Animation with a moustache

The animation with a .... je ne sais quoi!

Monthly Archive: October 2006

Play movies on your Palm 0

Life hack

 by 

Play movies on your Palm

long time no see. My Palm T5 has replaced my chunky Filofax for nearly 2 years now but few weeks ago i discovered a new use for it. Watching movies!!!

I was first drawn to the T5 because of the wide screen which is great for browsing large Excel and word files but also do draw in the Tube but it never occured to me that since it is powered by a fairly powerfull processor I should be able to watch good quality videos like H264 or Divx.

I nearly got seduced by the Video Ipod after visiting the local Apple Store few weeks ago but the battery life is pretty crap, the screen is way to small and let’s face it. Apple products are not for computer geeks like me and seeing my girlfriend Alicia being pissed off at her Ipod helped me to stay away from the dark side.

Microsoft is about to release Zune, a nifty toy with a wide screen but hey, I already carry around a mobile phone and a Palm so I did a bit of googling… few hours actually and eventually found TCPMP.

TCPMP is a freeware that plays Divx, Xvid, but also Sorenson and H264 and in full screen (480*x)!!! How cool is that? With Autogordianknot, my new computer only takes 30 minutes to encode any DVD to 480*X which I set to quality 60 and the sound to 128 VBR. I can normally put about 4 or 5 movies on a 2Gb SD card.

Battery life is the obvious issue and I can only watch 2 movies back to back which is still good enough for commuting. Palm released the TX last year. It is supposed to have a brighter screen and better battery life. Too bad it doesn’t look as sleek as the T5 but I will probably give it a go very soon.

One thing though. Playing H264 and AAC files with TCPMP is a copyright infringement for sure but also I am not too sure if it is still legal to use TCMPMP since its creators are now selling a commercial product based on it.

featured “The Curse of the Were Rabbit” and “Studio Soi” showreel

Open Season 1

Animation

 by 

Open Season

I just went to see Open Season with my friends Richie and Trystan and we had a great time. I have to admit that the story felt a bit like a mix between Madagascar, Ice Age and Shreck. “Nature versus civilisation”, “there is no US”, “the main character and the sidekick”, you know the usual animation recipe. However the animation, character designs and environments were a pure delight.

The animation on Beth the park ranger especially at the begining was very weak but the rest of the movie was excellent. If you like strong poses then you will be very pleased. Shaw the vilain was very entertaining, Martin Lawrence as Boog was very Martin Lawrence and still very funny. The animators did a great job with Boog and managed to get strong poses for the 900 pound grizzly bear, and Elliot was your regular overexcited sidekick.

Contrary to Incredibles, the generic characters weren’t so generic and had a lot of appeal.

Great stuff.

3D Character Animation Comes of Age in the U.K 1

Animation

 by 

3D Character Animation Comes of Age in the U.K

3D Character Animation Comes of Age in the U.K

I just found that very interesting article on VFXworld.com about the reemerging VFX industry in London.

You will need to register in order to read it but don’t worry it’s free and painless.

Open season Diaries
Great reading here too.

Also, you might want to watch those clips from Aardmann/Dreamworks “Flushed Away”
Ok it’s a pain to copy and paste all the urls but trust me this is really worth it and they are all quicktime files no crappy flash videos.

[edit] I actually created a page with all the links so go here instead.

One more model started 1

Sculpture

 by 

One more model started

One night I saw the very cool looking character above and decided to model it on the spot. I keep hearing people talking about taking breaks from the computer but for me the problem is more about concentration than breaks. My girlfriend Alicia couldn’t believe it but I told her I would stay awake till late ;-). It has been 5 hours so far, let’s see how long it takes me to finish this guy.

Sculpture class old stuff unfinished 0

Sculpture

 by 

Sculpture class old stuff unfinished

Here is a selection of work I did for the past few years in my little spare time. I always wanted to finish them at home but they usually end up drying on the shelves and break. Before throwing them away I thought it would be a good idea to keep a record of them. I don’t remember the name of the models and I feel terribly bad about it.

I uploaded a recent portrait some time ago Amanda

I completly forgot about that portrait until I found it hidden in a corner of a room. This portrait is one of my best. I am very pleased with the general shape of it. The foundations for a good portrait are already in place, I would just need to shape the eye lids and the ears and call it done. Pay attention to the sternocleidomastoid this is the stuff that will make a portrait more believable

For that one I had in mind to have a tiny woman on a huge plain box. I never closed entirely the box and the head fell on the floor hence the flat skull 😉

I don’t really enjoy poses where the model lays flat but I found that one very interesting at least for the lower part of the body. I really wanted to finish this piece but with no model it is always difficult and it ended up drying then crack. Too bad

That one could have been a very nice piece. As often for a full body I started to refine the legs, bum and back until the session finished.