Art meets science in Stardust, a new short by Dutch film production company PostPanic. Watch it now and find out more about the project in our new issue

Title: Stardust
Duration: 4:00
Website: www.postpanic.com
Director: Mischa Rozema
Production time: 12 months (part time)
Synopsis: A journey into space visually explores the idea that we are all stardust and will, one day, return.
If you like this, watch… Chris Parks Art

When Dutch graphic designer Arjan Groot died of cancer in the summer of 2011 at the age of just 39, his tragic death affected Mischa Rozema, director of film production company PostPanic, considerably. “I really felt I had to do something,” he says. “And, as I’m not a doctor and unable to find a cure for cancer, I did what I do best; create a film. I needed to make some kind of sense of all this. It was a very therapeutic experience.”

The result of Rozema’s therapy is the animated short Stardust, which uses the Voyager 1 probe to visually explore the idea that we are all stardust and will someday return after our deaths. “The film centres on the idea that in the grand scheme of the universe, nothing is ever wasted and it finds comfort in us all essentially being stardust ourselves,” says Rozema. “Voyager represents the memories of our loved ones and lives that will never disappear.”

Find out more about Stardust and how it was made by buying our next issue of 3D World, on sale 21st May 2013.

More from DreamWorks’ Shelley Page – here she looks at one of her favourite animations, 366 Days, and picks out how and where it shone

Director: Johannes Friedrich Schiehsl
School: Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg
Year: 2011

Shelley Page says: This wonderful film, about a young man who looks back over his year of national service as a paramedic, was directed by Johannes Schiehsl of Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. This is my personal favourite from the graduation films of the past year or two, and is by turns funny, touching, disturbing and ultimately very moving. The story has an added depth because it’s based on the director’s personal experiences. The quality of the storyboarding, animation and production design are all remarkable for a student film.

▲ This short was inspired by the Director’s time doing national service

Director Johannes Friedrich Schiehsl says: 366 Days is an autobiographical story, resulting from my time of national service as a paramedic. I had a very intense time there – there were positives and negatives – and I met a lot of people that were suffering from all kinds of dreadful diseases. But in all I felt that the worst thing that a human being can suffer is loneliness, and it bugged me during the year’s service that there seemed to be nothing we could do about it… or was there something? This question became the premise of my film.

▲ The worst thing a human being can suffer is loneliness…

• Take a look at another award-winning student animation picked by Shelley Page – A la Francaise. It is witty and clever with amazingly high production standards

• If you want to read about more of Shelley’s picks and learn how to make award-winning animations yourself, buy issue 168 now – via one of our print or digital editions

Take a look at this award-winning student animation from 2012 – A la Francaise. It is witty and clever with amazingly high production standards

Shelley Page is Head of International Outreach at DreamWorks Animation and is a member of the 3D World Advisory Board. In our current issue she picks her favourite undergraduate student shorts and reveals how you can match their golden standard.

Here is one of Shelley’s picks – A la Francaise from Director William Lorton. She says of the film: “This short film – directed by Morrigane Boyer, Julien Hazebroucq, Ren Hsien Hsu, Emmanuelle Leleu and William Lorton, graduates from Supinfocom Arles – is about the scandalous goings on at the royal court in 17th century Versailles.

“The film was awarded Best of 2012 by the Supinfocom graduation jury for the witty story, sly caricatures of famous French historical figures, and amazing production quality. So much is going on in this clever and elaborate CG film that it needs to be watched several times in order to fully appreciate all the details.”

Director William Lorton found this project interesting to work on as the team all had different ideas and points of views

Director William Lorton says: “We worked on A la Française for a year. It was really interesting to work together because we have totally different ideas and points of views. Sometimes it was hard to agree, but I think we did it pretty well. The film was well received at the festivals. We won several prizes, mostly in France, but also in China. At the moment everybody is working or close to getting a job. The movie was a great adventure for each of us. We learnt a lot, and it’s a positive thing for our professional life.”

Directors: Morrigane Boyer, Julien Hazebroucq, Ren Hsien Hsu, Emmanuelle Leleu, William Lorton
School: Supinfocom Arles
Year: 2012

Read the full feature in our latest issue to find out how you too can create winning work like this! Find out how to buy it here.

UPDATED: Watch the full short and find out about the new hybrid technique which results in a world seemingly sculpted out of sketches…

UPDATED: 31st Jan: You might have been lucky enough to see this subtle short (that’s up for the Animated Oscar Award) which ran ahead of Wreck-It Ralph in cimemas a few months ago, but if not, you’re in for a treat, as Disney has just released it online.

