25-hour day

"Cyber Solstice" :: new model

2012-01-28T12:05:00.001-06:00

Now that Battle Gnomes has been released, I'm working on a new project over at Forever Interactive.

The working title is Cyber Solstice, a game much in the same spirit as the old Space Harrier arcade title.

Below is a completed asset for the first level.

Concept art (left) and base metal texture by Ryan Martinez.

Modeling and additional texture work by Neil Schnepf.

More updates

2012-01-28T11:38:00.000-06:00

It continues to be an exciting time over at Forever Interactive!
New games, new site, new prospects in 2012.

Check out the revamped main FI site here.
Battle Gnomes, released for mobile devices just before Christmas 2011, has a new page as well.

Over in the main FI house, Visions of Zosimos (VoZ), continues into beta and will be featured at the Hero Engine booth at GDC 12.
If you're in SF or are heading down, check it out!

update...

2011-12-05T02:23:00.001-06:00

It's been a bit of a whirlwind over the last month or so, between work, holidays and the exciting developments over at Forever Interactive.

I've definitely not been idle. I recently transitioned to the mobile game development team over at FI and will be picking up some of the finishing touches before "Battle Gnomes" rolls out into full release for the holidays.
Once that's well on its way, I'll be picking up additional duties on a new title, currently under development.

Check out the Battle Gnomes facebook page!

New developments over at Visions of Zosimos!

2011-10-16T22:23:00.003-05:00

Exciting news as VoZ continues to develop.
Check out some screenshots from the Lobby Area of the game where players will develop their characters and begin their quests.

Also, check out our Facebook page!

(VoZ) : texturing

2011-08-28T19:20:00.003-05:00

Two screencap's of the final textured pieces for the Character Creation area of VoZ.

These meshes were created by another team member. My task here was to lay out the UV's and texture using the design-approved 2D textures for the area.

(VoZ) : texturing

2011-08-28T19:19:00.003-05:00

(VoZ) : texturing

2011-08-28T19:06:00.003-05:00

(update) digital portfolio

2011-08-16T12:24:00.003-05:00

My main portfolio site has been updated with some new renders in the Game Design Gallery.

The additions are from a 20-hour texturing project that I was involved with last year.

Ultimately, I'd like to build out the scene a bit more, but I present the results as they are to demonstrate my performance at the end of the challenge.

VoZ : Lobby

2011-07-15T14:53:00.006-05:00

Two new assets ready for inclusion in the Hero game engine.

These are to be used as portal entrances from the game Lobby to the Arena areas.
Comparison with concept art for each provided.
Textures drawn from a pre-set pool defined for each game area.

Modeling, UV layout and texturing in Maya.

Seattle!

2011-06-28T12:05:00.001-05:00

After a long and scenic westward trip, I'm finally in Seattle and setting up shop.

Some images from trip can be found here.

Seattle!

2011-05-29T22:52:00.003-05:00

Been a busy few months of plotting, planning and packing!

Will be relocating to the Seattle area on June 1st and should be back up and running (hopefully) by the end of June.

See everyone on the flip side!

FoD : concepts

2011-02-08T14:20:00.003-06:00

The only piece of concept artwork available was the three-quarter view presented in the upper left. In order to begin modeling, I had to reverse engineer the other three views from the initial concept.

VoZ : Forest of Decay (props)

2011-01-27T13:04:00.003-06:00

An initial, un-textured ~900-tri corpse arm.
The limb is a single piece of geometry.

It had been a while since I did any character-related modeling, so I thought I'd pick up a small task as a refresher.
Ultimately, since these are only going to be background elements, we decided that the parts would be of much lower tri-counts and have a simpler texture.

I have another piece that meets those requirements which I'll display in a subsequent post.

VoZ : Forest of Decay (props)

2011-01-27T12:44:00.012-06:00

The roots are around 75 tri's each.
Texture provided by the VoZ Forest of Decay design team standard resource pool.

The trees are between 250 and 400 tri's.
Texture provided by the VoZ Forest of Decay design team standard resource pool.

The rocks are around 100-tri's each.
Texture provided by the VoZ Forest of Decay design team standard resource pool.

All were designed as background elements for the Forest of Decay level board.

