This article by Sabine Hatzfeld originally appeared in DP 03 : 2015.

For the film project “Le Gouffre”, Thomas Chrétien, Carl Beauchemin and David Forest quit their jobs, formed the Lightning Boy Studio and moved in together for cost and production reasons. A Kickstarter campaign brought the animated film with the unusual look to completion, which was nominated for an animago AWARD in the “Best Short Film” category in 2O14.

The trio met in 2006 at the Canadian college “Cégep du Vieux Montréal”(www.cvm.qc.ca). Carl Beauchemin and David Forest studied 3D animation, Thomas Chrétien 2D animation. In the third and final year of their studies, they decided to work together as filmmakers in the future. Thomas went on to complete a two-year 3D degree programme, while Carl and David gained their first experience in the industry.

After six months of developing the story, production finally got underway at the beginning of 2012 – despite all team members now working full-time. Carl and David worked as 3D animators at Modus FX on the first Canadian 3D feature film “The Legend of Sarila”, while Thomas worked as a VFX artist for mobile games at Gameloft(www.gameloft.com). There was only time for “Le Gouffre” at night or at weekends. So after six months, all three of them quit their jobs to work on their film full-time and only from time to time. To save costs, they also moved into a flat. We spoke to Carl Beauchemin about the project, which was successfully financed via Kickstarter towards the end. The film and makingof have been online on Vimeo since February this year(bit.ly/1zgSovu and bit.ly/1zMo3C1).

DP: Hello Carl, why didn’t you consider a crowdfunding solution or funding opportunity right from the start?

Carl Beauchemin: Our original plan was to get a government grant. But when you make a film for the first time, nobody trusts you. Our application was rejected three times in a row. At the same time, we realised that no company would support us as long as there were no presentable shots. That’s why we abandoned crowdfunding. Without actually rendered shots, how do you hope to convince people that you can make a good film?

DP: What hardware equipment did your budget allow for?

Carl Beauchemin: Each of us still had a good computer from our student days – because of the 3D homework. We also had a special computer at our disposal: in 2007 David submitted an illustration to a competition organised by cgsociety.com – and promptly took first place! The prize was a Maingear Shift(www.maingear.com), which we nicknamed “the beast” and which lived up to its name in the rendering.

DP: How was your pipeline structured?

Carl Beauchemin: The lion’s share of the work – i.e. modelling, animation, rigging, VFX, rendering – was done in Softimage. We also used ZBrush for the detailed work on some of the models. Concept art and storyboards were created traditionally on paper or in Photoshop. The compositing was done in After Effects and the editing was done in Sony Vegas. We also worked with Slipstream VX from Exocortex, a plug-in for Softimage. We used it to implement every particle simulation that can be seen in the film(exocortex.com/products/slipstream).

DP: How were Previs and Animatics used?

Carl Beauchemin: They were essential parts of our workflow. We spent months working on the animatic. We wanted to make sure that the timing was right and that the storyline was coherent. With the help of the Previs, we were able to create a rough version of our sets to get an idea of the proportions.

DP: What inspired you to make this film?

Carl Beauchemin: “Le Gouffre” is set in an undefined location. We did look at pictures of canyons, but we didn’t copy them one-to-one, we changed the scale and adapted them to our desired film look. For the characters, we focussed on a timeless look. We left out details such as zips or logos so that the design didn’t come across as too modern. Our aim was to give the film a special atmosphere, comparable to a legendary tale.

DP: How did the unusual look come about?

Carl Beauchemin: We had a very specific look in mind and it took us a long time to realise it. In the end, we had to paint all the textures by hand and find a clever way to put the shots together. During this process, we realised that in order to create a unique visual style, we had to forget everything we learned about compositing in school. Instead, we looked for a way to do it all in Photoshop with layers and paint brushes.

DP: How did you actually realise this for the sets?

Carl Beauchemin: For the sets, we first unfolded the meshes with UVs to assign the textures in medium resolution everywhere. This allowed us to make sure that everything looked good and looked painted from a distance. Up close, on the other hand, it sometimes looked really bad, but that didn’t matter: in such cases, we took a screen capture of the set from the camera angle of the shot and painted all the high-resolution details in Photoshop. We also often quickly created a greyscale texture shader for rendering in order to get more details on a new texture. Then we just had to project the whole thing back onto the original mesh. Of course, this only worked if the camera panning was not too strong. Otherwise you would have seen that the projection was expanding in a somewhat strange way.

DP: How did you approach the look of the characters?

