Animation with a moustache

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

Category: Animation

Tofu Fury 0

Animation / Drawings / Portfolio / Video Games

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Tofu Fury

amazon_02

Dear blog, it has been a while since we last spoke. I was intending to finish and upload the shots I did while attending AnimSquad but things went a bit crazy since last December 😉

The last few month have been really busy with a secret project I can finally talk about.

I have been privileged to get involved with “Tofu Fury”, a launch game for Amazon’s Fire phone, a pretty cool mobile device that among many other features, can track the head of the user thanks to four additional cameras and simulate 3d in a manner that hasn’t been seen to that level of depth on a mobile device yet.

If you want to know more about the phone, The Verge got it all covered with several articles. The Mayday feature will be of a great help to my mom and dad who just don’t understand how to operate a smartphone.

I still can’t divulge too much about our game but it is coming very soon and it was awesome to have it demoed on stage by Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos himself when the device finally got announced two weeks ago. Funny enough, he called the game “Angry Tofu” because the idea delighted him and the title caught up with the press to the dismay of our producer and our studio owner.

Tofu Fury screenshot

Working on the game was a great challenge as on top of being the animator, I was also the Character TD and it was the first time I relied so much on Morph targets (blend shapes) in Unity (the game engine we used).

Since blend shapes are really new to the version of Unity we used and there were so many horror stories on the Unity forum, I tried everything I could to stay away from them and use bones and joints deformation instead but blend shapes were ultimately the best way to create the stylized deformations we were after.

As the main character is 100% animated with blend shapes, “Tofu Fury” is a testimony that blend shapes are perfectly reliable in Unity. I even went to the extent of using blend shapes for some of the bad guys and “non-playable-character’s” (NPC) skin deformation that are traditionally handled through joints and the result was visually more pleasing and less resource intensive, at least for the test we did we Martin, our programmer mostly involved with character animations.

Ok, I think that is all I can say for now so here is a video of Jeff Bezos demoing our game.

Tofu Fury on stage

Ah, one more thing. Like most cool kids I just created an Instagram page for my Life drawings and sketches. If you are also an Instagram user, feel free to follow me at
#oliveuktoon

#oliveuktoon

Pixar animation software part II 10

Animation

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Pixar animation software part II

There has been some development in the secrecy surrounding Pixar’s animation software in the past few weeks but before we get started, you might want to refresh yourself with the previous article I wrote about Menv and Presto.

Pixar animation software part 1

Pixar officially revealed their software Presto (aka Menv 13) to the world, in a jaw-dropping tech demo illustrating the benefit of relying on GPU and Nvidia latest tech for that matter.

Maya and other 3d animation softwares look so antiquated compared to Presto. Unlike Autodesk and their mono-threaded CPU viewport, it is quite obvious that Pixar engineers are listening to the users.

In the following video you will get to see some features animators have been screaming for and no-one seems to be listening to it.

1. Invisible on-viewport local trigger controls.

Forget about having to constantly disconnect your sight from your model and having to keep half of your screen free for a silly GUI:

See how the presenter simply click on the geometry to activate the transformation gizmo. If you pay attention you will also notice that the smile to sad control he is activating, triggers automatically the mouth corners up/down and in/out values.

Invisible local trigger controls

2. Realtime animation WITH hair!

It is a lot more predictable to pose a character when you can see a closer representation of the final groom and if on top the playback is real time…. damn!

3. Realtime shadows

Nothing too exceptional here. Most 3d packages have been doing this for quite a while but definitely not with fur visible in realtime.

Real time shadows

4. The pose library is not that different from other software but some people might be interested to see it :

Here is the extract from the demo followed by the full presentation showing the realtime lighting engine:

http://www.ustream.tv/embed/recorded/45386636

Related posts:
Pixar animation software part 1
So you want to be a rigger (TD) huh?
Pixar Brave wireframes

Gena the Crocodile and Cheburashka 7

Animation / Education

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Gena the Crocodile and Cheburashka

Over the years I have come across many great TV series and short films produced in the former Eastern bloc, “Pat a Mat” being one of them, but I can’t believe it took me so long to come across 1969 “Cheburashka”.

Cheburashka, is a series of four Russian stop motion shortfilms made in the early 70s, featuring Gena, a Crocodile in suit officiating at the local Zoo, and Cheburashka (“tumble” in Russian), the baby bear/monkey looking character that fell into an orange crate to wake up in a Russia town.

