In nuce: The BBC (British Broadcast Corporation) has released a ten-minute Behind the Scenes video for the third season of the series His Dark Materials; the video focuses on the creature effects of the series season and is entitled “Populating the Worlds”.

In toto: The series is based on the three-part series of novels ( The Golden Compass, The Magic Knife, The Amber Telescope) by British author Philip Pullmann; the books deal with the dangers of dogmatic religiosity in an exciting fictional way. In the video, actors Ruth Wilson, Amir Wilson and James McAvoy talk about what it’s like to work with puppeteers on a film set. Visual effects supervisor Russell Dodgson (Framestore) also has his say; Dodgson talks about the ever-growing challenges for his team – from season to season of His Dark Materials. Executive Producer and Production Designer Joel Collins ( The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Black Mirror, London Has Fallen) asks how it was possible to transfer the complete bestiary from Philip Pullmann’s original book into the series adaptation. Creature FX supervisor Brian Fisher also provides insights into the puppetry of the animal ensemble.

Click to continue: “So much animal stuff!” was also featured in our retro article by Mirja Fürst on 27.07.2022 . An in-depth expert discussion with Cinesite supervisor Andy Morley about the first part of the Harry Potter film Fantastic Beasts.

Bringing the creatures of Series 3 to life – Behind the Scenes | His Dark Materials – BBC

The post His Dark Materials | Featurette first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: Unity has released the video “Lion: A glimpse of the future with Unity Art Tools” – featuring two lions, an adult male lion and a cub, frolicking with each other. The video is a technology demo that demonstrates the capabilities of the Unity game engine using high-resolution CG lions. The demo has a resolution of 4K, runs on a PlayStation 5 with a frame rate of 30 FPS and impresses with its realistic grooming simulation. The video celebrated its premiere at this year’s Siggraph.

Background information: Many of the tools used to create the technology demo are recent purchases from Unity – including: the vegetation software SpeedTree, the reviewing tool SyncSketch and rigging tools from Ziva Dynamics and Weta Digital. As the team describes in a blog post, the video is intended to demonstrate the collaboration between the artists and developers involved. For example, the animated lions owe their deceptively real muscle movements to Ziva, while the fur was created with the help of Weta’s grooming tool Wig. Unity used its own developments for the fur simulation and rendering. The blog post also offers an illustrated insight into the creation of the video.

Click further: All further information in the blog post New real-time demo, Lion: Unity Art Tools in action and the future of Wētā Digital for RT3D by Allan Poore (Senior Vice President at Unity). We would like to thank our colleagues at 80.Lv, CGPress and CGChannel for the background information on the video.

Lion: A glimpse of the future with Unity Art Tools

The post Unity releases tech demo with cats of prey! 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 2019, we show you the awesome short film “400 MPH”, realised by graduates of the VFX university “Supinfocom” – with branches in France and India.

What is “400 MPH” about? Let us quote from our interview with the film team, published in DP 06:2019– not a bit self-centred: “When was the last time you identified with an animal? And not in a “I want to sleep all day like my cat” kind of way, no, when was the last time you identified with an animal in a meaningful way? Probably in one of the Planet of the Apes remakes?”, was our opening line at the time, because in “400 MPH” the ape is your favourite!

Ancient myths in a monkey’s fur: in the short film “400 MPH”, the foppish title hero is on the trail of Greek myths: the film’s plot about flying high and speed fanaticism is inspired by the story of Icarus.

The makers behind it: The creative minds behind this rousing short film are: Julia Chaix (CG Generalist at Ubisoft), Alice Lefort (Set & Animation Production Manager at Illumination Mac Guff), Lorraine Desserre (Rigging TD at Eisko), Natacha Pianeti (VFX Artist at Untold Studios) and Quentin Tireloque (3D Animator at Stratosphere Games). As you can see: The former Supinfocom students have found a professional home.

Click further: The short film, which (it feels like) breaks the sound barrier, is linked below in full length. We say: film off – and don’t go to the centre of the sun! Find out more about the educational programme at rubika-edu.com .

400MPH | Court-Métrage | RUBIKA Animation 2019

The post 400 MPH | Animago Afternoon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: Because we’re also in the mood for jokes on 1 April, but would like to refrain from phone pranks, ringing pranks or other childish things, we’re sending you this amusing video in which the cast of the animated feature film fun “The Bad Guys” from DreamWorks – including podcast pioneer Marc Maron and enfant terrible Chris Rockwell – attempt to recreate the hairy protagonist Mr Wolf.

What is “The Bad Guys” about? The plot of the animated film revolves around the five anthropomorphic friends Mr Wolf (the pickpocket), Mr Snake (the burglary specialist), Mr Shark (the disguise artist), Mr Piranha (the muscleman with breathing problems) and Ms Taranha (the team’s IT specialist). The film’s plot begins at the point when the notorious criminal team is caught and they are all threatened with imprisonment – until Mr Wolf senses a plan that could save the five-man gang from jail..

Click to continue: If you want to get a further impression of whether “The Bad Guys” is worth a visit to the cinema, we recommend that you also click on the featurette, which we have also linked below.

Draw Mr Wolf with the Cast Director | The Bad Guys

The Bad Guys – A Look Inside Featurette

The post “The Bad Guys”: celebrities as amateur artists? first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: Ubisoft recently unveiled the so-called “ZooBuilder” via social networks. This is a tool that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to recreate the basic skeletal structure of animals. All of this works on the basis of moving images that the user feeds into the tool. “ZooBuilder” is designed to help animators create character rigs. However, artists still have to fine-tune the resulting rig afterwards so that the movement sequences of animated animal characters look believable.

How does this work? The three-minute video below, called “ZooBuilder – A Machine Learning Prototype”, takes a closer look at this fascinating new tool. In the video, Abassin Sourou Fangbemi, data scientist at Ubisoft La Forge, explains the advantages of the tool as follows: “Imagine you wanted to record the movements of a lion or a tiger – you would have to take these dangerous animals to a motion capture studio. That would be quite a challenge.” according to Abassin, “ZooBilder” will now dispense with MoCap and rely on machine learning and AI instead. This should make it easier to digitise the movement sequences of animals.

Who invented it? The “ZooBuilder” was developed by Ubisoft La Forge. This is a branch of Ubisoft based in Canada, which is dedicated to the development of new technologies – always with the help of the latest results from academic research organisations.

Click further: You can find out which technological developments Ubisoft LaForge continues to drive on the corresponding website.

The post Ubisoft tool makes creature rigging easier first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.