Carl Beauchemin: Because they were animated, we couldn’t use the same projection technique. Instead, we relied on good, hand-painted textures and lots and lots of passes. We had a separate mask for the head, hands, eyes and hair, as well as for each individual item of clothing. We treated each light as if it were a colour layer. So we selected the exact colour we wanted to use in the lit scene and assigned it as a solid colour instead of having the layer in an additional mode. That helped us a lot to get rid of that classic CG look.

DP: Did you actually consider using an inexpensive MoCap system for animation references?

Carl Beauchemin: No. Firstly, that was never our intention and secondly, our budget wouldn’t have allowed it anyway. However, we ran through all the shots ourselves and edited them into a reference real film. This allowed us to see whether the flow of the film worked. We always tried to place the cameras in the same way as in the animated film so that we could also test whether the cuts worked. But the biggest advantage of the video reference material is that you can see all the fine little movements. This allowed us to make the animation in the film look as real as possible.

DP: What challenges did you face when rigging the film?

Carl Beauchemin: We already knew how to rig in Maya. But as we wanted to realise the project in Softimage – the programme we mainly worked with after our studies – we had to learn everything from scratch. So the first character rig was quite a challenge. It took us a month to finalise it. But after that it was just a matter of repeating the same steps. We made sure that the same parts of the rigs had the same names for all the characters. This allowed us to transfer the animation of one character to another, which sped up production considerably. This mainly concerned movements such as running, cheering or sowing. To simplify the process of animating faces and fingers, we had Visual Panels at our disposal. This allowed us to select animation controllers quickly and intuitively. But our biggest challenge was the bridge. It consisted of over 70 duplicated individual parts, so the rigging had to be well thought out right from the start.

DP: Which ZBrush tools were useful to you?

Carl Beauchemin: We used the ClayTubes brush the most, which is great for refining details, especially when used in conjunction with the Smooth brush. The brush also behaves very similarly to the one we used in Photoshop to paint our textures. Other useful brushes I can mention are Pinch and Slash3, which we used to paint all the crevices and details of the rock face or the folds in the clothing. The Decimation Master also turned out to be a lifesaver. We often had to create high-resolution set elements in close-up at the last minute. This plugin helped us to export meshes that had a lot of detail but could still be rendered quickly. ZAppLink also proved useful in our painting process, as it allows you to seamlessly integrate image editing software – in our case Photoshop – into ZBrush.

DP: How did the work with Sony Vegas go?

Carl Beauchemin: This editing software was used for the entire editing process. We updated the edit almost every day. That was brilliant for keeping an overview. We always knew exactly what had already been done and what hadn’t. We stacked many video tracks on top of each other: 2D animatic, film references, animation captures and final renders. When we added a new clip, we could play the whole sequence to make sure everything ran smoothly.

DP: Which renderer did you use?

Carl Beauchemin: Since we didn’t have the resources to render complex shaders and lighting, we used basic shaders, mostly surface shaders and lamberts. All the details were in the painted textures, so we didn’t need anything more complex than that. We even faked the subsurface scattering in some textures, such as the ears of the characters. Rendering was done in Mental Ray, the default renderer in Softimage. The renderer did a good job and produced our frames at a decent speed.

DP: How long did the rendering take?

Carl Beauchemin: We rendered frames every night and at weekends – for over a year. I can’t tell you the exact number of hours, but it must have totalled around 15,000. We couldn’t use the services of a render farm for budgetary reasons.

DP: How did Kickstarter help you in the end?

Carl Beauchemin: This crowdfunding platform was our last resort – and our best decision during the entire project. We ran out of money in mid-2013 and were looking for ways to pay our musicians and sound designer. This meant that a campaign, wherever it was launched, simply had to work. One crucial point was that we already had followers. Not many, but just enough to reach a few hundred people who shared our Kickstarter page with their friends after the launch. One of our goals right from the start was to build a fanbase. To do this, we set up a production blog and published concept art, insider information and lots of tips and tricks that we had learnt from our work there every fortnight. At the same time, we filled our Facebook page and continually posted in various CG forums. After a year and a half, we had quite a decent number of followers. But it took a long time and a lot of effort to build up this fanbase.

DP: But at that point you were already able to show your first results.

Carl Beauchemin: That’s right, we were already very far along in the film production. So, fortunately, we were not only able to show a lot of shots, but also cut a trailer that caught people’s attention. It was also very obvious that we had already invested a lot of time, effort and money in this project. So the message was not: “Give us money so that we can realise our dream”. Rather, it came across that we had already done everything we could on our own. Now it was just about that little push we needed to complete the project. I think this approach touched people and helped make this campaign such a big success: With 711 backers, we raised a whopping 24,155 Canadian dollars instead of the planned 5,000.

DP: Looking back, would you do anything differently?

