Animation with a moustache

November 21, 2011

Kaeloo. Let’s play Scaredy Cat

I am currently in L.A. attending the incredible CTN Convention and it is a blast! I would recommend everyone to attend next year as it is a crazy event for people interested in Animated Features.

I got to meet and talk to so many exceptional people for the past two days. Among them was a great workshop with Corpse Bride character designer Carlos Grangel and tomorrow an other workshop with Sergio Pablos. I will probably write a full report in the next few weeks with pictures.

In the meantime, nothing to do with CTN but it is always a good time to post some French wacky animation. Check out that crazy episode from Cube creative/Blue spirit’s Kaeloo.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/32320946[/vimeo]

Related posts:
Kaeloo

3

EA / Friends

November 17, 2011

by Olivier Ladeuix

Robert Craig Lighting artist

Strange I never talked about my ex coworker Robert Craig before. Bob is a Scottish 3d generalist with a great eye for lighting and rendering. I have worked with Bob on several projects at EA, amongst them was Spare Parts and he also rendered some of the marketing videos I animated.

Bob did a lot of great work on the Harry Potter game series, with all the constraints it entails, and I love his personal work as it immediately reminds me of what is being done in Feature Animation and especially at a studio in Emeryville.

His work has a very painterly feel and shows a great passion for light, no wonder he also loves oil painting.

Have a look at his CG Society profile page to see his latest work in high resolution and also his Vimeo channel for a breakdown of some of the shots (his game work is included as well).

With the closure of EA Brighlight in the UK, I think someone should quickly grab him while he is still, kind of, available!

Robert Craig CG Society profile

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/26603576[/vimeo]

0

Animation

November 16, 2011

by Olivier Ladeuix

Pixar “Brave” November trailer

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEHWDA_6e3M[/youtube]

As announced few days ago, a new trailer just came out. That one is not a teaser but a proper trailer for Pixar forthcoming feature “Brave”. The movie, directed by “The Incredibles” Story supervisor and “One Man’s band” director, Mark Andrews, is set to be released June 22th 2012 in the US and around August in the UK.

It is good to finally see those character designs in motion. The three Lords have so much character, it is great! We still haven’t seen the Wise woman though, I can’t wait!

The accent is a bit strange I am finding, some of the characters seem more Irish I feel. Oh well.

If you want to see some high resolution pictures, check out my latest “Brave” post below.

Pixar “Brave” new pictures before trailer release

1

Animation / Character design

November 14, 2011

by Olivier Ladeuix

Pixar “Brave” new pictures before trailer release

A new “Brave” trailer should be hitting the theatres and our computer screens tomorrow. In the meantime, here is a series of shots from the movie.

Hit the following links for higher resolution pictures:

via Empire online
Via Bleeding cool

On a side note, I wasn’t too far off with my modeling and the hair on Lord Macintosh is looking really fun.

2

Acting / Education / Reference

November 6, 2011

by Olivier Ladeuix

Kids take – video reference

Browsing Youtube is usually the best way to waste your time and kill your productivity but once in a while some great references emerge.

Check out that collection of Kids reactions when they ear their parents ate all their Halloween candies. It is hilarious and a precious reference to animate similar shots.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YQpbzQ6gzs[/youtube]

Related post:
Take – video reference

2

Animation / Education

November 4, 2011

by Olivier Ladeuix

Aaron Hartline Chiustream

I mentioned that great interview with Pixar animator Aaron Hartline a while back but loads of people seem to have missed it.

Make sure you watch it this time as it is really good.

Aaron was a Blue Sky senior animator until he finally made his dream true after years of effort and attempts despite many hurdles. A great lesson on persistence.

You might as well be interested in watching the following interview I just found:

Pencil Kings recently spoke with Art Directors, Animation Supervisors, Layout Designers, etc. from the most notable studios in the world. Pixar, Walt Disney, Sony Imageworks and Blue Sky Studios were all represented and some of their top artists provide insight and share their story on what it took to reach the top of their profession.

http://www.pencilkings.com/2011/07/17/how-to-become-a-professional-artist/

Aaron is currently a tutor at Animation Collaborative.

2

Character design / Drawings / Education / Painting

November 2, 2011

by Olivier Ladeuix

Bobby Chiu new free painting tutorial

Bobby Chiu is a very good artist, a very good businessman and still a very generous guy.

I hadn’t followed him for a year or two and while looking for Photoshop painting tutorials for a friend I found that “new” video he posted well … last year.

Unlike his old painting videos, in that 190 minutes long tutorial (9 parts video) he explains his whole painting process from the original scanned sketch to fully rendered. This is probably similar to the paid videos you can get when attending his online art school Schoolism.com.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dib6oA3in0[/youtube]

Since this is a free video, I am also posting my notes, feel free to add comments to these.

