Video: Making of ASP "Me"

A video of the making of ASP "Me" was put up on You Tube recently, and is a way to get a look at a how short animation was created. The animation uses a lot of digital effects like green screen and chroma key so it was interesting to see some of those things being done as well as pre-vis, animation, and other neat things. The video is below. If you would like to watch the actual ASP Me video I've also included a link.



ASP "Me" Video on You Tube

From Clay to Computer

Here's an article I found on TIME about Aardman's flushed away and the transition from clay to computer. Just thought that I'd share it.

From Clay to Computer

Camera Mapped Test for The Hole

I don't usually like posting too much in one day, but I'm going to anyways since this is related to the last post. I was actually working on it while writing the last one and had to let it render and upload later. Anyways, this is a test for something that I may try for "The Hole". Basically, it gives me the opportunity to do a more extreme camera move in the world of animation where you would normally have to use a motion control rig. In this test, I used a miniature(didn't have enough clay sitting around to make a large one) version of the character, set it on a table, and took a picture. Then on the computer, I edited the picture so that the background would be flat and so that there would be a hole in the table. After that was done, I went though the process of camera mapping it. Normally I would not try this for an animation, but in this case it is more easily done because of the simple shapes of the set and character(everything has to roughly be modeled in CG, complicated stuff would take forever). After doing it once, I have an idea of how I could probably make it better, but won't share all the details now(those will either come much later on the blog or in a short book on the making of "The Hole"). Here's the video. Keep in mind that it is a test, so it wasn't done to my best ability.

Back to School

Well, I'm going to have to go back to school this coming Monday. That means a considerable cut down in posts again. I'm going to be in a dorming situation so we'll how easily it will be for me to get posts and stuff done. There may be issues with the internet policy so that I won't be able to go onto various sites like You Tube. If that is the case. I'll have to do a lot of my research and writing when I am at home and have the posts post automatically. I may be able to do some simple animations there, like the ones I've been doing recently, but it will be harder to get the videos uploaded. Hopefully I'll figure something out. I'll try to have at least 2 posts a week if at all possible.

What have I been doing in the past couple days? Well, I've been messing around with some CG stuff called camera mapping. I've made some ads with it and now I'm trying to figure out if I'll be able to some how implement it into "The Hole" so that I can have one nice and smooth camera move. It might look odd in the end, but It might end up looking cool. Who knows. Here are the videos of the ads:





I accidentally wrote out the text in the last video wrong. It should read "Lead Wire and Brass Tube". Want to check out the DVD? Click here.

CG Clay

Today on Animate Clay's forums, I became aware of a man who has tried to recreate some clay stuff into CG. His name is Javier Leon and according to his Flickr personal page, he is a computer graphics artist, and runs a very small visual effects company. He loves animation and especially stop motion films. So below, I've posted some of his stuff that he's made using 3dsMax. I'm sure you'll recognize some stuff from Wallace and Gromit. If you would like see see a little more, please click on the link below to go to his Flickr page, where I got the images. There are options there to see larger images as well. You may need an account to see them however.





Javier Leon's Flickr Photostream

Animatic Start

Yesterday I ended up preparing the CG animatic some for when it'll be needed. I modeled the characters, a couple of props, and the basic scene. I also rigged the eyes so that they can be animated (first time I've ever done that). Anyways, below is an image of a little result of what I did.

Interesting Article - Cracking Clay

If you don't already know, over the last few months I've become more and more interested in digital effects, editing, and that kind of stuff (probably because of my use of Blender3D). Yesterday I found an interesting article talking about some of the digital stuff done on Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Since that movie is probably my favorite animated movie, it furthered the interest. Previously I had known that they had used certain digital effects like fog, rain, color grading, CG rabbits, and a few other ones, but this article went more into depth on the effects used in the movie, telling me some other things they also did. I didn't know the extent of computer editing that they had actually used. They also erased rigs(I knew a little about this), used green screen, and composited different shots together. So if you want to check out a neat article about some of the digital editing behind Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, check out the link below.

Click here to go to the article