VoZ :: Concepts (Light Side Tower)

2010-12-21T15:23:00.006-06:00

Two quick concept sketches for the interactive Lobby area for VoZ.
These represent work being done to construct the Light Side Alchemical Academy.

HeroEngine : test

2010-11-27T09:15:00.005-06:00

Since the Torque3D engine is being discontinued, VOZ is migrating to the HeroEngine.

Each member of the Environment team was tasked with learning their away around the engine and creating some simple test scenarios.

This is one of those that I developed in a couple of hours.

FI : Pridefell (in-game)

2010-11-03T23:02:00.003-05:00

Here's a preliminary look at some of the Pridefell assets (including my own) inside the Torque 3d game engine.

FI : Pridefell Structures

2010-10-29T11:30:00.003-05:00

Tri count : 1006 (left structure) 1100(right structure)

Concept and design by myself; textures once again drawn from a common pool of tiling textures.

FI : Pridefell Guardtower

2010-10-28T10:38:00.010-05:00

Game asset created for Forever Interactive's Visions of Zosomos.

There are two distinct meshes : the main tower and the entrance.
The combined tri-count is about 1600.

Concepts and modeling were done by myself, while textures were drawn from a common pool of tiling image assets provided to the Environment team.

@twitter

2010-10-20T15:40:00.001-05:00

Just registered on twitter

WIP : Texture Challenge

2010-10-20T12:36:00.004-05:00

While not part of the challenge, I couldn't resist the opportunity to light the scene for a bit more of an atmospheric effect.

WIP : Texture Challenge

2010-10-20T12:34:00.003-05:00

A close up of the detail work on the rear of the building.

WIP : Texture Challenge

2010-10-20T12:29:00.003-05:00

My first iteration through a 20-hour, 5Mb-texture limit challenge to create an abandoned city building for a game environment.

VoZ : Shadow Alien Town Structures

2010-08-28T09:17:00.003-05:00

Continuing on with the re-model of components for the Visions of Zosomos game, I'm posting a composite image of several buildings I've recently completed.

Like the graveyard structures before it (and all new elements for VoZ), the Shadow Alien Town buildings draw from a common pool of textures designed to facilitate consistency amongst assets.

Mesh : Neil Schnepf
UV Layout : Neil Schnepf
Texturing : Neil Schnepf

VoZ : Graveyard

2010-07-06T12:21:00.004-05:00

Completed re-model of structures for the Visions of Zosomos game.
Modeling and UV layout : Neil Schnepf
Textures based on standard set created for level consistency.

WIP : Shrouded Temple (Visions of Zosomos)

2010-04-19T00:39:00.005-05:00

Definitely a work in progress.
Early- to mid-stages of texture painting for this Visions of Zosomos (VoZ) game asset.

logo re-design

2010-04-12T10:38:00.003-05:00

Quick re-design of logo for the same client as the plaque.
The purposes of the alteration was to make it consistent with the look and feel of the other image.

update to short project

2010-04-12T10:35:00.002-05:00

A slight variant to the previous model as requested by the client.

short project

2010-04-07T19:01:00.002-05:00

A quick one-day turnaround project for local Chicago musicians.

The image above shows the base, untextured model and the final render.
Textures and normal maps were created specifically for the project.

UPDATE: portfolio site

2010-03-29T10:49:00.002-05:00

25-hour day, my main portfolio site, has been updated with all-new game-design galleries.

Forever Interactive : In the News, again

2010-02-22T23:24:00.002-06:00

Clinton Keith who maintains a blog on Agile Game development has a post about Forever Interactive.

Forever Interactive : In the News

2010-02-21T08:06:00.003-06:00

FI getting some press.

WIP : Floating Island

2010-02-18T09:14:00.004-06:00

Created for Forever Interactive's Visions of Zosomos

Tri's : 976

Game Design Demo Reel

2010-02-14T10:17:00.002-06:00

Game Design Demo Reel from Neil Schnepf on Vimeo.

A brief showcase of three of my low-poly game assets.

Each were created for Forever Interactive, LLC.

Updates to my portfolio site will be following in the next week or two.

In the meantime, a gallery of detailed images of the models presented in the reel can be found here.