Carl Beauchemin: No, I don’t think so. The biggest problem for us was that we misjudged the time. It took us two years to produce the album instead of one year as planned. Looking back, there was no other way to achieve the quality we wanted. Basically, our naivety and enthusiasm were an advantage. Because if we had known beforehand that it would take two years, we might have waited a few years until we had more money together. One of us would probably have changed our minds and decided to call the whole thing off. “Le Gouffre” probably wouldn’t have turned out like this if we had waited longer.

DP: What’s next for you?

Carl Beauchemin: The film has finished its festival run and is now online. It has been incredibly well received and we couldn’t be happier. From the beginning, our goal was to get the attention of people working in the film industry. We wanted to show what we can do as a team. We hope that this project will lead to new partnerships. As Lightning Boy Studio, we want to develop and direct projects. However, we are keen to work with other studios that take on the administrative parts such as renting space and hiring staff. We also all have our own jobs: after completing “Le Gouffre”, David and his wife founded “MrCuddington”(mrcuddington.com) and now create illustrations for board games from home. I now work as a 3D artist at Pascal Blais Studio(www.pascalblais.com), which specialises in animations for commercials, and Thomas works as a director and VFX artist at Hibernum Creations(www.hibernum.com), a mobile games company.

The post The power of the crowd first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: As part of our recurring weekly series “Animago Afternoon”, we present pearls, treasures and other gems from last year’s Animago film festivals at the best time of the afternoon. This time we are showing you a short film nominated in the “Best Advertising Production” category, salvaged from the Animago archives in 2015: “Supermoine Holypop” throws the bottle cap for the lifestyle drink Holypop . The action-packed short film was realised by filmmakers from Supamonks Studio in Paris.

Click on: You can find the full-length link to the fast-paced short film with plenty of comic splatter below. Our serving suggestion: Take a deep breath after watching the film – and enjoy a freshly cracked bottle of Zuckerbrause?

SUPERMOINE HOLYPOP (le gardien du secret)

 

The post Supermoine Holypop | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: As part of our recurring weekly series “Animago Afternoon”, we present pearls, gems and other gems from last year’s Animago film festivals at the best time of the afternoon. This time we’re showing you the short film nominated in the “Best Visualisation” category, salvaged from the Animago archives in 2015, which addresses a sensitive topic: “Young Heroes” deals with organ donation and was made by Robert Pohle, Ronny Schmidt, Maurice Mersinger and Jochen Mader from Uhsless (now Studio Streckenbach). Uli Streckenbach is the man behind Uhsless, who was awarded an animago trophy for his graduation film “Ending Overfishing” at the Kunsthochschule Halle in 2012, as well as for “Let’s talk about soil” a year later (which we presented to you on 25 May this year ).

What is “Young Heroes” about? All people are united by mortality. This is often suppressed. People are also very reluctant to think about the reuse of their own organs after death. The “Young Heroes” organisation advocates an individual and considered decision on the subject of organ donation. To this end, Uhsless from Berlin produced a five-minute 3D animation film explaining the organ donation process – step by step, step by step.” This is how Mirja Fürst’s magazine article on the film project, published in DP 03 : 2016, began.

Click further: The highly relevant short film is linked below in full length. We say: Watch the film – and consider an organ donor card? Join in at junge-helden.org or get involved in the good cause.

Young heroes: The process of organ donation

The post Junge Helden | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: As part of our weekly recurring series “Animago Afternoon”, we present pearls, gems and other splendours from last year’s Animago film festivals at the best time of the afternoon. This time we’re showing you the winner in the “Best Visualisation” category, salvaged from the Animago archives in 2013: “Let’s Talk about Soil” was made under the guidance of director Uli Henrik Streckenbach – an alumnus of Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle.

What is “Let’s Talk about Soil” about? The film deals with the questionable state of our soil resources worldwide. The five-minute film deals with topics such as increasing urbanisation, illegal overexploitation, unlawful land takeover and one-sided monocultures.

Let’s talk about soils! And anyway, did you know that it takes two thousand years to create just 10 centimetres of fertile soil? Or that an area of land the size of Berlin is concreted over with urban buildings every year in Europe? The problem with this is that half of the soil built up in this way remains sealed – permanently. In other words, this soil is no longer available for fertile cultivation. But fertile soil is – as the short film says – “not an endless resource”.

Staying on the ground: The film clearly underlines the fact that this shortage is not just a matter of a pill: “One billion people have to go to bed hungry every day,” says “Let’s Talk about Soil”, which was released in 2013. High time for “Walk the Talk”, isn’t it? Despite all the criticism, the film also shows possible solutions and emphasises the need for legislators to create their own legal spaces for soil – however strange this may sound to the ears of the baby boomer generation.

