Here at Sufficiently Large Ndustries, we believe in asking the important questions. For example, this Easter, we ask "Can DALL•E 3 produce a better Thneed of Turin than our half-assed photoshop job?"

Answer: Not yet.

Jurassic Park (1993, Steven Spielberg)

11/03/2024

Jurassic Park is a 1993 film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the novel of the same name written by Michael Crichton.

Spielberg purchased the rights to the book before it was published in 1990, and Crichton was hired to create a film adaptation. David Koepp wrote the final screenplay, in which many of the violent features of the book and much of the narrative part were lost, also making numerous changes to the characters. Spielberg hired Stan Winston Studios to create the animatronic subjects that would bring the dinosaurs to the screen to interact with Industrial Light & Magic's nascent computer-generated imagery technique. If Tron was the first Disney film to use the then newborn computer graphics, Jurassic Park is considered the first big budget film to make use of CGI.

Paleontologist Jack Horner helped the authors and the team responsible for the special effects to make what they were working with as truthful as possible (although the whole appearance of the dinosaurs turns out to be partly wrong due to subsequent changes in evolutionary theories, in particular way in Velociraptor and Dilophosaurus). Filming lasted from August 24 to November 30, 1992 on the Hawaiian islands of Kauai and Oahu, California, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.

Jurassic Park premiered on June 9, 1993 in Washington, and was released on June 11 in the United States. The film was a huge success with audiences: against a budget of $63 million, it grossed over $914 million worldwide in its first theatrical release, surpassing E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial and becoming the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of Titanic in 1997.

Concept Project

Moodboard

This project was inspired by the audio project I was working on at the time, so I used a museum as the setting. The long horizontal panning of the scene would convey the view exploring the museum as well as time passing.

Rough sketch of composition and tones

I wanted to use the large glass case on the foreground as the transitional piece, like in traditionally animated Disney Films.

e.g The Jungle Book

Tonal Render of the composition

Panning Render with the After Effects camera pan to demonstrate transition between museum scenes/perspectives

Computer Generated Imagery - week 2

As mentioned in last weeks post, I've been struggling with an idea for this class project. I managed to speak further about this with my lecturer which definitely helped a lot and we worked on brainstorming with my main interests. In class, we were also introduced to using EKO, and I definitely found that using the software opened my eyes to the possibilities of what I can do and achieve within the time frame, as well as the fact that knowing the limits somehow made me feel more creative.

Doing more research into a relationship themed graphic novel, with the main interest being that it remains lighthearted, I thought about doing a fantasy based setting to make it more interesting. I looked into the retro futuristic style of some posters (which I added to a moodboard I am working on), which I found really inspiring for a potential character. To encourage this, I completed my moodboard, and worked on some sketches from here, as well as some basic interactive story planning. I need to decide if I want the graphic novel to be about the character setting up a dating profile, or if the character can choose which character to go on a date with, or if the character can choose where/what to do on a date.

Outside of class, I finalised this a lot more, doing more sketches, working on a basic character turnaround based on features I found interesting in my initial sketches. I also made some storyboards for the planned pathways in my interactive graphic novel. Next week, I aim to do a finalised layout, so that I can clearly see what to work on.

Introducing NEKOLAND, 3D Animasi 100% made in Indonesia. YouTube, TikTok, & Instagram: @Visconsio @VisconsioCenter

the mighty nein - critical role

this is a place where i don't feel alone. this is a place where i feel at home.

BTS: The camerawork of Pixar’s Soul

We could talk for days on every beautiful aspect of animation that Pixar’s Soul pulled off brilliantly, from the modelling, character animation, textures, shaders, and lighting, all which deserve high praise and recognition. However, while those already have been talked about by many people, I want to focus on an element that immediately grabbed my attention and enthusiasm upon watching the film, and that is the camera animation.

 The camerawork in animated movies often goes completely unnoticed, honestly due to the simplicity of it all, mixed in with audience subconsciousness that forgives and forgets what might constitute as awkward camera animation. In most 3D animated films, shots have many “locked-off”, unmoving cameras that cut where needed, only mostly moving when absolutely necessary (not to say the large number of films out there don’t as well). It is a totally different environment compared to a film set, where there are dedicated professionals operating and experimenting with how a camera moves throughout a scene. Pixar absolutely does a great job with how carefully and detailed they plan out storyboards, but the benefit of real film sets is always about experimentation, changing things on the day of filming. The constrictions of physically accurate camera moves have also been scarcely considered in the past before, with sweeping impossible animation commonly seen as it serves the scene. This is not inherently negative, as the freedom of animation is most often a benefit. For a company that keeps pushing towards a certain type of realism, however, it is important to ground concepts like the camera closely in reality for best results, and exaggerate where needed.

 While an unfair comparison in terms of age and budget (15 million to 150 million), one shot that strikes me as poor camera animation appears near the start of Hoodwinked, replicating a handheld move that does have charm as something rarely seen before, but also horribly linear and choppy. I bring this up as example of why camera animation matters, especially when done right. The act of replicating genuine camera movement, whether it be for the tone of a shot or realism, has to be fully committed to, otherwise you are left with the ironic nightmare faced by camera operators, having the audience notice jarring camerawork. Soul’s camerawork has not been particularly talked about, alongside being a niche subject, due to how well it works. It ends up like invisible VFX, something that is meant to be seamless, unnoticed yet still great.