WIP : Forgotten Waterfall (variation 2)

2010-01-01T22:12:00.003-06:00

Same underlying mesh, but a slightly different normal map; this one draws exclusively from the tiled texture instead of the sculpted mesh which was the basis of the previous one.

I personally like this one a bit better as it emphasizes the details inherent in the texture.

WIP : Forgotten Waterfall (variation)

2009-12-30T11:58:00.002-06:00

A variant of the Forgotten Waterfall featured in the previous post.

WIP : Forgotten Waterfall

2009-12-25T23:45:00.003-06:00

Things have been a little slow with the holidays, but I did manage to make considerable progress on this environment set piece for VoZ.

About 9,000 tri's overall.

WIP : Citadel of Deceit (texturing) - detail

2009-12-01T08:20:00.004-06:00

Re-visiting a few works in project for Forever Interactive, including this one for the Citadel.

I've re-done some normal maps and added new ones.

WIP : Orphanage texture

2009-11-25T17:25:00.003-06:00

I'm in the process of re-compiling my demo reel and I've been going back over some old projects and adding some final touches.

I'm still considering this as a WIP since the game AoE has been placed on hiatus in favor of Visions of Zosomos. Once I get the final approval on the state of the Orphanage I'll move this into the finalized category. For now, I'll continue to adjust here and there, but for all intents and purposes it's a finished work.

This render has nearly all of the normal maps included in this pass and I've gone back and adjusted the texture on the window bars.
To enhance depth and sell the reality of the windows I've baked in the ambient occlusion contribution and added a customized reflectivity shader to the texture.
If you observe the windows in shadow, you'll notice that the texture does not get uniformly darker, but behaves a little more like a partially-reflective surface.

WIP : Forest of Decay

2009-11-20T22:15:00.007-06:00

This is a large tree being created as an environment asset for the Visions of Zosomos game under development at Forever Interactive.

The above rendered turnaround of the tree shows bump, normal and diffuse maps.
Pictures of Mormon Tea were used as the basis of the foliage.
Small branches and leaf textures (and associated alpha maps) were created in Photoshop.

The tree bark texture was taken from reference photos and made tileable through Texture Maker.
Bump map was generated through Texture Maker and adjusted in Photoshop.

Sculpting of the hi-res model that served as the basis of the normal map was done in ZBrush 3.0

Concept art and find low-poly model comparison.

WIP : Citadel of Deceit (texturing) - detail

2009-10-30T13:21:00.004-05:00

WIP : Citadel of Deceit (texturing)

2009-10-30T01:41:00.002-05:00

WIP : Citadel of Deceit (texturing)

2009-10-23T00:38:00.005-05:00

This is a work-in-progress snapshot of a texturing project I've been involved with for the Visions of Zosomos (VoZ) game at Forever Interactive.

The Max file (a portion of which is shown untextured in the lower of the two images above) was provided to me and I was given the task of texturing the Citadel complex.

This was very much a ground-up process, necessitating the laying out of UV's, texture research (to match the overall VoZ thematic composition and the Aztec/Mayan temple design) and creation (tileable textures along with dirt and bump maps).

new gallery

2009-10-08T11:10:00.004-05:00

I've collected some examples of my work with Forever Interactive into a small gallery hosted off of my portfolio site.

I've also updated the blog's sidebar links with a reference to this gallery as well.

WIP : Orphanage texture pass

2009-10-08T10:42:00.001-05:00

A test render without normal maps showing the evolution of the texturing process for the Orphanage.

WIP : texturing (3 of 3) of Orphanage components

2009-10-06T23:58:00.006-05:00

untextured vs textured low-poly mesh for the Orphanage stairs

hi-poly sculpts were created in ZBrush.
normal maps and textures were created in 3DS Max.

Note: the progression is untextured mesh, normal map only and all maps applied to mesh

WIP : texturing (2 of 3) of Orphanage components

2009-10-06T23:44:00.004-05:00

untextured vs textured low-poly mesh for the Orphanage concrete

hi-poly sculpts were created in ZBrush.
normal maps and textures were created in 3DS Max.

