Vagabond Mutant Liquid 

Uno de los Staff Picks de Vimeo es este cortito en CGI, con un exraño hombre de estambre, que oscila entre lo tierno y lo terrorífico. El corto está creado prácticamente en su totalidad por Toby Stretch. Les recomiendo seguirlo para que vean las otras cosas que hace (entre sus cosas tiene un video de Radiohead).

Felices pesadillas…

Sometimes, one hundred seconds and not a single word of dialogue is all you need to make something eerie as hell.

“Vagabond Mutant Liquid,” written, directed, animated, and sculpted by Toby Stretch, was aired on Adult Swim’s Off the Air, in the episode loosely themed around liquid. If that sounds like a benign theme, go watch this again. That face in the shopping cart is going to haunt me.

Animated short film for Off The Air episode Liquid on Adult Swim adultswim.com/videos/off-the-air/liquid 
Produced by Dave Hughes, Cody DeMatteis and Alan Steadman
Written, Directed, Animated and Sculpted by Toby Stretch…

https://vimeo.com/133217402

Dinosaur Supervisor 

Ahora que todo mundo está de nuevo interesado con el tema de Jurassic Park, aquí hay una interesante nota que leí al respecto de esta secuela iniciada por Spielberg y que revolucionó los efectos especiales en el cine. La historia es sobre uno de los animadores de stop motion más famosos de antaño (Phil Tippett), que aprovechó el cambio de lo análogo a lo digital en el mundo de los efectos especiales (CGI) para obtener uno de los puestos mas envidiables que se han conocido en la industria del cine: “Supervisor de Dinosaurios”.

Me alegra pensar que lo nuevo siempre se alimenta de lo viejo…

Spielberg assembled the Mount Rushmore of VFX — Stan Winston, Phil Tippett, Dennis Muren and Michael Lantieri — to bring dinosaurs to life for Universal Pictures’ adaptation of Michael Crichton’s book. The plan was to incorporate a blend of conventional techniques: full-scale mechanical dinos (like the T-rex at the paddock and the ailing triceratops) and high-speed miniatures (the running herds, many of the raptor shots).

At the time, Industrial Light and Magic was experimenting with computer-generated graphics, which it had used in the James Cameron films The Abyss and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. But CGI had only been used to make stylized liquid and metallic surfaces, not living, breathing creatures. Muren, who had been working with the technique at the Bay Area effects shop, suggested they give it a try, and created a short shot of T-rex running through a field.

“I’ve become extinct!” Tippett famously exclaimed, a line Spielberg liked so much he wrote it into an exchange between Drs. Alan Grant and Ian Malcolm…

But Tippett had learned an extraordinary amount about paleontology, the physicality of dinosaurs and the movements of animals for Jurassic Park and his previous dinosaur short films. Though the creatures’ bodies were being moved from his fingertips to computer screens, Tippett knew how they were supposed to look and behave. He had a new role: dinosaur supervisor…

http://on.mash.to/1G8TGHW

El valle inquietante

Cuando veo este personaje creado en CGI por la empresa de video-juegos Activision pienso que estamos llegando a un parteaguas en la historia de las artes visuales. Sobre todo dentro del arte que se mueve bajo el paradigma de la mimesis (representación de la realidad). Desde esta perspectiva, la misión está cumplida: la máxima ilusión está siendo alcanzada. El trompe-l’œil es casi perfecto.

Pero esto, además de causar asombro, crea una extraña inquietud. No importa cuan perfecto, es creepy. Esta reacción es algo casi instintivo, una especie de rechazo natural contra lo artificial. En robótica, el fenómeno es conocido como “the uncanny valley (el valle inquietante)…

 

This rendering was presented by Jorge Jimenez of the video game company Activision Blizzard during the 2013 Game Developers Conference on Wednesday.

As he describes it on his blog, this is part of the company’s “next-generation character rendering” and is the “culmination of many years of work in photorealistic characters.”

We’re no experts, but it seems we’ve crossed some kind of threshold in animation, where what’s real and animated is close to impossible to tell apart.

Mashable asks the pertinent, philosophical question: Does this next-generation animation cross the so-called “uncanny valley”?

The term was coined in 1970 by the Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori. He said humans can relate to robots — think R2-D2 — but once they get too humanlike, but not close enough — think the animated Angelina Jolie in Beowulf — they feel disgust. That disgust — that “uncanny valley” — subsides at the other side: when the robot is indistinguishable from reality.

So, have we crossed that valley with this animation?

http://n.pr/ZIx2Ik

ParaNorman.com

Una liga bastante entretenida. El sitio de www.paranorman.com recrea muy bien toda la trama y escenarios de la película de stop motion, que por cierto es de Laika, la misma empresa que nos dió Coraline y una de las mejores en esta técnica…

La navegación tiene un scroll con efectos de parallax que son de lo mejor que he visto aplicados a una UI. Entre otras cosas, hay un recorrido interactivo por la historia, así como por detalles de la producción. Tambien tiene una aplicación para que hagas tu propio personaje animado y lo publiques en el sitio y en redes sociales…

You don’t become a hero by being normal. Enter Norman’s world and unlock secret content in this HTML5 site that works across desktop and device.

http://www.paranorman.com

ParaNorman.com

Henry Waltz

“In 2012 the journey begins”. Henry Waltz is a concept of a feature length film. It’s the first teaser showing the visual conception of the film. All the visuals, animations and compositing made by Emil Goodman.

Emil Goodman is a Polish animator and filmmaker who has done a bunch of shorts, but no features yet. Henry Waltz is his first big production and, while it’s reminiscent to other upcoming steampunk themed animation features like the Terry Gilliam produced 1884, it’s still impressive to behold. There’s no story synopsis that I can find, so the project is shrouded in some mystery. Despite some of the more artsy creature elements I think it’s safe to say there is a story… at least I hope so. It would seem like a lot of work to not take people on a journey of some kind.

It’s worth noting that Goodman did a lot of the work on cheap home-made motion capture systems and used many Diy approaches to get his striking visuals on a budget. And, if you like this, you can see more of Emil Goodman’s stuff on his blog. »

visit:
henrywaltz.com

juliakaganskiy:

I have a weakness for steampunk and this is a particularly fine specimen of gorgeous steampunk-style animation.