Water creature fishing

1. Bring the scanned sketch onto a layer in multiply mode, Bobby work at 33% of the final res
2. Open a second window not the navigator in a corner at about 12% to get an overview
3. Create a backgrond layer in dark grey
4. Add a new layer inbetween sketch and background and work on the tonal values of the character, we establish the base tone.
5. We create a new layer for the cast shadows
6. We create a new layer for the Colors in Color mode

Part 4 Lets bring the lights in:
1. We have been roughing out until now but it is time to zoom in, to add more detail in normal mode
2. Upmost layer in Normal mode we add the light so the sketch disappears

Part 7 Adding a secondary rim light

Part 8 Make an overal Levels change to make the painting much lighter. I would actually do the exact opposite so the dark area would have more details rather than creating flat dark areas… strange workflow

Ah and while I was getting ready to post this….. I just received a notification that Bobby Chiu posted an other AWESOME video interview with Pixar story artist Alex Woo. Alex was Tom Gately’s substitute teacher at AnimC last week and the class had a really fun time with him. Alex is a gesture drawing teacher in San Francisco and his class is usually sold out month in advance, he also holds a very popular class at Bobby Chiu’s Schoolism

As a side note, using the 75qs0 promo code when registering on the Schoolism website, you should get a nice discount and it will also help to fund my Philz coffee addiction 😉

Related posts:
Dice Tsutsumi interview
Bobby Chiu interview

1

Animation / Painting

October 29, 2011

by Olivier Ladeuix

Sketchtravel shortfilm

Dice Tsutsumi is a machine!!!! Look at the pretty cool Sketchtravel short film he created while working full time and preparing for the Sketchtravel auction event.

I was able to see some real size reproductions of the pages at Pixar few days ago and it looks great. That Miyazaki’s double spread is pretty sweet I must say…

I have been told the book is sold out in France and I am not sure when it will arrive in the US and other countries. Who was lucky and already bought one?

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/30312312[/vimeo]

Here is some further discussion and infos on the Cartoon Brew blog.

Cartoon Brew Sketchtravel film

6

Education / Modeling

October 28, 2011

by Olivier Ladeuix

Low polygon modeling

Low polygon modelling, opposed to “high frequency modeling” (the stuff done in Zbrush or Mudbox), is the basics of modelling. Any software can handle that type of work nowadays, from the free Blender to the extremely expensive Maya, 3dsmax or XSI packages.

There are two approaches to low polygon modeling:

1. A top-down approach where you start directly with a square plane whose edges you extrude following the final edge loops.

2. A bottom-up approach where you start modeling from a cube that you gradually subdivide by adding edges or extruding faces.

Both techniques are so simple that they only require a subdivide toggling hotkey (3 in Maya) and a handful of tools which I featured in my ‘Low Polygon modeling tools’ post.

The Edge extrusion method was extensively demonstrated by Kolby Jukes back in the days he used XSI as his primary modeling software. All his videos are offline as he only does Mudbox “High frequency sculpting” nowadays but the Edge extrusion technique is the technique I featured in my latest modeling timelaps video based on Brave’s Lord Macintosh character so have a look at this:

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/25620952[/vimeo]

If you are not familiar with modeling, what I did here was to put the original concept art on a plane in the background then create a second smaller plane whose edges I extruded following an edge flow mental picture I had. The edge flow being the minimum amount of flowing edges necessary to describe the muscles, skeletal structure or deformation of the surface. Whaooo that was complicated! Well instead of just projecting a grid of edges on the surface of the head, I am creating a minimal amount of edge loops and rings that follow the creases facial expressions will produce. Makes sense?

Bay Raitt was probably the first one to fully demonstrate the Cube approach in that ground breaking 1999 “One afternoon with Bay Raitt” Mirai timelapse video.

This is the one I used in my Rickshaw modeling timelapse video:

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/6857488[/vimeo]

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/6825067[/vimeo]

I think the video is self explanatory, if not, post a comment and I will add more explanation in my post

1

Animation

October 27, 2011

by Olivier Ladeuix

Dr Seuss’ “Lorax” first trailer is out

Interesting, the first Illumination’s “Lorax” trailer finally came out. You will probably find some visual similarities with “Horton hears a Who” as “Lorax” is also based on Dr Seuss’ illustrated books and Maurice Nobel’s interpretation in that 1972 short film.

Now “Lorax” seems to have a more lighted tone that the book and short film but it definitely looks much more serious than also Mac Guff produced “Despicable Me”. I hope it gets a good reception by the public. As noted by Sergio Pablos in that recent “Frame by Frame” interview, comedies are much safer to market and sell to investors and the wider audience.

Illumination is taking a gamble by adapting the long time seen controversial Lorax book to the screen, let’s see if the aura created by Despicable Me and soon coming Despicable Me 2 will help to propel “Lorax” and Mac Guff to the level of an other studio known to regularly take similar gambles, namely Pixar, and establishes Mac Guff as a new solid player in that feature animation top 5.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_PZr1rqOR0[/youtube]

And here is the Maurice Noble’s art directed short film if you haven’t seen it yet.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5jnJdnQPr8[/youtube]