Note: the progression is untextured mesh, normal map only and all maps applied to mesh

WIP : texturing (1 of 3) of Orphanage components

2009-10-06T23:40:00.004-05:00

untextured vs textured low-poly mesh for the Orphanage door

hi-poly sculpts were created in ZBrush.
normal maps and textures were created in 3DS Max.

Note: the progression is untextured mesh, normal map only and all maps applied to mesh

WIP : ZBrush sculpting

2009-09-29T01:41:00.004-05:00

Now that the textures are coming together for the Orphanage, I've been spending some time lately on a bit of hard-surface sculpting in preparation for the normal maps.

The concrete is the current WIP, but I'm generally satisfied at its progress.

WIP : Orphanage textures

2009-09-17T10:41:00.003-05:00

This is a *very* preliminary render of three of the textures being utilized for the Orphanage. Just broad strokes here at the moment since they constitute a significant fraction of the model's surface.

Two of these (the facade and the concrete base) are tileable textures, so some additional considerations were required.
Preliminary touch-up work was done in Photoshop (cropping, balancing levels across the swatch, removing defects and mixing with additional source textures).
Tileable textures were then produced in Texture Maker and preliminary diffuse and bump maps were generated in Crazybump.

gray box model (3) : Arena/HQ

2009-09-10T11:09:00.004-05:00

Situated in the lower area of the New Haven game map (along with the Sanitarium), the Arena and HQ exists in a vast network of caves and tunnels.

As with the Marketplace, I developed a 3DS Max model based off the level map and scaled to the design document specs.

The attached image documents this process.

gray box model (2) : Sanitarium

2009-09-10T10:52:00.003-05:00

Here, I was given some latitude in creating this area as no definitive level map was available at the time. The design document gave an overall look and feel to this section and I based my gray models from that.

gray box model (1) : Marketplace

2009-09-10T10:38:00.003-05:00

My first assignments were to produce gray box models for several areas on the game map : The Marketplace, The Sanitarium, The Courthouse and The Arena/HQ

This first post summarizes the work for The Marketplace.

update : web site

2009-09-10T08:53:00.002-05:00

Some minor updates to the portfolio site, including my latest resume, bio and works in progress.

WIP : Orphanage model (2)

2009-09-09T21:46:00.002-05:00

Working off of Beu's concept art and turnarounds I developed the following model of the Orphanage.
Because of the size of the structure, it was broken down into several segments which will be imported separately into the Torque game engine.

The meshes shown represent a final tri count of just under 19,000.

WIP : Orphanage model

2009-09-09T21:44:00.003-05:00

Work is continuing on the project over at Forever Interactive for the newly-retitled Aeon of Entropy.

I'm finally ready to begin posting my progress on my first cohesive modeling project for the game.

The Orphanage figures prominently into the back story and will be one of the featured playable areas in the forthcoming demo release.

The first post will detail the excellent concept work by my fellow team member Beau Brokop and the the interior level design I did based off of his turnarounds and information from the game design document.

employee spotlight

2009-07-06T07:48:00.003-05:00

A wonderful bit of thanks from the folks I've been interning with over at Forever Interactive!

I was given the featured employee spot on their site for the month of June.

Here's a snapshot of the main page :

cand Land Castle animation : sample frame (2 of 2)

2009-06-11T00:17:00.002-05:00

Close up shot of the castle.

Cand Land Castle animation : sample frame (1 of 2)

2009-06-11T00:14:00.001-05:00

The establishing shot from the commercial.

Candy Land Castle...final animation is done!

2009-06-10T11:44:00.002-05:00

At long last, I have the final video for the Hasbro TV spot I was working on for Calabash Animation.

You can check it out over at my portfolio site, under the PROJECTS gallery.

internship

2009-05-20T18:59:00.003-05:00

While I'm waiting on the go-ahead for the Hasbro commercial renders, I figure I'd churn up the silence with some further updates.

About two weeks ago I began an 'internship' (though, this more has an open-source/shareware vibe to it) at an indie game company, Forever Interactive.

I'm part of the environment modeling team (I'm listed in the 'Zone Team' under the 'Team' tab) and at the moment working on developing building exteriors.