The short films are a pure joy to watch. The characters and accompanying music are so sweet and the stories so funny and sad at the same time that you can only empathize with the characters. As a side note, Shapoklyak, the third short film of the series is definitely the one with the darkest moments. That sequence when Cheburashka, seeing how Gena is tired from their long walk back home on the train tracks after they had their train tickets stolen and suggests Gena that instead he could carry the heavy luggages while being carried by Gena is both hilarious and heart-wrenching.

I really love that series at it reminds me of the quirkiness and tenderness of Studio AKA’s short film “Lost and Found”, the sadness of René Clements, 1952 “Forbidden games” and the great physical acting from Jacques Tati’s “Mr Hulot”. There is also some “Sitting Ducks” (the first TV show animated in 3dsmax) in it but that is probably just because we see a civilized Crocodile 😉

Unsurprisingly the series was immensely popular in the Eastern Bloc and Cheburashka was the mascot of the Russian Olympic team several times.

What could be surprising is the fact that the series was brought to Japan by non other than legendary Japanese film director Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. The first episode, or second one appearing in the entire compilation below, was animated by Miyasaki’s friend and inspirational director, Yuriy Norshteyn. The series gained a lot of popularity in Japan and a feature produced by both Ffango Entertoyment of South Korea and Frontier Works of Japan, supposedly came out in 2010 but I wasn’t able to find any footage of it, just the movie poster and some wonderful screenshots.

If you don’t have time to watch the four shorts, I would at least recommend watching the great pantomime animation in the following sequence.

The script probably said something like “Gena signs form and postal worker returns to his van”. What the animators added to it is just wonderful. Keep an eye on that hat, a lot of nice little touches made the characters so alive. There is definitely some Mr Hulot in there.

Here is the link to the exact sequence => postal worker deliver birthday package

And here is the the entire series with English subtitles. You definitely want to hear the original Russian song and sweet voice over work.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOZpUDMj9t8&t=0m00s[/youtube]

Related post:
Amandine Pecharman “Lost and Found”
“Kuky se vraci”, Kuky is coming back

Painting with a Moustache 0

Animation

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Painting with a Moustache

Having moved back to London to work on a really cool cartoony game I can’t talk much of for now, I am currently focusing on life drawing and painting most of my evenings. London is probably the only place in the world where Life drawing classes happen pretty much every day.

For that reason, I decided to start a new blog and I will be posting all sort of useful information I come across on it and I might even post some of my drawings. Hopefully you might find some information helpful .

I have a bit of experience with Life drawing, painting is something very new to me so if you are interested in the same topic, point your RSS reader to the following link, I will be posting all the great material I find useful in my learning.

http://moustachepaint.blogspot.co.uk/

The blog look a bit rough around the edges but the content should easily compensate for the look in my opinion. On a side note, I am not going with WordPress this time as I am a bit tired of having to constantly update it and always fear that something will be broken. Also, I have started suggesting to my friends who need a Content Management System to also use Blogger so this might prove useful to test the levels of customisation it supports.

Surprisingly Animation with a Moustache hasn’t been hacked for quite a while ….. or so I hope 😉

As an effort to better market myself and increase my chances of getting new jobs after my current contract, I have also just made a new temp title card featuring my best work. An updated one will appear in few month.

Keep pushing yourself!

CGTarian Animation Half circle 0

Animation / Education

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CGTarian Animation Half circle

someone just pointed at a great series of videos posted by online school CGTarian. The videos feature a bunch of top Dreamworks animators (is Joe Bower at Disney or Dreamworks now?) discussing animation.

It has been a long time since I last heard a group of animators talk shop and it is really refreshing. Too bad they are not invited to comment on DVDs and Blurays anymore.

The series starts with the crucial “thumbs or no thumbs” and having Ted Ty comment makes it even more interesting.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjrJgzzUjV0[/youtube]

CGTarian online school Youtube channel.

Related posts:
Tangled Joe Bowers thought process

“Krampus” by Screen Novelties 0

Animation

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“Krampus” by Screen Novelties

Fun stop motion animated greeting card by L.A. based Studio Novelties, the people behind the Stop motion Sponge Bob Xmas special.

I love the design of Krampus. Check out the following links to see some behind the scenes and their blog to see past work

“Krampus” behind the scenes

Screen Novelties blog

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/82356351[/vimeo]

Well…. I have to post that video about their past Spongebob special in case you missed the link. That would be sad. I also love 2d but there is something about seeing those characters in volume….

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFrVIDgfD0U[/youtube]

via: Cartoon Brew

CTNX 2013 Live 0

Animation / Business of animation / Education

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CTNX 2013 Live

CTN on demand

If like me you couldn’t make it to CTNX this year, don’t despair. Tina Price and her crew are offering a free broadcast with demos and live interviews of several participants. Click on the following picture to access it. I think you can also ask questions in realtime….. too bad I only realized that late yesterday.