Click further: You can find the full-length link to the stirring short film below. We say: Roll the film – and don’t lose your grip! On globalsoilweek.org you can get to the bottom of the (sometimes worrying) facts!

Let’s Talk About Soil – English (w/ Dutch Subtitles)

The post Animated feast for the eyes | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: As part of our weekly recurring series “Animago Afternoon”, we present pearls, gems and other splendours from last year’s Animago film festivals at the best time of the afternoon. This time, salvaged from the Animago archives in 2014, we show you the award-nominated promotional short film “Help Save Us”, realised by the Mexicans from Cluster Studio. The Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental is being promoted.

The message of the short film is that everything we do to nature ultimately harms ourselves. It visualises the everyday waste of resources and the result if humanity continues to act selfishly and wastefully. The film encourages us to tackle global responsibility together!

Click to continue: You can find the full-length link to the thought-provoking promotional film below. We say: Watch the film – and don’t let it drag you down: Recognising problems offers the opportunity to tackle them proactively!

Help Save Us

The post Animated feast for the eyes | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: As part of our weekly recurring series “Animago Afternoon”, we present pearls, treasures and other gems from last year’s Animago film festivals at the best time of the afternoon. This time we’re showing you the award-nominated promotional short film “Adidas Climachill – A Cooling Revolution”, realised by the Dutch filmmakers from “Glassworks”, salvaged from the Animago archives in 2014.

What is behind “Adidas Climachill – A Cooling Revolution”? The film launches the Climachill campaign from square-toed shoe manufacturer Adidas. Ice and frost metaphorically shake hands in the ad film, which is well worth seeing. A rollercoaster-like tracking shot demonstrates how the advertised football shirt works – flat yarns, including the SubZero yarn with titanium, together with “cooling spheres” made of aluminium, form a garment with a cooling effect. You’ll have to find out for yourself at your local football club’s next friendly match whether these are just nice-sounding marketing phrases, or whether there’s more to the technical terms than just a lot of jargon.

Click on: You can find the full-length link to the permafrost advertising film below. We say: Watch the film – and recommend it: Greenwashing, greenbranding and greenmarketing are wonderful words.

adidas Climachill – A Cooling Revolution

The post Animated feast for the eyes | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: As part of our weekly recurring series “Animago Afternoon”, we present pearls, gems and other splendours from last year’s Animago film festivals at the best time of the afternoon. This time we’re showing you the award-nominated promotional short film “BBC Winter Olympics”, realised by director Tomek Baginski and the girls and boys from “Platige Image”, salvaged from the Animago archives in 2014.

What is behind “BBC Winter Olympics”? For the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, director Tomek Baginski and Platige Image opted for a mountain landscape whipped by snow, accompanied by the voice of “Game of Thrones” actor Charles Dance (known in his role as Tywin Lannister).

Click further: You’ll find the full-length link to the streamlined promotional film below. We say: film away – and recommend: Wear footwear that is suitable for the altitude!

Winter Olympics 2014: Trailer – BBC Sport

The post Animated feast for the eyes | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

This article originally appeared in DP 07 : 2016.

You have to look closely to discover the details of the CG image “Topview”. And then you ask yourself: why a dead pig in front of the garage? Last year, “Topview” received an animago nomination in the “Best Still” category. The creator Jürgen Stein (www.juergen-stein.de) has been working as a photo designer for more than 17 years; in recent years he has also specialised in photorealistic CGI motifs. Here he talks about his work on the black-and-white piece, which was created using Softimage and Arnold.

The title “Topview” is a simple result of the chosen camera angle. The idea for the picture came from my interest in urban landscapes, suburbs and the question: what kind of environment do we actually live in? When I read the book “Disneyfication of the American City” and the reports about the riots and race riots in the media, I discovered the city of Celebration, which, according to information on the Internet, is an American dream city where everything is exemplary for the citizens and where there is no crime.

Like a film frame

I realised the still on my own as a private project, mostly in the evenings and at weekends alongside my day job. That’s why it took me around 4 to 5 weeks to complete the picture – on top of that, I had to teach myself Marvelous Designer for the 3D clothing of the characters for the project. For a realistic recreation of the view, I searched for the town of Celebration on Google Earth and took screenshots. I didn’t want to create an action scene with explosions or anything like that, but just enough to give the viewer room for their own imagination – with an open beginning and end, like a frame from a film.

Photographed CG world

For all my stills, I always start with basic objects in Softimage: cubes, spheres, trees, etc. That way, changes can be made quickly and you don’t have to spend 4 days modelling a 3D asset that you don’t need in the end. In order to have less trouble in the rendering process – which would be the case with a 10 millimetre road – I always work on the scale of the real world.