We're just moving out of the pre-dev phase, with most of the concept work out of the way. The focus has been on ironing out scale, getting the game mechanics working and getting up to speed on the new Torque 3d engine.

It's been a pretty sweet, but crazy ride so far. It's a scrum-based development cycle with each of the teams spread out over the country (part in Chicago, part in Texas). We're working in Max, so that's been an interesting learning curve.
This all brings me back to my days working on making levels for Quake.
But definitely good times.
I'll post when I have some actual renders, though that might not be for a while.

update

2009-05-15T09:45:00.002-05:00

Well, it's been a month to the day since I last posted, so I figured I was a bit overdue for an update.

It's been a busy few weeks!
I started and completed a modeling/texturing/procedural animation freelance gig over at Calabash Animation. The project is still in progress, so I won't have any images to post until early June.

It was a great little job modeling candy for a Hasbro TV commercial.
Although the greatest learning experience came from interpreting and translating conceptual art for the project. It's always fun to step out of photorealism and loosen up with a different style. I'm definitely looking for more stylized projects in the future.

WIP : lighthouse re-lighting (2)

2009-04-15T01:42:00.002-05:00

Another rendering, this time without the use of Maya's portal light system in the main room.

WIP : lighthouse re-lighting

2009-04-11T07:34:00.003-05:00

The first image makes use of both Maya's natural lighting system as well as the Mental Ray portal light system. From the various banding artifacts on the stove (lower right-hand corner), it looks like this breaks down with direct sunlight.

The second image utilizes IES photometric data for the light profile of the overhead lantern point light.

WIP : temple re-lighting (3)

2009-04-02T14:29:00.001-05:00

WIP : temple re-lighting (2)

2009-04-02T14:28:00.001-05:00

WIP : temple lighting

2009-03-29T01:19:00.001-05:00

microphone 'in virtuo'

2009-03-12T00:36:00.002-05:00

It will most likely have no part of the final animation, but I just happened to like this render.

WIP : wireless microphone

2009-03-11T16:29:00.001-05:00

A microphone prop developed for a motion-graphics piece I'm setting up to animate.

WIP : sherman tank, modeling phase complete

2009-03-10T14:19:00.000-05:00

Time to move on to texturing.

WIP : tank - minor update

2009-03-05T13:10:00.001-06:00

A small progress update, this time showing a perspective of the tank from a reverse angle.

new project: sherman tank, modeling phase

2009-03-02T19:31:00.005-06:00

I'm in the latter phases of the modeling stage of the project.
Most of the tank has been roughed out, just a few more items on the chassis that need to be completed before I move forward.

I'm striving to keep this as low-poly as I can while being true to the form of the vehicle. I've posted a wireframe model to illustrate my progress.

quick update 2

2009-02-26T10:37:00.002-06:00

These product promotional images were created for a client based on existing models.
They cages were re-textured (using a brushed-metal shader I had developed while working for Bending Light ) and re-rendered.

The above compositing work is for illustration purposes only and was designed to match an already existing packaging layout.

quick update

2009-02-26T10:10:00.004-06:00

I've been working on some one-off freelance projects in the interim.
These renders are two versions of a client's logo based on 2d illustrations.

The chrome finish was the one ultimately selected and used for the basis of the short animation.

update : revising and rebranding

2009-02-04T11:05:00.006-06:00

It's been a couple of weeks since I last updated, so I thought it was time to give a heads up of what I've been up to since then.

With my portfolio site now live, I've been re-working my business card to be more thematically consistent with the design of 25HD.

I'm also in the initial stages of assembling a new demo reel to include new and updated material.

As this progresses, I'll make additional updates here.

portfolio site : a little more tweaking

2009-01-21T12:34:00.000-06:00

I've been tightening up a few things and making some aesthetic changes on the portfolio site since its launch, so swing on over if it's been a while.

Light's always on at 25-Hour Day.

25 hour day - digital portfolio launches!

2009-01-12T21:25:00.001-06:00

It's been some time since I've updated this site, but I've been working hard on bringing my portfolio site online.

So, here it is, version 1.0!

As always, any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.

process : animation compositing (video)

2008-11-10T18:51:00.000-06:00

Part of compiling my new demo reel has involved construction of a series of short process-oriented vignettes that will later fill out the new video.