Watch Disney’s Paperman online now!

UPDATED: 5th Dec:
“Paperman” director John Kahrs has described the process: “It’s not like a texture map. It’s just like painting on the surface of the CG. It acutally moves on a 2D layer that’s driven by the CG.”

Check out the report on Hollywood Reporter

Disney has been keeping Paperman quiet, but now it’s finished there are a few stills from the film and some interviews online.

The short follows the story of a lonely young man in mid-century New York City, who tries to win the girl of his dreams with only his heart, imagination and a stack of papers!

First-time director John Kahrs led a team of 2D and CG artists who used a proprietary program called Meander to create the short.

Employing a technique called final line advection, artists were able to add a level of grace and expressiveness never before seen in an animated film.

“When I began working for Disney, I just fell in love with the hand-drawn line,” Kahrs told the Huffington Post. “And seeing as Walt Disney Animation Studios has this long tradition of producing hand-drawn animated features… Well, I wanted to do what I could to make sure that more of those great line drawings that Disney artists produce during the preproduction phase of our new CG projects actually wound up on screen in the Studio’s animated feature films and shorts.”

If Disney hadn’t have used this new hybrid technology, Paperman would still have been a charming story — but the appeal of this animation is as much about the technique as it is the tale.

John Kahrs talks about Paperman

First look at animated short Paperman

Using this technique has really worked on Paperman, but the director wants to experiment with it further and next time plans to introduce colour and foliage...

Paperman had its world premiere on the opening night of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. It’s slated for release in front of Wreck-It Ralph in November.

We’ll hope to have more on this short soon. In the meantime there’s a short interview with John Kahrs and producer Kristina Reed on Paperman on AWN’s website.

If you liked this, you may also like to read about the following magical shorts:

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Pixar’s enchanting short La Luna

Sources: Huffington Post
Entertainment Weekly

▲ Little Kaiju is adorable and instantly connects with the emotions of the viewer

Back in November we ran a piece on four-minute movie Little Kaiju from Australian studio TwiN and animation director Nick Losq. Here we interview Nick about his influences and background.

Watch Little Kaiju now!

Read our original piece on Little Kaiju.

3D World: What’s your job and where do you work?

Nick Losq: I am a director at Rabbit and also act as the ECD of the Rabbit Design and Animation department.

3D World: When did you first discover your talent and decide to become a 3D artist?

NL: Ever since I can remember I have been keen on drawing, and after seeing Star Wars as a kid I decided that I wanted to be a practical movie make-up guy; creating characters that I saw and loved in these movies.

In case my dreams in the movie business didn’t come to fruition my fall-back was to draw comic books. I spent much of my youth practising my traditional art skills focusing heavily on sculpture and illustration.

I actually spent zero time working with computers and I wanted nothing to do with them growing up – until one fateful day. Jurassic Park. I saw it when I was in high school and my mind was completely blown. I walked out in a complete daze, realising that this movie was a look into the future of how character and creature effects would be created using 3D animation.

My first thought was “Well $hit… I better learn how to use a computer then”. From that point on I had one goal: to take everything I knew in the world of traditional art and apply it to 3D animation.

▲ Jurassic Park was and still is Nick’s favourite movie. There is a new one due out in 2014

3D World: Do you remember what your first piece of CG was?

NL: The first piece of CG that I actually did came a couple years after I started working in the biz. I got my foot in the door as a storyboard and character concept artist with the goal of getting my hands on one of the studio’s coveted SGI machines. It took about a year of hard work and proving my worth but eventually I got my hands on Maya and absolutely fell in love.

The first piece I did was a spec animation for the studio based around a property they were developing. It was a spoof on croc hunter, where you had an overly enthusiastic adventurer who was on a distant planet exploring local wildlife. I spent three months learning Maya, building this massive centaur-type creature with the torso of an ogre and the body of an elephant. Super fun project and in retrospect pretty damn cool that I got to claim this as my first project in 3D.

3D World: Where do you find inspiration?

NL: Monster movies, video games, animé, European graphic novels, the teams I have the pleasure of working with in the past and the ones I am lucky enough to work with today.

3D World: Who or what has influenced your work?

NL: Stan Winston, Star Wars, Moebius, Blur, Joe Madureira, Studio IG, and Capcom. There are many many more and some come and go, but this is my shortlist.