As I want my CG works to be as photographic as possible, I use the Real Lens plug-in in the 3D process; this allows me to determine the exact camera data of a Hasselblad, for example, or the values of a focal length – only then do I define the 3D camera in the image.

Greening

Most of the trees are from Speedtree, the simpler ones in the off area are ready-made Xfrog models; I got some of the palm trees and the police cars from Evermotion. The lawns were created with the help of scattered ICE-Strands and partly with the Forecaster plug-in.

Lighting & Rendering

In addition to the Maxwell render engine, I often use the Arnold plug-in SItoA for Softimage – as in this case. At the start of a project, I load a chrome and a grey ball as well as a calibrated colour field into the scene as a reference. I have adopted this tried and tested technique from the Maxwell render environment. The resulting values can then be compared with the original in Nuke, giving a better overview of exposure, tonal values and much more. i illuminated “Topview” with an Arnold Physical Sky, which was merged with a self-created HDRI in Nuke and modified for the desired light. The frame buffers and additional masks and AOVs such as Point Position, Normals, Depth etc. were then applied – for Nuke in 32-bit half float. In the basic compositing in Nuke, I only had to exchange the frame buffers – depending on the progress – so that the current status was always available for comparison – for example, I increased the samples when noise was immediately visible in the GI pass. I did the texturing with Mari; the tool’s UDIM-UV mapping workflow is also supported by the Arnold plug-in SItoA. For shading, I used the standard Arnold shaders, and the 3D characters were positioned using the Softimage plug-ins Gear and Species. I used Z-Brush to adjust and reinforce the folds of the clothing created with Marvelous Designer and then wrote them out as a displacement map.

Once a prop has been modelled and damaged, I save it as a Softimage model and replace it in the scene with an Arnold stand-in (known as a proxy in other software packages). This keeps the scene light and Arnold renders even faster than it already does. When the still is finished, it goes into Nuke. There I make a few final tweaks. I created the black and white look of the image in a final step in Photoshop.

Bye bye Softimage

As the Arnold renderer is wonderfully integrated in Softimage, the Autodesk software is ideal for realising such projects. Especially when working alone on CG works of this kind, the well thought-out workflow in Softimage really comes into its own – unlike in any other Autodesk product. Even though Autodesk has decided to discontinue its best horse in the software stable, I will continue to use Softimage until something better is found on the market. Between the other Autodesk products, there is no equivalent alternative to Softimage and its options for me.

I had a lot of fun working on “Topview” – I’m thinking about realising a series and a book project on the idea.

The post Todesfall in Celebration City first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: As part of our recurring weekly series “Animago Afternoon”, we present pearls, gems and other splendours from last year’s Animago film festivals at the best time of the afternoon. This time we show you the winner in the “Best Game Design” category, namely the game trailer for “Ryse: Son of Rome – The Legend of Damocles” by the girls and boys from “Platige Image” in Poland, salvaged from the Animago archives in 2014.

How was “Ryse: Son of Rome” created? In our detailed making-of, published in DP 02 : 2014, Mirja Fürst took a closer look at the 2014 animago winner, in which she stated at the beginning “The brief for Platige Image was to create a contrast to the realistic game graphics based on the CryEngine with the trailer. The look was realised with a graphic stylisation of the 3D elements.”

Free article: At the time, Mirja spoke to Technical Art Director Chris Evans (no, not THE Chris Evans) about the Crytek pipeline, and the interchange format Alembic. Back on 20 July 2015 , we made the complete article, which is really worth reading, available to you for free. Have a read!

Click further: You can find the stylish short film, which unabashedly digs into the box of myths, linked right here below. We say: film away – and always swiftly avoid the sword of Damocles!

Ryse: Son of Rome – The Legend of Damocles

The post Animated feast for the eyes | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: As part of our weekly recurring series “Animago Afternoon”, we present pearls, gems and other splendours from last year’s Animago film festivals at the best time of the afternoon. This time we’re showing you the award-nominated French Christmas short film “Coca-Cola Noël”, realised by Unit Image and The Andy’s, salvaged from the Animago archives in 2014.

What is “Coca-Cola Noël”about ? This is how Christmas tales begin: Father Christmas commissions a teddy bear to make a home cosy and Christmassy. The bear is clever and enlists the help of his peers. It goes without saying that not everything always goes smoothly and the Christmas roast is sometimes misused as a projectile. But: the main thing is to get the result right – while the caffeinated sugar fizzy drink foams up and washes the roast through the digestive tract.

Click on: You can find the full-length Christmas short film linked below. We say: film off – and anyway: have you bought your Christmas presents yet? It’s never too early to buy in advance!

