Wall-E is a delight. It’s about a little trash compactor robot that goes on a romantic journey. One of the best things about the film is the lack of dialogue. There will be long segments where all you hear our sounds. It’s just a great example of visual storytelling.
If you stay for the credits, you’ll be treated to a mini art history lesson epilogue followed by 8-bit renderings of the two main characters: Wall-E and Eve.
Egon & Donci is a free for download CG animated movie. It’s about a an amateur astronomer, Egon and his pet cat, who discover a “map” to Earth.
The animation is pretty good. There are some nice shots and good use of the medium. The scenes in space are beautiful, full of color and atmosphere. Unfortunately, that’s really all that’s good about it.
There are so many times where the film feels like a really long tech demo. The camera flies around a little too much. The plot is mainly just a vehicle to show off the environments and animation. It takes too long to start and by the time any tension or drama comes in, you’re kind of bored.
To download it for free, you have to sit through a short ad before the link is served.
One thing I really have to give to the filmmakers is their willingness to put almost everything online for download. I haven’t had a chance to go through it, but they made all the sound effects they used in the film online. There are also texture maps and cloud sequences.
If you didn’t know already, video has entered the Photoshop age. Where we no longer trust photos to tell the true story, we can no longer trust video to show the whole story either.
Compositing, masking, and other video techniques have gotten so good that they’re nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. We’re not even getting into computer generated graphics either. With a little color correcting and chroma keying, we can do almost anything.
Cute little short with some great animation. There are strong visual elements that stick. Even in a short film, you can see the basics of structure being developed.
Thanks to NvP faithful reader, Chris, who sent this in to me.
Produced by the greatest visual effects companies in the world, Industrial Light and Magic, Work In Progress is their only public short.
What really caught my eye was the light beams when the girl was walking outside. The way they broke as objects passed through them were amazing. We’re so used to seeing “normal” things, that we don’t let our imaginations run wild. Hopefully, they’ll put their great talent towards more shorts.
I normally don’t post about video games, but this one stood out to me. The animation was done by Production IG, the same people who are responsible for Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and parts of Evangelion. Most games and computer animation in general, have a very particular style that looks computer generated. This was different. This really caught my eye.
I love the idea of using computers to render pencil drawings. I can’t help but wonder when they’ll be doing animation in ink, watercolors, or pastels. It really opens the doors for something beautiful and non-traditional. I also love the blend of technology and classic mediums.
One Rat Short is a computer animated short film by new comer Charlex Films. It’s some of the most breathtaking computer animation I’ve seen in a long time. There are points where things look overly shiny, but for the most part, the fur effects and other lighting effects are really nice. I look forward to seeing more work from this small East Coast company.
