Animation with a moustache

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

Tagged: Pixar

Pixar Brave, sneak peek clip 0

Animation

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Pixar Brave, sneak peek clip

Something new from Emeryville just came out and it is looking really nice. If you still needed to be convinced to go and watch Pixar’s next feature, Brave, you are in for a treat.

I like the sound they put at the end of the clip, reminds me of a “Lost” episode.

I am not too sure about the rendering/compositing though. I feel some reflected light and maybe some colours in the shadows are missing. The dark areas seem too bright in places and the green of the “straw like grass” seems a bit strange for such a rainy kingdom but this could be due to the Youtube compression and my taste for saturated colours 😉

Character design wise, I was worried Merida and Queen Elinor’s design would be too bland but they have some nice subtle wrinkles and sharp features that work very well in animation.

I can’t wait!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1SBjAuMN6A[/youtube]

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A day in the production of La Luna 0

Animation / Education

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A day in the production of La Luna


Pixar’s story artist Enrico Cassarosa wrote a nice series of article where we follow him for a day, during the production of his short film “La Luna”.

One thing that surprised me was to see Mudbox being used at Pixar. I thought they were still using that stylus and digital arm we have seen in the past but it looks like they have now fully embraced digital modeling and chosen a tool that doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel. No Zbrush nonsense here. I wonder if they also use 3d coat or Topogun.

The series of articles starts from the following post and you can access the next ones by clicking on the link above the posts to the right, “9am off to work” being next.

A day in the production of La Luna

While we are at it, you can also have a look at that nice 30 minutes interview with Enrico

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olxTcA18lXo#![/youtube]

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3d Modeling portfolio 4

Education / Modeling / Portfolio

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3d Modeling portfolio

Since animation work is pretty scarce at the moment I have decided to put all my modeling work together just so I can apply to 3d modeling positions.

Those are props for a long overdue short film, personal work, professional work and character design studies. The work was done in Maya 2009 for the most recent pieces, 3ds Max 5 for the rest.

The Pixar related models are obviously fan art as I have never worked on Ratatouille or Brave. I only did those to get a better understanding of Pixar’s character designs, wireframe edge flow and rigging (articulations).

During a recent visit to French sculptor Bourdelle’s museum in Paris, I was reminded it is how the best artists learnt their art, by copying the masters. Michaelangelo was a great source of inspiration for Bourdelle, Daniel Lopez Munoz is mine.

Download the PDF version if you prefer Olivier_Ladeuix_modeling_2011.pdf or click the pictures below to zoom in.

You will probably find a timelapse video for most pieces in the “Related Posts” section at the end of the post and I would suggest their viewing to anyone wanting to learn about CG modeling and clean edge flow or just to see wireframes.

MacIntosh_v02

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Scarecrow model packet 5

Character design / Drawings / Education / Painting / Portfolio

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Scarecrow model packet

Today we had one more amazing Animation Collaborative Character Design class.

This time, Albert and Chris brought Jason Deamer to give us a talk on Model Packeting. According to Al and Chris, Jason is the best artist for that kind of work at Pixar. Jason shared with us some of his Model sheets from Finding Nemo and we also saw some more from Up and the character Muntz in particular.

Here was the assignment I turned.

This is a rough “model packet” for one of the characters from my take on the “Wizard of Oz”. A “Wizard of Oz” that would take place in Siberia.

A model packet is a document that gets handed to the 3d modelers so they can take a design and turn it into a full 3d model. It can range from 5 to 18 pages depending on the complexity of the character or how much direction the modelers need.

There is nothing too complicated for that one but that was still pretty challenging. It is still very rough for the time being, I will post a cleaned up version very soon. Right now the arms and nose are not detailed enough for the modelers to do their job. The eyes also need to be worked out as they wouldn’t communicate eye direction. I will probably go for cartoony eyes like the last drawing.

I hope you like it!

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Pixar “Brave” November trailer 0

Animation

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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

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Pixar “Brave” new pictures before trailer release 1

Animation / Character design

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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.

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Aaron Hartline Chiustream 2

Animation / Education

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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.

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Bobby Chiu new free painting tutorial 2

Character design / Drawings / Education / Painting

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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 😉

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