3D World: Do you think you have developed a certain style of work?

NL: To be completely honest, I don’t think I have yet found MY style of work but am having a great time looking for it. Right now the work that I find the most satisfying are character-driven stories that use both live-action and 3D animation, blending them together in a style that isn’t photo-real but also not cartoony. I love inventing characters, and having the opportunity to create a persona that audiences can relate to or even care about is always the most exciting thing for me. On the Little Kaiju project, the guys from TWiN and I had the most fun developing the character’s personality, and deciding what he would and wouldn’t do.

3D World: What is your favorite 3D software and why?

NL: Maya is by far my favourite software but in all fairness it’s probably because I have been using it exclusively since v1.5. There are many other CG packages out there that have brilliant tools but based on my passion with character animation I have never found that I was lacking a function in Maya. Mudbox and ZBrush are also tools that I find I am using more and more.

3D World: What’s your favourite film and why?

NL: District 9 without any doubt. This film is perfection as far as I am concerned. It has a captivating story and compelling characters and takes these hideous-looking aliens that are completely CG and makes you care about them. It’s truly brilliant work and an amazing mix of storytelling, in-camera effects and photo-real CG. Any movie that has me forgetting that I am watching an effect is a good movie in my book. I love and hate movies that raise the bar, as the immediate effect is a feeling of ‘dammit, I am not yet good enough’. That results, however, in a re-invigoration and an intense motivation to get better at my craft.

3D World: What’s your favourite animation and why?

NL: It’s a two-way tie between Dead Leaves and FLCL. Studio IG has created some of the animation that I am the most inspired by. They do everything right, leading with a creative story, unique visuals and some of the best stylised animation I have ever seen. I actually watch way more 2D animation than 3D animation as I think there is much that it can teach us about raising the 3D bar, and is greatly overlooked as a source of guidance in furthering our craft.

I still find new little details and cues in these two movies even though I have seen them both about 100 times each. The great thing about Studio IG is their sense of timing and the use of their key frames which always demonstrates a thing or two about how I can continue to level up my work.

3D World: Do you have a favourite video game?

NL: Capcom’s Monster Hunter series is my favourite game by a long way, but coming in at a close second these days would be Borderlands 2. I tend to gravitate to games with unique character design and team tactics. These two are the ones that I think push the envelope in terms of character design and keep the games focused on co-operative play.

Video games are a huge inspiration in my work as I am a pretty huge fantasy and sci-fi junkie, and the medium is ripe with these genres. The added bonus of video games is that it also teaches you to act as a functioning team member in it for a common goal, which everyone knows is an important skillset to have in this industry.

3D World: What’s the best critique you have received?

NL: It’s not really a critique as much as a quote that has stayed with me since my early days as a 3D artist and filmmaker: ”Just because you don’t see the detail, doesn’t mean that you won’t feel it” Stan Winston.

This quote has really become my mantra. It helps remind me to keep pushing the level of quality regardless of if you will ‘see’ it, and that as artists our true responsibility is not just to make pretty pictures but to elicit an emotional response from our audiences.

3D World: Any words of advice for aspiring artists?

NL: Here’s a list:

• Research, observation, and practice
• Make your craft your life, be patient, and always question why you are doing what you are doing
• It’s really easy to find yourself wearing blinders in this business. Taking them off every now and then to re-evaluate where you are and where your ultimate goals are is a great way to stay on track
• Always strive for those goals but know that your journey is a marathon, not a sprint. Take your time, learn your craft and listen to the guidance and criticism of the people around you
• Being a designer/animator is not a profession, it is definitely a lifestyle. If your life can embody your passion and not be distracted by your ego, success will come without any doubt

Read our original piece on Little Kaiju.

Get set for the virtual girls band as Clara, Mildred, Mabel and Gertie shake their funky stuff!

UPDATED: Find out how you can help to create a sexy virtual girls band featuring the digital ladies from Philippe Gamer’s dynamic animated short

UPDATED: Join in the Kickstarter campaign to make a sexy virtual girls band

“For this project we are using a complex process involving motion capture and sharp 3D technics. We have already overcome a part of the difficulties, but with 3D you never know what you might face later!” says Gamer.

Find out more about the girls band you never dared to dream of.

Interview with director Philippe Gamer

According to Gamer it’s a “crazy, irresistible, intense, spectacular car chase between police and four unlikely accomplices.”