Coca Cola Noël HD

The post Animated feast for the eyes | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: As part of our weekly recurring series “Animago Afternoon”, we present pearls, gems and other splendours from last year’s Animago film festivals at the best time of the afternoon. This time we’re showing you the award-nominated French short film “Atome”, realised by VFX artists and animators from “ArtFX”, salvaged from the Animago archives in 2014.

What happens in “Atome”? The scenario: an abandoned warehouse. A man wearing a mask smears one of the walls. Meanwhile, artist’s utensils, oil drums and car tyres take on a life of their own behind his back. The more the street artist exerts himself artistically, the more the objects behind him make a ruckus.

Click on: You can find the full-length link to the atmospheric short film below. We say: Roll the film – and keep the dubstep, trip-hop and urban beats coming!

// ArtFX OFFICIEL // Atome

The post Animated feast for the eyes | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: As part of our weekly recurring series “Animago Afternoon”, we present pearls, gems and other splendours from last year’s Animago film festivals at the best time of the afternoon. This time we are showing you the award-nominated Argentinian animated short comedy “SuperBot”, realised by animators from “Trexel Animation”, salvaged from the Animago archives in 2014.

What’s behind SuperBot? You can laugh your head off: The humorous short film “SuperBot – A magnifying mess” by Trexel Animation features a small robot that uses a magnifying glass to make itself bigger in order to escape a bouncy bullet monster. It may sound confusing, but it’s very entertaining and definitely worth a click. Entertainment value(s) guaranteed.

Click further: You can find the full-length link to the funny short film below. We say: Watch the film – and always be nice to each other!

SuperBot: una cuestión de aumento

The post Animated feast for the eyes | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: As part of our weekly recurring series “Animago Afternoon”, we present pearls, gems and other splendours from last year’s Animago film festivals at the best time of the afternoon. This time we’re showing you the award-nominated comedic short film “My Dear Gnome” by French animation studio Eddy, salvaged from the Animago archives in 2015.

What’s behind My Dear Gnome? In the short comedy hit “My Dear Gnome”, by filmmakers Emmanuelle Leleu and Julien Hazebroucq from the French production and animation studio Eddy, a tricky Bambi and German garden gnome fetishism meet – or more precisely: they meet for a game of mill. The team realised the short film, which is well worth seeing, with Maya and Avid Media Composer.

Click on: You can find the full-length link to the lively and witty short film below. We say: Roll the film – and always play by the rules! By the way: Yesterday we presented our retro article “Severely limited game options”, in which Mirja Fürst asked the two filmmakers to talk to you, in full length. Have a read!

CGI 3D Animated Short “My Dear Gnome” Emmanuelle & Julien

The post Animated feast for the eyes | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

This article entitled “Severely limited gaming options” originally appeared in DP 06 : 2016.

Brevity is the spice of humour – with this motto, the animated short film “My Dear Gnome” won over the animago jury last year and also brought hearty laughs at the animago awards ceremony in Potsdam. Emmanuelle Leleu and Julien Hazebroucq from the film production studio Eddy spoke to us about their favourite project with the two cuddly 3D characters.

Emmanuelle Leleu and Julien Hazebroucq are no strangers to animago: in 2013, the two won in the “Best Character Animation” category with their student project “A la Française”. The character designer and 3D artist studied at the French university Supinfocom Arles (now MOPA: www. ecole-mopa.fr) and now work as a director duo at Eddy. There they create commercials for clients(www.eddy.tv/director/46/ emmanuelle-julien) with subtle humour and their excellent timing for comedy, for which they became known with their short films.

The character design and the creation of the 3D characters were realised by Emmanuelle and Julien, while the animation was done by Thibaut Pissot and Jean Marie Vouillon. In total, a team of 19 people worked on the completion of the one-minute project.

DP: How did you come up with the idea for the animated short film and its characters?

Emmanuelle & Julien: The film was intended to enrich our demo reel for future commercial projects. As it was a no-budget short film, we had to approach the project accordingly. We’d had the idea of a garden gnome in mind for a while because we love kitsch and everyday universes from everyday life. We realised at a very early stage that the limitations in the animation of the garden gnome would be appropriate for the film, which quickly became an interesting aspect of the story. Ultimately, this character formed the basis for the entire film. We developed a holistic universe around the deer and the gnome and came up with different situations involving games. So there could soon be a sequel to “My Dear Gnome”.

DP: How did you come up with the title?

Emmanuelle & Julien: We took the same minimalist approach to the project with the same mood as our student short film “A la Fran- çaise”. “My Dear Gnome” was the first title that popped into our heads and stayed there until the end of the project.