CTNX 2013 Live

There is also a paying option to access some of the conferences Live and On Demand for $55 but I can’t find much informations about it. I think it is only the main conferences held in the Marriott’s ballroom. It is a pretty cool option as it is like being at CTN and avoiding the schedules reshuffles, long queues and accompanying queue jumpers without paying for the unattainable VIP pass 😉

It would be awesome if the conferences held in the tents and secondary venues were also broadcast as those were just as much interesting and sometimes even better last year.

Here is where you would order the paying option and I have been told the content will still be available 15 days after the show ends.

http://www.eventbrite.com/e/ctnx-2013-attendees-tickets-4867768627

Here are some of my favourite artists being interviewed: Bobby Chiu and Jesse Aclin. There was a quick demo with the awesomely nice John Nevarez which I will post when I find it.

Thanks Tina, your crew and all the volunteers. With the addition of the live broadcast and recording, CTN is definitely a one of a kind event.

Related posts:
Back from CTN 2012

“Rob ‘n’ Ron” by Tumblehead 2

Animation / Education

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“Rob ‘n’ Ron” by Tumblehead

Very fun short by Tumblehead, a bunch of graduates from Viborg’s finest “Animation Workshop“. You might remember those chaps from “Elk Hair Caddis“.

They were so nice they even shared some behind the scenes videos showing their process, the rendering (using Arnold) and a rig demo.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/68307465[/vimeo]

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/69272039[/vimeo]

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/61904692[/vimeo]

Run cycle video reference 4

Animation / Education

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Run cycle video reference

Run and walks are the bread and butter of video game animators and unfortunately I hadn’t found a good source of references on that topic in the past.

Until today, I wasn’t bothered and used treadmill references since that’s mainly what they have been doing at Pixar from Monsters Inc to Up so if it is good for them, it should be good for me, but it is said that treadmill runs are actually different from the real thing.

My understanding of physics is so basic that I can’t see why it would be any different (does anyone actually understands inertia or references frames?) so I decided to do some research and was lucky to find two great references of World record marathon runner Haile Gebrselassie. One of him on a treadmill and a second one shot during a marathon. I didn’t spend too much time on walks since everybody’s walk is unique and I am pretty sure the difference would be too subtle.

Before you watch the videos and make up your mind, one thing I should mentioned is that the treadmill run was only a 4 minutes run and he was wiping his face with the towel in front of him few frames before the beginning of the footage. You can find the link to the original footage below. The video on the right is a real marathon race.

Here is a Vimeo version if you prefer

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/11380454[/vimeo]

What can we notice?

The upper body is possibly slightly bent forward on the road race but I don’t think there is a real difference for the back leg to be honest, at least not at 30fps.

For runs, I would suggest people to pay attention to the running style instead and get to learn about the Pose Method.

The Pose method is dramatically different than a regular run since you hit the road with the ball of your foot rather than the heel so your calf muscle plays the role of a shock absorber rather than the sole of your expensive trainers and your knee joint, leading to less joint stress/pain. Hum it looks like I should do an other video showing regular runs compared to Pose ones 😉

[update]
As animators we are having a tough time to understand runs but don’t worry…. so do runners!

This guy found out that depending on the brand of shoes he is wearing, or not wearing, he would hit the ground in a different manner, check out those great references:

http://www.runblogger.com/2009/12/relationship-between-running-footstrike.html

Original references:
Haile Gebrselassie Treadmill Run
Haile running slow motion

Ringling “Spyfox” and some painting 0

Animation / Drawings / Education / Painting / Portfolio

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Ringling “Spyfox” and some painting

What, wait! Three Ringling students made this?!?!! How the hell is this possible !

I just love it, especially the character design. Really good work guys! I want to see a sequel to this!

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/71748250[/vimeo]

and here is a link to the artist’s blogs where you will find a great making of video:

Yoav Shtibelman
Taylor Clutter
Kendra Phillips

While I am posting, here are some news for you. I am currently attending Nate Wragg’s “character design for production” class and it is awesome. I always manage to screw up and not respect the deadlines but the character I am working on is developing really nicely. I will be posting all my work when the class finishes but here is a little work in progress for you. We are not supposed to do any rendering but I felt I needed to shade this guy for this week’s turnaround.

I learnt that painting technique at Schoolism. This is the technique used by Nathan Fowkes, Bobby Chiu and Andrew Hou.

I will probably share my Photoshop brushes at the end of the class. Here is that work in progress, the mouth is completely out of whack but I think it is a fun painting.

Related post:
Francesco Giroldini, lighting tutorials