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  Matt Aspbury, a cinematographer on Soul, explains his process working on the film (via the Go Creative Show). Pixar’s in-house software, Presto, does come equipped with a CG camera package of lenses, dolly tracks and crane rigs, as well as utilising mocap-esque camera setups to actually translate the real movement of an iPad, etc. into the CG scenes, similarly to how Avatar and the Lion King remake used virtual cameras to frame their shots with that “real film set experimentation”. The idea of animation polish is still an important aspect, cleaning or reanimating this captured data to better reflect certain camera rigs or cameras, as the weight of an iPad will visually show differently compared to a heftier cinema camera.

 So congratulations to Matt Aspbury, Ian Megibben, as well as the additional animators and layout artists. Soul looked beautiful, and even though it is not completely consciously noticed, the camerawork was another piece of beauty that added to the overall film.

Had a lot of fun with "tentacles for hair" prompts.

Something something computers something something religious themes

The Ice Goddess

Frostbound Legacy In the realm of perpetual winter, where frost-covered landscapes stretched beyond the horizon, there existed a goddess of ice named Aeliana. Her beauty transcended mortal comprehension, with long flowing blue hair that shimmered like the northern lights, and skin as pale as the untouched snow that blanketed her divine domain. Aeliana, benevolent and kind, ruled over her realm…

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WALL-E (2008, Andrew Stanton)

22/03/2024

WALL-E is a 2008 CGI animated film, directed by Andrew Stanton; produced by Pixar Animation Studios, in co-production with Walt Disney Pictures, and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

The film, created and written by Stanton himself together with Pete Docter and Jim Reardon, is the ninth Pixar feature film and tells the story of the robot WALL-E, who in the distant future is the only inhabitant of the planet Earth, now abandoned by human beings due to excessive pollution and the continuous accumulation of waste.

The film was acclaimed by critics for the quality of the animation, the technology, the story and the soundtrack, obtaining numerous awards, including the 2009 Oscar for best animated film (out of 7 nominations), the Golden Globe and the BAFTA in the same category. It is dedicated to Justin Wright, a Pixar animator who died in the company's studios on March 18, 2008.

In 2105 the level of pollution on planet Earth is very high, with the Earth's surface now completely covered in garbage.

People on the Axiom move in floating seats through which they can also feed themselves drinks and communicate only by speaking through holographic screens.

WALL-E gives the planet to EVE, who closes it inside herself, after which the two sympathize, kiss and begin to fly in space, attracting the attention of two humans.

AUTO then uses his taser to melt the robot's central memory, which falls unconscious and with the plant inside it into the waste dump together with EVE, who is turned off.

In the meantime, the captain manages to stand up and grab AUTO, then deactivate it and take manual control of the spaceship, directing it towards Earth with a hyperjump.

WALL-E: is the protagonist of the film, he is similar to a cube equipped with two tracks moved by three gears each. He is equipped with two cameras as eyes, mechanical arms that allow him to grasp objects and a device that allows him to compact waste.

EVE outwardly resembles Jony Ive's designs for Apple, Inc. (owner of Pixar), in particular the iMac G3.

Upon the announcement of the discovery of the plant, the commander is initially scared because of the radical change that returning to Earth will entail, but thanks to the involuntary help of WALL-E he remains fascinated by the plant (using his time to research Earth on the computer of the spaceship) and will do anything to get home.

AUTO: is the main antagonist of the film, "voiced" in the original by the MacInTalk computer program (developed by Apple).

GMA Network's fake Filipinos (AI sportscasters) should remind you that AI has no soul

Recently here in the Philippines, GMA Network made waves to boost their sports coverage by unveiling their artificial intelligence (AI) sportscasters named Maia and Marco which drew varied reactions from Filipinos online. Check out the official video unveiling of the AI sportscasters from GMA Integrated News’ YouTube channel below… If you look at Maia and Marco’s unveiling, you probably would…

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Motion Graphics Project

For this project, we were to create a motion graphics sequence of a chosen book as if it was a TV show adaptation. For my chosen book, I used George Orwell's 1984.

Because 1984 had themes of government surveillance, I wanted to use eyes to signify this. I had to use masking to outline the eye itself like the top of the tower of a panopticon, then separate the whites and iris of the eye into layers so it would be easier to animate in After Effects.

For the rat animation, I used tvpaint. I created the pathing in red line on a layer and animated the rats on the layer above. Each rat has it's own layer so the timing process would be easier as each rat appears in different frames. I created the rat body first and used the stamp tool to keep a consistent shape, then rotated them in each frame accordingly to follow the pathing. The tails were drawn on afterwards.

I then exported the animation as a GIF so the background would be transparent unlike an MPEG4. For the final video, I imported the GIF onto the original composition in after effects and exported the render.

For my final thoughts, I wish I could have added more compositions in this project, but I was very limited in what I could do with how little I was familiar with After Effects. An additional improvement would have been more demonstrations of text motion and a more interesting colour palette by adding blue like the images from my moodboard as well as implimenting art from the different book covers. I'm still pleased with what I have made, because I learned a range of techniques (from masking, effects, textures and keyframing) that would be useful in future projects I want to do.

Computer Generated Imagery - Week 1

For the start of this new term, the brief is to create an interactive graphic novel. We were introduced to a new online software that we will be using to compile this project, called EKO, and were also given a list of topics to take inspiration from, such as gender, media, and relationships.

I first started a mindmap looking at a few of the topics in the list that I was interested in. As I initially didn't really know what an interactive graphic novel was, I didn't have any initial inspiration going into the class, so I definitely found it challenging. I think I over complicated it, as I wanted to make a project that was more lighthearted, and I also think I was overwhelmed by the choice of how many interactive elements I could include, especially when trying to consider my own workload, and how much I could achieve in the time given.

Considering I'm still struggling with any main idea so far, I want to work more on getting inspiration this week, then work on it more in class when we are introduced to using EKO which we will be doing next week.