We love it and hope you do too.

Watch Space Petrol’s The Chase

To create The Chase a combination of 3D software was used: 3ds Max 9-11, V-Ray and After Effects.

Gamer says that the characters were considered from the beginning of the production, but in the first layout of the film there was no one in the car.

“Max has been the keystone of this production,” says Gamer. “Space Patrol’s pipeline has long been based on a 64-bit architecture and a quasi-military organization and method.”

“It is first its reliability and the fact that it has been tried and tested on numerous productions that it allowed us to do the job in ‘reasonably’ pleasant conditions.”

Space Petrol faced technical difficulties all along the production, (“one after the other, day after day:)”), but the team found it interesting working out how to resolve the issues.

“For example on the characters,” continues Gamer, “one problem we had to solve is a phenomenon called ‘big displacement’. The greater the distance is from the centre of the world, the more it affects objects (distortion).”

“In this case, the cars are moving over large distances, so we had to deal with weird modelling behaviour.”

“Another example is the looping scene,” Gamer explains. “The entire car animations are the result of the use of dynamic function. What is fun to know is that the Nissan (that are really heavy) have actually been around the full looping only after given them the necessary impetus

“The big crash was technically good fun to do,” Gamer says. “I did all the animation alone, and I had to see many, many unbelievable accidents before I decided to keep the one you actually see in the short.”

In the crash sequence there are over 800 moving objects, and all of those objects are very elaborate, so they required loads of polygons. Initially it was impossible to simulate the scene, then Gamer used a proxies system which enabled the low-poly model to simulate.

“The idea was to create the whole accident in one piece, so it works from the beginning to the end,” says Gamer. “I was then able to create as many accidents as necessary until one was spectacular enough to be shot.”

“Then I shot the accident from all the possible angles, it allowed me to discover things I had not even seen in the simulation that were very surprising.”

With his team’s help, the CG short took two years to create in between commercial jobs. “On my side, I spent many nights, weekends and I don’t even remember when I last took a holiday! It was a real challenge, there was no client, and I believe I was worse than any client I’ve ever met!” admits Gamer.

If you’d like to know more about Space Petrol head over to the website.

The idea that Michael Bay’s next outing of Transformers could be done using open-source software Blender may not be a reality – but the new Blender short Tears of Steel, with its massive robots, plasma guns and tongue-in-cheek lines like “I just want to be awesome in space”, goes some way to prove that the day may not be far off.

When the team of visual effects artists were asked to produce a science-fiction story set in Amsterdam to improve and test an open-source VFX pipeline, little did they know the difficulties they would face. Pretty much every shot in Tears of Steel has CG elements in it, and the team had to work with tools that were still being developed.

CG GUNS AND ANIMATED ROBOTS

The most spectacular scene, where four of the scientists working in the re-enactment dome have to fight against the robots that are breaking through the walls of the church, was the most demanding. As 3D artist and matchmover Sebastian Koenig explains: “There’s a moving camera, a rather unevenly lit greenscreen, four people waving around object-tracking devices that later have to be replaced with CG guns, six animated robots and a huge full-CG environment.”

▲ In the most demanding VFX shot, the scientists shoot at Quadbots who have just broken into the church

While the camera track in the shoot-out scene was simple enough – just a smooth dolly shot – getting the correct movements of four independently and rapidly moving objects, sometimes with lots of occluded tracking markers, was difficult. “It took a week to finish the tracks so that they could be passed on to layout and animation,” says Koenig.

▲ The actors playing the scientists had object-tracking devices, which were replaced later with CG guns

The keying and masking also proved to be challenging: “The greenscreen was unevenly lit, there were some objects in the foreground that required manual masking, [and] even some cables needed to be manually rotoscoped,” Koenig says.

RENDERING WITH CYCLES

But the real test of Koenig’s mettle was rendering the environment with six robots in it. “The render engine Cycles is great for photorealistic rendering, but especially interior rendering can take hours for a finished frame,” says Koenig. “It took endless tests and tweaks until we were able to produce more or less noise-free images in a reasonable amount of time.”

All the CG assets were linked into this file. The foreground elements, the church environment, the robots and even the animation were referenced from other blend files. This allowed 3D artist Kjartan Tysdal to start lighting and compositing the scene while modeller Rob Tuytel was still working on models and textures of the church environment, and 3D animator and rigger Jeremy Davidson was still animating the six different robots.