DP: Who helped you with the project?

Emmanuelle & Julien: The team consisted of creatives who volunteered to work on “My Dear Gnome”. We know these people well, as we’ve worked on projects with them in the past – so we knew that we would make slow but steady progress on the short film. As we only worked on it in our spare time, it took a year to complete the film. The storyboard and the intended direction were finalised fairly quickly, but the actual production time took several months.

DP: How did the creation of the short film proceed in detail?

Emmanuelle & Julien: The phase in which we develop the characters and the universe surrounding them is a very important one for us. The short film was created in three main stages: First came the character and setting development, then the creation of sophisticated animations that were not necessarily cartoony but were meant to emphasise the awkward moments, and lastly Julien took care of rendering all the shots. In this step, it was crucial that all details and textures were clearly visible in the image.

DP: What 3D tools did you use in the process?

Emmanuelle & Julien: It was very classic: the concept research was done in Photoshop and the 3D work was done in Maya, V-Ray and Nuke. For Julien, working with Maya was a challenge because he usually uses 3ds Max. But the project was a great opportunity for him to familiarise himself with the software, as well as Nuke instead of After Effects. The main difficulty for us was to work efficiently while sticking to Eddy’s Studio production pipeline.

DP: Were there any other challenges with the project? How did you solve them?

Emmanuelle & Julien: The most complicated elements in the environment were the grass and the vegetation. As with “A la Française”, our aim was to create visually exciting vegetation that didn’t look like stock material. For the style of the trees, we looked for a lot of inspiration to create renderings that have the idyllic and fresh look that you would find in an old lady’s garden. We also avoided classically generated grass because it looks too conventional and too 3D. So we modelled everything by hand and converted it into V-Ray proxy objects so that the scene wasn’t overloaded. A general rule is: V-Ray proxies are a great help for all forms of vegetation when the polygon rates are too high.

DP: Are there any special gimmicks in the film?

Emmanuelle & Julien: We managed to include a plastic flamingo in the film – it’s only blurred in the background. He’s very depressed and uncomfortable because he always has his foot in the water and can’t move. Maybe we’ll use this little chap again in the future.

DP: What plans do you have for the future?

Emmanuelle & Julien: We are currently writing another short film, which will be much longer – and not a cartoon. We are currently experimenting with different styles. We don’t want to commit ourselves exclusively to comedies, even though we feel very comfortable in this genre. We are also seriously thinking about a feature film, but we are still at the very beginning.

The links from the box below:

• My Dear Gnome (link is offline)
• A La Francaise
• Eddy
• 

The post My Dear Gnome first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: As part of our weekly recurring series “Animago Afternoon”, we present pearls, gems and other splendours from last year’s Animago film festivals at the best time of the afternoon. This time we’re showing you the award-nominated 80s-style trash gem “Kung Fury”, realised by director David Sandberg, who also played the lead role, salvaged from the Animago archives in 2015.

What’s behind Kung Fury? Please fasten your seatbelts! “Kung Fury” is a trash film monster truck that was fuelled by a crowdfunding diesel injection. In other words, the film is a highlight for connoisseurs of 80s schlock – including pop culture icon David Hasselhoff on the microphone! “Jung Fury” made the animago jury laugh heartily at the time and won them over with its retro chic. Incidentally, the effects were created by Swedish studio Fido.

A look behind the scenes: On 14.06.2016 , we told you about the film’s genesis – and how director David Sandberg single-handedly realised his cinematic love letter to the 1980s. The article was originally published under the headline “Jean-Claude’s little brother” by Mirja Fürst in DP 02 : 2016 .

Click further: You can find the full-length 30-minute short film linked below. We say: film away – and always put your shoulder pads, headband and puffy sleeves through the washing machine on the delicate cycle! 80s forever!

KUNG FURY Official Movie [HD]

The post Animated feast for the eyes | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: As part of our weekly recurring series “Animago Afternoon”, we present pearls, gems and other splendours from last year’s Animago film festivals at the best time of the afternoon. This time we are showing you the award-nominated animated short film “Death Sails”, realised by Moldovan Simpals Animation Studio, salvaged from the Animago archives in 2015.

What’s behind Death Sails? The team at Simpals Animation Studio has released a series of funny animated short films with Death as the protagonist. The humorous short films were created using Maya, V-Ray and After Effects.

A look behind the scenes: On 05.10.2015 , we told you in detail about the Moldovans who made the following short film – in the course of which we also told you the sympathetic story of the film’s creation, including the associated breakdown, rigging and animation videos. Take a look!

Click further: You can find the full-length short film, which is really worth seeing, linked below. We say: Roll the film – and keep your surfboard waterproofed!

