down of how the vfx has been made:
The finished sequence is here:
The Merida character is a very complex setup. One of the most devious things to achieve in
CGI is realistic hair that moves and has the general look that appears “right”. The artists and technicians at PIXAR have hit the mark on both of these counts. Too right as the hair is quite a large signature of her Scottish heritage and character.
There is a subtle mix of subsurface scattering – a method of approximating how light shines through semi-translucent material such as flesh or hair simulations – and artistic styling of many lengths of hair with a variety of strand length, curl, wave, and frizziness.
Oscar-Nominated in 2003 this animated short is truely atmospheric with a level of serene beauty in a twisted world where an adventurer exploring a dark and strangely compelling world. Based on a science fiction story by Janusz A Zajdel the story focuses on a visit to a mysterious organic building where there is an analogy played out showing how our current achievements add to the endeavours of previous generations. Produced with 3ds max and After Effects.
Shot with a high speed camera running at 600fps with stunt men with overlaid red smoke effect elements give this promo a spectacular impact:
A creative set of idents including clouds of butterflies transforming from a praying geisha girl, a dalmatian that shakes colourful spots off onto the wall and vivid umbrellas being blown across a Yorkshire limestone pavement.
3D Rig Animate
A film company from Italy has been filming incoming refugees to Europe and their treacherous voyage to new land. The 360 filming technique adds an extra sense of realism to the experience.
This ground breaking video shows the talents of the Mill special effects team to the max. The dancer is filmed against the backdrop of the disused factory. A carefully measured virtual set is constructed with high resolution textures applied. The camera movement is tracked from the footage and applied to a virtual camera moving on this virtual set. From this a clean plate with no dancer is derived. The dancer herself is laser scanned to get her exact shape. From this Her motion is captured from the footage with some artist input.
Proud to see the animation work within the video in this article to be featured on the New York Post’s website here: http://nypost.com/2016/01/28/this-suitcase-will-save-your-closet/