Blow stuff up

Ever wanted to animate a convincing explosion of sorts but did not know how it actually looked like? I came across this article on CGsociety called 'The Anatomy of an Explosion' by Kieron Helsdon which documents frame by frame images of various sorts of explosions from the sun to TNT to muzzle flashes. Should be useful when slow mo animation is needed in any of your animations.

http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=3154&page=

30 years of animation history up in flames

By Alex Morales, Bloomberg | October 11, 2005

Wallace & Gromit sets and props were among almost 30 years of materials lost when the warehouse used by Aardman Animations Ltd. burned down yesterday in Bristol, England.

''Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit," an Aardman and DreamWorks SKG production, opened as the top movie in US and Canadian theaters, taking in $16.1 million in ticket sales between Oct. 7-9, according to figures released yesterday by box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

While material from ''The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" wasn't yet in storage, the blaze ruined what should have been a day of celebration for Aardman after the film's box-office results, the company events and exhibitions manager Kieran Argo said in a telephone interview from Bristol.

''Our warehouse where we store all of our sets, props, story boards, and models from earlier productions has been totally destroyed," Argo said. ''We've lost 30 years of history from Morph in the 1970s up to and including the latest series of 'Creature Comforts.' "

Firefighters were called to a blaze near Bristol's main Temple Meads railway station at about 5:30 a.m. local time, Wenna Coombs, a spokeswoman for Avon Fire and Rescue Service, said.

Coombs said the cause of the blaze is under investigation.

© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Focus on the animation

Okay... I've been pondering over this for some time. I've decided that although I envy those talented people out there with their fantastic talent in hyper-realistic 3D modeling, I'm not even going to try and get anywhere near them. I've now decided to focus on the one thing that I enjoy doing most. Character Animation.

I think that was one of the reasons why I enjoyed creating 'UNmarked' so much. One, the modeling and texturing was piss easy. Although i did muck around with the lighting for quite awhile, I was anxious to get it out of the way so that I can actually see 'UNmarked' come to life. I have had my fair share of watching short films for a few good years now and I must say that Keith Lango has been one of my strongest inspiration so far. For one thing, his article on 'pose to pose' animation and 'cartoon snappy movements' have been very very useful to me. I still remember his works from years ago from 'Evelyn' to 'Lunch: An animated parable'. Now he's gone on to work on films like Robots and the Academy Award winning short film 'Gopher Broke'.

Keith's older works, although involves very simplistic characters, overflows with the basic principles of animation; from anticipation & reaction to squash & stretch. This is what i want to do. This is what I'm going to focus on. I am NOT overly interested in creating pretty models and renders which chews computer power (I'm thinking that this is one of the most used excuse for 3D artists to buy new computers. Haha...)

So from today....I'm going back to the basics. Simple character, stunning character animation. (cue background music and applause)... hahaha...

Do check out www.keithlango.com for inspirations if you are an animator.

Kudos are in order

Just have to put this post up. I would like to extend my congratulations to film maker Arthur De Pins for the sheer number of awards he had amassed for his film 'La Révolution des Crabes'. A brilliant concept which was brilliantly animated and narrated. Kudos! Who ever is reading this, and have not watched it, I strongly urge you to click here and check it out.

UNmarked at the Malaysian Video Awards?

Was looking for more film festivals to put 'UNmarked' into and was surfing around the Animation World Network site for a list of countries and festivals. Sadly enough, the Malaysian Video Awards or even MALAYSIA didn't show up in the countries list. Which prompted me to navigate to www.mva.com.my which is the site for the Malaysian Video Awards. I have tried submitting a collaborative piece during my years at the LimKokWing Institute of Creative Technology but fell short. Looking back now, I can see why. The film was shit. I'm surprised the damn thing won the Sony Voices of the New Millennium award.

Okay now...5 years farther down the track. 5 years more of film making, storytelling and animation experience. I will now enter 'UNmarked' (which has so far won 4 awards, nominated as finalist in 2 animation fesitvals and screened in 2 other international festivals) into the MVA. Lets see how this attempt fares then. Heck...I know this film was done while I was in Australia but I'm still every bit a Malaysian aren't I? So I'm just going to fill up the forms, duplicate a DVD and send the bloody thing to Malaysia by courier so that it can arrive before the 15th of October. Hopefully it'll knock some socks off. Fingers crossed.