Dji. Death Sails

The post Animated feast for the eyes | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: As part of our weekly recurring series “Animago Afternoon”, we present pearls, gems and other splendours from last year’s Animago film festivals at the best time of the afternoon. This time we are showing you the award-nominated animated action short film “Escarface” by students of the French Supinfocom Valenciennes, salvaged from the Animago archives in 2015.

What’s behind Escarface? This is what “Thelma and Louis” might look like in their prime: The short film “Escarface” by the student team of Pierre Plouzeau, Eva Navaux, Burcu Sankur, Vincent Meunier, Lionel Arnold and Dario Sabato takes a humorous and criminal approach to the topic of poverty in old age. The short film was created with 3ds Max and Nuke.

Click further: You can find the short film, which is really worth seeing, linked in full length below. We say: Watch the film – and always avoid the cool crime of bank robbery!

CGI 3d Animated Short Film ** ESCARFACE ** Funny Action Grannies Animation by ESCARFACE / MOPA Team

The post Animated feast for the eyes | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: As part of our weekly recurring series “Animago Afternoon”, we present pearls, gems and other splendours from last year’s Animago film festivals at the best time of the afternoon. This time we’re showing you the award-nominated animated action short film “Canned” by students from Ringling College in the US, salvaged from the Animago archives in 2015.

What’s behind Canned? The Ringling College student team – consisting of Ivan Joy, Nathaniel Hatton and Tanya Zamon – realised the action-packed animated short film “Canned”. The film is a mixture of 3D animation and 2D painting and was created using ZBrush, Maya, Deep Paint and Renderman.

Click further: You can find the full-length link to the fast-paced short film below. We say: Roll the film – and fasten your seatbelts. A tour de force through the favela awaits you with a lot of physical exertion!

CGI Animated Shorts: “Canned” by Ivan Joy, Nate Hatton, and Tanya Zaman | TheCGBros

The post Animated feast for the eyes | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: As part of our weekly recurring series “Animago Afternoon”, we present pearls, gems and other splendours from last year’s Animago film festivals at the best time of the afternoon. This time we’re showing you the award-nominated short film “Border” by animation studio Rabbit Hole (then “Plan 78”), salvaged from the Animago archives in 2015.

What’s behind Border? The film explores the absurdity of man-made borders in a humorous way. In the short film, two chocolate lentil-like people meet on a border strip – will they succeed in resolving their border conflict in a pacifist and constructive way? To find out, click on the full short film below.

Background information on Border: The animated short film was realised by Reinout Swinnen and Bram Van Rompaey. Reinout is lead animator and owner of the animation studio “Rabbit Hole”, Bram is co-founder of “Rabbit Hole”. Both filmmakers are from Belgium. The short film was produced by S.O.I.L. and the sound was produced by Senstudio. The film was created using Maya, Modo, After Effects and Premiere.

Click further: You can find the full-length link to the boundary-breaking short film below. We say: film off – and current references to the Russia-Ukraine conflict are purely coincidental!

Border

The post Animated feast for the eyes | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

Overview

• As part of our recurring weekly Animago Afternoon series, we present the short film Rob “n” Ron by the girls and boys from Tumblehead
• What’s in Rob “n” Ron? In this spaghetti western of the animated kind, brothers Rob and Ron put their heads together to plan their biggest heist yet
• The makers of Tumblehead: Have worked for major media brands such as Disney, Lucasfilm and Telltale Games

In nuce: As part of our weekly recurring series “Animago Afternoon”, we present pearls, gems and other splendours from last year’s Animago film festivals at the best time of the afternoon. This time we’re showing you the award-winning short film “Rob “n” Ron” by the girls and boys from “Tumblehead”, salvaged from the Animago archives in 2013.

What’s inside Rob “n” Ron? In this spaghetti western of the animated kind, the two outlaws and brothers Rob and Ron meet to plan their biggest heist yet (and save the morning coffee treat). You can find out whether it works and what the two chaotic brothers in cowboy boots have planned for their latest coup (hint: it has to do with an oversized piggy bank) in the entertaining and amusing short film, which we have linked in full length below.

Tumblehead Animation Studio: The makers of Tumblehead, who have already worked for major media brands such as “Disney”, “Lucasfilm” and “Telltale Games”, are looking forward to your online visit. In a specially created blog , Tumblehead reported on the development of “Rob “n” Ron” – a worthwhile insight into the work in progress of a friendly team, and inspiration for you?

Click further: The cowboys-and-Indiana-style short film is linked below in full length. We say: Roll the film – and let the colts smoke!

CGI Animated Short : “Rob “n” Ron” by Tumblehead

The post Animated feast for the eyes | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.