Peeking In

I would probably be more excited for this if the second game was nearly as good a story as the first. But oh well.

Behind Brave: The Pixar Process - Merida’s Hair #pixar

There’s volume. There’s, there’s length. There’s different size curls.

One of the biggest challenges was animating Merida’s hair. In fact, it was so difficult that Merida’s hair was actually considered to be its own character and the Pixar team created a new process to make the hairdo, um, do. From Claudia:

The curls themselves are really tightly wound curls, but the movement of her overall curl is nice and soft. And there’s also these hairs that break away from her silhouette to show her wildness, her adventurousness, and that’s kind of the key look for Merida’s hair that we had to hit when we designed her. So, as a groomer, this is what I would see in the computer… I would take her scalp and basically grow curls off of her head and detail exactly how those curls grow.

The groomer who actually worked on Merida developed a new technique because she was like, “How do I get these curls that look the way the art director wants or the director wants?” She’s like, “I really need a curling iron.” So she actually built in the computer a curling iron where she could change the sizes of the cylinder, the length and stuff, so she could curl the curves around that.

The length of her curl, if you were to pull it straight, will measure out 4 feet long. Merida herself is only five four, so she has really long hair. It’s fifteen hundred hand-placed, sculpted curves. So that’s a lot of time in the wig-making process… all of these different colors (below) actually represent different layers of her hair, kind of like you would in Photoshop… in the end it’s a 111,000 curves that get rendered on her head.

(via CGMeetUp)

rufftoon:

“after the popularity of “Footage Loose” we were asked to create “PUSH IT”. A comedy video that was to be shown before a day long acting workshop for the animators. To help loosen us up and get us in good spirits. Enjoy. It’s a really dumb parody of those wierd 80’s rock videos. Starring Dreamworks animators and showcasing the live action reference they’ve shot on the job while creating your favourite animated movies.

I do not own any rights to the music in this video. It’s only used for parody purposes. Our workplace does not authorize, or endorse this video.

YESSSS! More! More!

gantzgun74:

fuckyeahcharacterdevelopment:

Hey guys! Sorry its been so inactive around here. I’m slowly but surely getting finished with my finals.

Anyway, I found this and thought I had to share. The way body language can tell how a person is really feeling is something that I consider very interesting. I think it would be a great way to show, in a subtle way, how a character is really feeing.

Hope its useful! And good luck with finals! Hopefully, this place will be a bit more active once summer kicks in.

Hmm, this’ll come in handy. REBLOG

This is relevant to my interests in both writing and animating.

(via liveandwrite)

A classmate shared these videos with me, The New York Times’ 14 Actors Acting, and they are a fantastic resource for any animators who are studying acting.

The lack of dialogue really helps you focus on the body language and facial expressions of these talented actors and actresses, and the close-ups allow you to see the details of what their faces are doing. Look at the tension in Tilda Swinton’s eyes…the asymmetry of her mouth…the subtle changes in her brow even when she appears to be still in the first pose…the way her eyes begin to look upward even before her eyelids open and her head follows through…how the flaring of her nostrils relates to the tension in her cheeks…the beautiful lacing of her fingers in a pattern that’s both relaxed and natural, yet full of stored energy…the secondary action of her hand tensely caressing her neck, then her mouth, then the tips of her fingers brushing her lips.

It’s simply stunning! I highly recommend studying these, and more on the NYT’s YouTube channel.

The story is really obscure and hard to follow, but you can’t deny that the animation is masterfully done.

The Eagleman Stag, a lovely stop-motion short film by UK animator Mikey Please that won the 2011 BAFTA for best short animation.

(via Colossal)

Happy Mother’s Day!

Video projected onto a storefront in Berlin creates an embedded 3D video.

Very cool stuff. :)

cartoonsyndicate:

Animation Mentors is a school known for producing high quality animation reels from their students. Jame Pearson explains his Animation Mentor reel in an informative way that reveals how to both utilize personal experience and the basics of a good reel.

Glen Keane, from an interview in Comics Scene in the 90’s.

I promise, I’ll stop with the Glen Keane stuff soon. I’ve just been finding a lot of good interviews and quotes from him lately.