INTRODUCING BLENDER INTERNAL

“The scientist guns are shooting a kind of blue plasma that was created by using Blender’s particle and smoke systems,” says Koenig. “However, the pathtracing render engine Cycles is not yet capable of rendering volumetrics, so we had to use Blender’s other render engine, Blender Internal, to render that. A separate scene was created to render the particle and smoke effects on top of Cycle’s render layers.”

▲ Animating and rendering the Quadbots for the spectacular shoot-out scene was particularly challenging as there are six of them in the church environment

By linking the two scenes into one compositing node tree, using Cycles for the environment and Blender Internal for the volumetrics, the team could automatically render with two different render engines at the same time and combine them via the compositor without having to pre-render or export anything.

If you would like to find out more about Tears of Steel, buy the latest issue of 3D World, where we have a full feature on the short, including how the team enhanced the visuals and created the final ambitious shot.

If you liked this you may also like to check out the other open source movies from the Blender Institute

The making of Sintel

Issue 103 of 3D World contained a four-page tutorial on simulating explosions without particles in Blender, plus a four-page story on the making of Big Buck Bunny. You can grab a digital edition of 3D World here

▲ The student team turned to movies such as The Big Lebowski for inspiration when they were designing the film’s characters

Vital statistics

Title The Ballad of Poisonberry Pete
Duration 5:26
Budget N/A (student film)
Co-directors Uri Lotan, Adam Campbell, Elizabeth McMahill
Production time 13 months
Software Maya, Nuke, RenderMan, RealFlow, Premiere, Photoshop
Synopsis Can the town be saved from two gunslinging pies by one little tart?
If you like this, try… The Gruffalo, Max Lang and Jakob Schuh, 2010

The town isn’t big enough for the two main pies in new student short The Ballad of Poisonberry Pete. In a classic story of redemption, Pete, the baddest pie in the yeast, is in town and looking for trouble. With the town’s citizens struck with fear and the sheriff itching for a gunfight, the fate of the town rests on the shoulders of one little tart. But can she save the day?

WATCH THE BALLAD OF POISONBERRY PETE HERE

A SLICE OF PIE PROVIDES INSPIRATION

Produced by three students – Uri Lotan, Adam Campbell and Elizabeth McMahill – from Ringling College of Art and Design, The Ballad of Poisonberry Pete started off as a side project for the trio. “We had a day off from school, and were set to come up with a 24-hour film (which eventually ended up being a 13-month project),” explains Lotan. “As we were trying to come up with an idea, one of our neighbours invited us over for a piece of pie. One thing led to another and next thing you know we were drawing pies with silly cowboy hats on. Months later, when the time came to pitch ideas for our thesis film, we pulled out the old pie Western and reworked it into a full story.”

CHARACTERISATION IN THE BALLAD OF POISONBERRY PETE

As work began on the project, it was the team’s ideas for characters that led the feel and overall look of the short. “They were the initial spark for the film,” says Lotan. “Just imagining these pies walking around with cowboy boots, acting all serious, made us laugh. When we first developed the film, all we had were rough sketches of each character, showing who they were, their posture, outfit and attitude. When we further developed the film and the storyline, we found it really helpful to pick an actor that represented who we thought our characters were.

“Pete was always Clint Eastwood in our mind, from the way his eyes were always squinted to his silent confidence. The sheriff was tough to figure out – we wanted him to be mean but not in the obvious way. After going over many actors, we stumbled across a picture of Charles Napier and immediately knew he was our guy.”

▲ The team spent time developing each character, drawing rough sketches to determine posture, outfit and attitude

DECIDING ON THE LOOK AND FEEL

The team also turned to the movies when deciding on the film’s overall look. “A big inspiration was the Coen brothers,” Lotan explains. “We were heavily influenced by Sam Elliott’s amazing performance as The Stranger in The Big Lebowski.”

The team looked at different animation styles to create their own unique look. “When we were developing the visual style of the film, we really wanted to give it a stop-motion vibe, trying to make everything feel tactile, chunky and simple,” Lotan explains. “It was important for us to bring to the screen the art behind the film, the appeal of our sketches, the charm of our storyboards and the simplicity of our designs.

“One of the decisions we made as we were developing the look of the set was to try to stay as natural as possible, making it feel like a real Western. The logic was that the more serious everything seemed – the set, the shots, the music – the more it would make the idea of these pies walking around that much sillier.”