The first video is a culmination of the series of posts I've made over the last couple of weeks.

It details the end-to-end process from video capture through animation and the final composited sequence.

animation : what's old is new again, 2 short student projects

2008-11-02T12:31:00.000-06:00

Two student projects.

First, the inevitable luxo lamp animation.

and

second, 3 bouncing balls, emphasizing the difference in physical properties between each.

process : animation compositing (video)

2008-11-02T10:19:00.001-06:00

Unfortunately, I can't embed the video directly, but here's a link to the final animation.

process : animation compositing

2008-11-02T10:15:00.000-06:00

The process will be clear if you click on the embedded image.

The workflow, in a nutshell, illustrates the compositing process followed in After Effects; a series of background plates and animated overlays (from bottom to top of image) were adjusted individually and then combined to produce the final render.

All of the images were initially rendered in Maya.
The animation was produced as a rotoscoping/match-moving project that began with video capture of myself moving as the character.

WIP: animation/compositing project

2008-10-29T12:12:00.001-05:00

This is another in a series of process-oriented projects I'm developing for the new demo reel.

This particular one started its life as a rotoscoping/match-moving animation project (the original animation can be found here). I decided to expand the scope to include compositing, lighting and texturing; although the primary focus is rendering the character and background separately and combining in post.

As this develops further, I'll be posting the other portions of the process.

process : virtual prototype : modeling and rendering (2)

2008-10-21T19:10:00.001-05:00

process : virtual prototype : modeling and rendering (1)

2008-10-21T19:08:00.000-05:00

process : virtual prototype : compositing

2008-10-21T17:04:00.000-05:00

As I work back through my material I will be documenting the processes involved in creating the final product.

The first of these deals with the most recent post : compositing Maya render layers in Photoshop to produce the final virtual prototype.

freelance : virtual prototyping : final rendering

2008-10-21T12:51:00.000-05:00

Renders from a virtual prototyping project I worked on at the beginning of this year.
The company I was working through was tasked with quickly turning around a line of concept cookware that could be run through test marketing focus groups around the country.

my booth from the AI portfolio show, 2007

2008-08-31T13:04:00.000-05:00

Sort of a Japanese tea house theme going on here.
These are two photos of my booth just after getting everything ready.
Despite the minimalist layout, the setup definitely wasn't.

A belated thanks to Ash and Faith for all of their support and help!

update

2008-08-18T17:26:00.000-05:00

Just returned from vacation, so I'm a bit overdue for an update here.

During the downtime I've been getting back to work with Zbrush 3 and experimenting with a trial version of CrazyBump.

I've also been hitting the digital camera and I've created a parallel Flickr blog to contain some of my recent side work.

updates

2008-06-28T22:15:00.001-05:00

A few modifications to the site over the last couple of days.

The links area now contains 3 modeling/lighting projects (lighthouse, spa and temple) and several examples of storyboarding work I've done in the past.

Also, the character concepts area has been updated with new material.

UPDATE (7/9) : two additional renders have been added to the Temple gallery.

textures/modeling samples

2008-06-24T19:16:00.000-05:00

Another example illustrating some texture work making use of combination of procedural and photoshop-generated materials.

The surface was specifically manipulated to enhance the aged/weathered appearance of the surfaces.

textures/modeling samples

2008-06-24T19:11:00.001-05:00

An example illustrating some texture work making use of combination of procedural and photoshop-generated materials.

The surface was specifically manipulated to enhance the aged/weathered appearance of the surfaces.

modeling, texturing

2008-06-24T18:41:00.000-05:00

A close up of some of the books I modeled for various shots of the lighthouse scene interior.

an apple a day: rendering experiment

2008-06-24T17:25:00.000-05:00

This rendering test employed a more traditional three-point lighting technique.

link: 'big buck bunny' :: 2nd open source Blender movie

2008-06-11T00:48:00.000-05:00

Big Buck Bunny from Blender Foundation on Vimeo.

