» Posts Tagged ‘cgi’
Building Color Models and Exploring Color Spaces in Three Dimensions with Blender
Color spaces and color models can be difficult to wrap your head around completely. There are additive and subtractive spaces, like RGB vs. CMYK, and different format/display technologies, like analog’s YUV vs. digital’s YCbCr — all of which you may have to traverse to achieve the final ‘look’ you want for your imagery. Not to mention that many color spaces are not absolute, meaning they don’t profile device-specific color representation. This can certainly induce a bit of a headache for newcomers to the color science realm. A great post by photographer Mark Meyer, featured recently on PetaPixel, explains how you can quite literally better-orient yourself to color spaces and models by, well, modeling them — in 3D open suite Blender, no less. More »
Is the First 'Instant' 3D Modeling and Motion Capture Camera the Future of CG Animation?
In creating computer generated imagery, reference photographs of real-life objects may assist modeling, texturing, and animating a 3D object. In animation, this practice translates into something called motion capture, or ‘performance capture’ when facial expressions are the focus (see: Avatar). Fixed reference points on an object or surface help artists recreate something virtually, but Microsoft XBox 360′s Kinect technology is actually able to recognize shape and motion on its own, turning you into a full-body video game controller in real-time. The new Lynx A Camera looks to take this a step further. Meet the world’s first ‘point-and-shoot’ camera that can model and capture the geometry, texture, and motion of anything you aim it at, right before your eyes. More »
This story has repeated itself a few times over the last few years, but it’s worth sharing another inspirational and impressive short film that gets noticed by Hollywood. Kaleb Lechowski, a 22-year-old who studies digital film design at Mediadesign Hochschule in Berlin, Germany, produced the animated short R’ha for a school assignment. The impressive CG animation has earned him accolades across the web, and even across the Atlantic, garnering interest from Hollywood executives. Check out R’ha: More »
Learn How to Do a 3D Match Move Using the Free and Open Source Program Blender
One of the great features in Adobe After Effects CS6 is its built-in 3D camera tracker, which helps realistically integrate CG elements into footage that have a fair amount of camera or subject movement. But what if you want to do a 3D match move shot, and you can’t afford a copy of After Effects? Not a problem. Andrew Price of Blender Guru has a great hour-long video to get you started with 3D tracking and compositing CG elements in the free open source 3D program, Blender: More »
It may seem so obvious that it generally skips the mind, but the shape of the frame is one of the most basic qualities governing visuals. Traditionally speaking, we’re locked into this pretty successful sort of rectangular thing (no complaints), with some variability brought to us by the likes of format spec limits and the option of shooting anamorphic. Rarely do we have a reason to even want to break out of this box — but as visual creators, the power to do so is there should we require it. The yearly Fête des Lumières (or Festival of Lights) in Lyon, France has recently provided one such opportunity for a group of art Masters students — given that their animation would be projected on the side of a building, they chose quite the interesting shape for the frame of their vibrant and charming CG short. More »
With the advancement of computer generated animation, many effects are no longer done on set where safety and cost are priorities (though it seems CGI ends up costing just as much, if not more). I personally have always been a fan of real effects, and it’s one of the reasons a movie like Star Wars, made back in the late 70s, still looks as good as it does today. A recent example is the practical effects used in the movie The Fountain, where organic fluid effects were filmed on a microscopic level to help make the film feel timeless. A new PBS Digital show created by Joe Schenkenberg (also known as Joey Shanks) gives some practical examples of visual effects that anyone can create at home on a budget. More »
Open Source doesn’t always have the greatest reputation in the filmmaking community, often because many believe it means unsupported and infrequently updated — and sometimes they’re right. We’re going to be getting the first open source camera, but open source software has existed for filmmaking for quite some time and there are plenty of options out there that can produce spectacular results, like the 3D animation program Blender. The Blender Foundation has been working with talented people to make films using the software, and Tears of Steel is their 4th completely Open Source film. How open? They are releasing all of the materials for the short film completely under a Creative Commons license (free to reuse and distribute with attribution). The film is streaming, and also available as an HD download (which is the way I’d recommend watching). More »
Computer animation has come a long way in the past 20 years — to the point where hand-drawn animation is almost non-existent. Even most cartoons are digitally drawn and made to look like old fashioned paper drawings (how ironic — or maybe nostalgic?). Most animation starts from scratch, with new models and textures needed for every animation. But what if you didn’t have to start from scratch? What if you were an independent animator, and you could build off a world that has already been created for you? That’s the idea behind Valve’s Source Filmmaker. The tools they use to make cut-scenes and videos is being released completely free, along with the textures and models from Team Fortress 2. Here’s a look at what’s being released: More »
Amidst folks judging the authenticity of Natalie Portman’s ballet form in the outstanding Super 16mm/DSLR-shot Black Swan, it turns out that even some of the head-to-toe shots of Natalie dancing were in fact performed by professional dancer Sarah Lane. If the mark of good CGI is for the audience not to notice it, Darren Aronofsky’s gritty, grainy feature is a prime example of good visual effects. Watching the behind-the-scenes video, I’m sure you’ll see a lot of elements that you didn’t perceive as CGI: More »
Oscan-nominated Irish animator Ruairi Robinson directs this 13-minute short starring Where the Wild Things Are‘s Max Records, in which robotic home companionship comes with a price. Don’t be fooled by the smiling face: this isn’t G-rated. More »
Gareth Edwards’ appropriately-titled monster movie Monsters opened earlier this year and has grossed $1.7 million to date. With a $500,000 budget, Edwards shot the film himself on a Sony EX-3 and a Letus 35mm adapter; here’s a look behind-the-scenes. More »
No one’s going to make a (good) feature with this, but there’s definitely room in the toolbox for a cheap and fast 3D renderer like Moviestorm. For generating secondary content or doing pre-visualizations, Moviestorm could be yet another filmmaking tool that’s disruptive from a price standpoint (costs $8/month):
[via Mashable]
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