COMPOSITING PLAYED A BIG ROLE IN FINESSING THE FILM

With the characters and look design decided upon the trio moved swiftly on to production, opting to use Maya, RenderMan, RealFlow, Nuke and Photoshop to bring their story to life. In order to do so, and to create really believable environments, the compositing stage proved vital. “We wanted things to have a feel of scale and depth, to really sell this world to the audience,” says Lotan. “As we went into the lighting portion of our film things started to look good, but still lacked that depth that Westerns are so well known for.

“Once we got into compositing we started really pushing the depth of the shots by enriching the values, adding haze and dust, taking atmospheric perspective into account, adding matte paintings to create the illusion of vast spaces and many other elements. Compositing made a very big difference in our film – it took it to the next level of believability and made it easier for the audience to emerge in the story.”

▲ Maya was the main 3D app used to bring the film’s set and amazing characters to life

KEY TECHNOLOGY AND TIME-SAVING TRICKS

With so many sets and characters featured in the film, the student team devised many ways to speed up production. “We used Rapid Rig as our rigging system; it’s a script that creates a very user-friendly animation rig, which you can further customise for your own characters,” explains co‑director Uri Lotan. “It was a huge time-saver for us in terms of the rigging process, and was a very smooth and enjoyable process to animate with. Rapid Rig has many features that were crucial to our film, such as great squash and stretch abilities, and elbow and knee locking. The limbs can be shaped intuitively, which we used to achieve a rubber-hose animation style.”

Want more great student shorts? Watch A Fox Tale

These two shorts are fine examples of the exacting work that is being produced by students today. If you’ve worked on something you think is worth sharing, please send us a selection of artwork and a short description of the piece.

The team on A Fox Tale went on to give us a front cover and insightful Character Animation tips for issue 161 of 3D World. You could have that fame and glory too! Simply send your work to portfolio@3dworldmag.com

]]> http://www.3dworldmag.com/2012/11/28/new-student-animation-the-ballad-of-poisonberry-pete/feed/ 0 http://www.3dworldmag.com/2012/11/16/friday-animation-fun-heroes-and-villains/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=friday-animation-fun-heroes-and-villains http://www.3dworldmag.com/2012/11/16/friday-animation-fun-heroes-and-villains/#comments Fri, 16 Nov 2012 14:00:31 +0000 3D World http://www.3dworldmag.com/?p=37534 This animated short is a typical Hollywood-style hero/action trailer with all the usual ingredients – thumping soundtrack, explosions and scenes of heroic and villainous wonder

▲ Made using Muvizu 3D, this animated trailer is fast and furious

We spoke to fire-fighter by day and animator by night, Derek ‘Dreeko’ McQuiston about his work on this short.

3D World: What’s the animation about?

Well, there isn’t really any story. The whole movie came from messing around with the Heroes and Villains expansion pack to create some comic-book style scenes. I just tried to make it seem as if all the random scenes featured were linked in some way, like a trailer!

3D World: What was your role on the film?

I created the idea, the limited script and cobbled together the dramatic music from various pieces I had lying around. But when it comes to the animation side of Muvizu, the creator is more of a director than animator.

All action is chosen from a vast selection of animation blocks and triggered in real time as the timeline plays. Some animated elements (for example, the head and eyes movement) are performed using a puppetry method to achieve the desired actions.

The hardest part of the process was deciding which clips to use (or not as the case may be), as I created quite a few clichéd hero scenes and the movie could have been much longer if they had all made the cut.

WATCH HEROES AND VILLAINS:

3D World: How long did it take to produce?

That’s a hard one to answer because it was one of those personal projects I just dipped in and out of. I added bits here and there, scribbled down ideas, played round with creating the sets for the characters. There was no deadline and therefore no rush. Probably two or three days work all in. Usually a three-minute vid using Muvizu will take roughly three or four hours for a fairly simple setup.

3D World: What 3D software did you use?

Muvizu was the only 3D software in use. I had no need for another.

3D World: Please talk us through a key scene and say how it was created using the 3D software.

Ok, the final scene shows a hero standing on top of a skyscraper casting a watchful eye on his adopted city. Suddenly from nowhere a plane appears heading towards the building and our hero springs into action by launching an almighty punch at the offending aircraft which explodes with the impact of his fist.

I started by creating the Dreeko hero character first, by selecting a generic beefy character from the character creation pallet.

