Looking around at animations that bring the good stuff.

“MEET MELINE” 2009 by Sebastien Laban & Virginie Goyons

A sweet little animation about a girl racing through this run down hous. What I noticed the first time I saw this was how much they made all the assets surronding the main character interact witht the character. When shee moves around the world she constantly bumps into stuff and the fly away, shake or just moves a bit. This seems like a simple way to make a huge difference and get the character to relly blend with the environment. To not only thing about the movement of the character but also hoe his movement effects the environment.

“Blik” 2011 Bastiaan Schravendeel (Director)

Jean-Paul Tossings (Technical director)

Sander Kamermans (Art director)

Piebe van der Storm (Set designer)

This example simply highlights some good render methods. That you can actually use other and fun methods to get a distinctive look. They manage to get a sketchy and woody look that helps bring this animation to life. What might I find that can help give edge to my animation.

“Thought of You” 2010 by Ryan J Woodward

A sweet and beautiful little animation by Ryan. To get motion this fluid and complex he used rotoscoping. I got me to think of my 2D animation and that it might be a good thing to use some video footage as a base. Not to rotoscope precisely around but to keep as a reference. This is not a new thing and have been used since the dawn of animation. But I myself have not been using it. Time to try it out. I thing it will bring some life and realism. 

“Little Boat” 2011 Nelson Boles

This is simply great. It’s simple and great. Nelson has a uniqe style and uses superb animation with fantastic sound design. This is inspiring in every way. I cant relly put my finger on all the things that make me love nelsons animation style but I know I love it. There is something in the motion of this animation that makes it look great. 

“A MORNING STROLL” 2011 by STUDIO AKA

This is a great example of some media mixing within an animation. They wipe or cut between the different styles but the character remains in the same position. This  is a great technique for me to use in my animation as well. Since I’m going to portrait a man both from his past and present it is very important that the viewer can easily see that it is the same character in both styles and times.

“The Pirate” 2011 Meindbender

Something that is often lost in 3D animation is the organic feel. It can often feel mechanical and un natural. Well, organic can be done! This is a superb example. Meindbender, a small studio located in the very amazing town Gothenburg, har been known to create very organing looking cg character. Often to look handcrafted and clay made. This gives their animation a very distinctive feel.

“The Turtle and The Shark” 2009 by Ryan Woodward

In this example I want to focus on the style. Not that this is the style that I’m looking for in my production but that the style is very relevant to the narrative. Having a visual style that enhances the story can enhance the viewers experience. This particular animation have taken the style from local art and textile patterns to give a sense of the environment. Since my animation plays out in a very specific place I have to come up with some way to distill the seasharts and environment into a nice style that enhances my story.

“fStretch 2” 2011 Christine Houle & Matthieu Fiorilli

This is not a Animation with a story by it self. This is just a video showing of a new plugin for Maya. The plugin helps by automatically sensing when a mesh is stretched and squashed by the animator. It can then locally blend in a separate mesh that has been sculpted with wrinkles. It looks like a great plugin. And even though it does not exist in cinema it doesn't stop one from doing almost the same thing there. What I could do is to simply have deformers that wrinkle and stretches local areas of the mesh. Then animate them by hand. It’s a bit more more but I think it’ll help bring the character to life.

“Defectiv Detective” 2011 by Avner Geller and Stevie Lewis

Here’s another good example of how to blend 2D and 3D to tell different parts of the story. In this little animation the Main charcater, the Detective, fantasises about all the horrible things going on and all his fantasies are in a nice 2D style that goes very well with the 3D. They can jump back and forth between these styles without it feeling out of place or dissorienting. Very well produced.

  “The Duplicator rig” 2011 by Meindbender

It’s no secret. To get good fluid animation you need a good rig. Meindbender is kind enough to show us one of their rigs. A lot of hours have gone in to this thing. that goes without saying. But the fact remains. What the rig cant do the character can’t do either. So it pays to dig deeper into rig creation.