From the Big Buck Bunny site

How it started

As a follow-up to the successful project Orange’s “Elephants Dream”, the Blender Foundation initiated another open movie project. Again a small team (7) of the best 3D artists and developers in the Blender community have been invited to come together to work in Amsterdam from October 2007 until April 2008 on completing a short 3D animation movie. The team members will get a great studio facility and housing in Amsterdam, all travel costs reimbursed, and a fee sufficient to cover all expenses during the period.

The creative concept of “Peach” was completely different as for “Orange”. This time it is “funny and furry”!

The Blender Foundation and Blender community have been the main financiers for Peach. As for the previous open movie, a pre-sale campaign to purchase the DVD set in advance will be organized.

Additional support from sponsors and subsidy funds has been realized as well.

Peach also was the first Open Project hosted by the new Blender Institute in Amsterdam. This will make the project more independent, without much involvement of production partners, and also will ensure continuity.

(link) The Control Master

2008-05-15T08:06:00.000-05:00

The video:

The background:

A film by Veer & Run Wrake featuring CSA Images

Halftone City, USA. A peaceful metropolis of family values and space-age dreams. Mild-mannered blonde Dorothy Gayne secretly protects its citizens from harm. But dangerous new technologies abound. What happens when a powerful device falls into the hands of scientist-turned-villain Doctor Moire? Who will rescue Halftone City from this oversized creep? Watch The Control Master and find out!

About Run Wrake

Run Wrake is an animator and illustrator. His work includes the widely acclaimed short film Rabbit, music visuals for U2 and Howie B, and commercials for Coca-Cola and Natwest. He lives in London, England.

About CSA Images

CSA Images, a separate stock art affiliate of the Charles S. Anderson Design Company, creates images inspired by the highs and lows of art and printed culture: 20th-century advertising cuts, the tactile look of ink on paper, pulp and vintage themes, and American modernism. Available for license from Veer.

(link) MUTO : wall-painted animation by BLU

2008-05-14T00:47:00.000-05:00

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

an ambiguous animation painted on public walls.
Made in Buenos Aires and in Baden

brilliant stuff

BLU's website

link(s) : the uncanny valley - lectures

2008-04-29T08:59:00.001-05:00

I stumbled across this 7-part series of mini-lectures on the nature
and aspects of the 'uncanny valley,' that dip in acceptance of
androids and virtual representations just short of complete life-like
portrayal.

Presented in easily-digestible, 2-3 minute chunks.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Part 7

link(s): Pixar, Studio 4°C, ghibli

2008-04-11T09:15:00.000-05:00

There's been a bit of backlog of items I've wanted to post, so I'm going to roll them all into one large entry.

First off, Disney-Pixar has released their slate of upcoming movies, along with an announcement of 3D enhanced releases.

On the Pixar side we have : 'WALL-E', 'UP', 'TOY STORY 3', 'NEWT' and the theatrical re-releases of TOY STORYs 1 and 2.
( for a good summary - and potential spoilers - for each, see : AICN )

WALL-E looks cute, endearing and filled with the usual Pixar-standard level of rendering

Up - honestly, when I first read the plot synopsis I wasn't sold on the story; but when I realized there was a potential for Jules Verne-style/steam punk adventures I started thinking, "this just got a 100x better"

Toy Story - All I'll say about this is : "There can be only one"

Ghibli! Miyazaki!
News of another film from Studio Ghibli is always like finding just one more of your favorite cookie when you thought the box was empty. The latest,Gake no ue no Ponyo (崖の上のポニョ, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea), is nearing completion.

Production notes and other information on the release can be found on the Studio Ghibli site.

Studio 4°C

'Genius Party - 5 impacts/5 directors'
( site )

One of the great studios that contributed to the Animtrix, Studio 4°C has a new compilation of conceptual animation. I love the rough, stylized pieces. It almost makes me hopeful for 'Gotham Knight.' I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one. I'll be the first to say that I'm hoping to be proved wrong.

link: 'comics britannia' (BBC)

2008-03-24T19:39:00.000-05:00

I just stumbled across this little treasure trove over at the BBC featuring articles and documentaries on British comics, including an interview with Alan Moore.

Main site.

Small article from BBC news about Moore.

link : world's oldest animation

2008-03-12T08:26:00.000-05:00

5,200 year old illustrated motif on a goblet unearthed in an Iranian dig site depicts first known animation