▲ Here he is! Super Dreeko is an archetypal action hero

Once the big guy appeared on stage I started to customise his costume by selecting some different accessories and importing some textures I had created earlier.

Once satisfied, I started playing with some different character animations just to see how he looked in action.

With Super Dreeko ready to go it was time to set the scene! I like to start with the lighting setup. I always think that this is when the scene really comes to life. The scene was to be set on a bright clear day so I used the directional light to simulate the sun and I used an imported texture for the sky.

The next step was to create a city. This was a lot easier than you may imagine. All I did was create a cube and a ground plane. These were then textured and scaled to suit.

The directional light was repositioned to match the shadows in the ground plane texture with the skyscraper objects.

The cameras were positioned and an airplane object was selected and placed facing the towers ready for animating.

▲ An atomic explosion effect was placed at the point of impact between the hero and the plane.

All that was left for me to do was to direct the action and align all the different animated blocks on the time line so that the plane, character and explosion all happened at the same point.

Once everything was playing out correctly, the final step was to direct the camera cuts as below.

An establishing shot of Super Dreeko standing on top of a building giving a sense of height.

Super Dreeko spots the fast approaching aircraft.

▲ Incoming!

Brace yourself!

BLAMM! ..and cut to title.

3D World: Did you do anything wrong in the production? Did you learn anything from producing this animation?

I always learn something from every movie I make. It’s like anything: the more you practice, the better you get! When I look back at some of my first efforts I see things in them that I would definitely change. Perhaps the editing could be snappier or the lighting could be better etc. On this particular movie I think that creating scenes tied to a beat-driven audio track was a good exercise and a good string to add to my bow!

You can download Muvizu 3D from the Muvizu website and create an animation like this one.

]]> http://www.3dworldmag.com/2012/11/16/friday-animation-fun-heroes-and-villains/feed/ 0 http://www.3dworldmag.com/2012/10/30/halloween-film-festival-the-creepiest-animated-shorts-halloween-joe/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=halloween-film-festival-the-creepiest-animated-shorts-halloween-joe http://www.3dworldmag.com/2012/10/30/halloween-film-festival-the-creepiest-animated-shorts-halloween-joe/#comments Tue, 30 Oct 2012 16:17:57 +0000 3D World http://www.3dworldmag.com/?p=37367 3D World is celebrating Halloween with some of the best spooky shorts we’ve seen. Enjoy this cartoon classic from Orbit Studio

▲ This short film was created by a three-strong team in just five days

In our Halloween Film Festival, 3D World presents some of the best spooky animated shorts we’ve seen, including Halloween Joe, from Orbit Studio.

Watch Halloween Joe here:

Copenhagen-based animation facility Orbit Studio created this short as a Halloween greeting last year for the company’s friends and clients. The project was created, from conception right through to the final edit, by three team members in just five days.

As the trio discussed their ideas, the simple animation quickly turned into a short with endless possibilities.

SIMPLE STYLES

The Orbit team were heavily influenced by French comic books and simple sharp styles for the look of their film. “We went with a sharp cartoon look and a minimalistic approach – less is more,” says Oczki. To achieve this particular style, the trio used 3ds Max 2011 for modelling and animation, V-Ray 1.5 for rendering and Fusion 6.1 for compositing.

With just the three of them working on the project, the team utilised the software’s tools to speed up production. “3ds Max with its Graphite modelling tool ‘Shift’ was a great help for us to quickly push shapes around and play with the design,” Oczki says. “The models are really simple so it was necessary to use all the edges and lines effectively.”

Keeping things as simple as possible was vital on such a tight deadline, although it did, however, restrict the team’s creativity somewhat. “The biggest challenge was to tell the story from one camera angle – we really wanted to do some close up shots,” Oczki explains. “We had to spend a long time talking about how Halloween Joe should act, pose and how his silhouette should support each action.”

TERRIFIC TRIO

The short presented the team with a challenge and they were keen to see what they could achieve in five days with very few resources. “The best thing about this project was that the team was made up of just three people,” says Oczki. “Each member is a 3D generalist with production experience so things were very flexible and everything could quickly be fixed by just talking to each other. It was very effective… no long meetings! We are really pleased with the results, although we could have used one more day on the sound effects.”

Check out the Orbit Studio website for more work

]]> http://www.3dworldmag.com/2012/10/30/halloween-film-festival-the-creepiest-animated-shorts-halloween-joe/feed/ 0