Cars 2

We went to it. We saw it. We enjoyed it.

Of course, it won't be a hit with everyone, but artists and animators who understand and enjoy the art of caricature should get a kick out of it. Is it better than Cars? Eh, not really. Is it better than Toy Story, I think so. And how was the short? Pretty kickass, honestly.

For some reason, every time I see a PIXAR film, I'm awfully tempted to fire up Sarcosuchus_imperator and do a CG project. If only it weren't so expensive in terms of electricity to run Maya and the RAID it runs on... (I really kind of need to be paid to run the big iron these days, but, that might not be enough to stop me.) I think it's worth pointing out that few other CG films really give me this sort of thrill. Dreamworks, for all of its efforts (even the good ones), never really makes the level of energy it takes to actually inspire me to create something. Non-PIXAR Disney often has a similar problem, as does Warner's animation. Exceptions are pretty notable, however, even if the CG is comparatively minimal.

It's also worth seeing on the big screen. The grandeur and effort in terms of shaders and lighting PIXAR invested into Tokyo, Italy, and London for these virtual locations are nothing short of amazing, and are packed with humor (subtle and otherwise). (Of course, not owning a large flat panel liquid plasma LCD display teevee, perhaps this is a distinction that's sort of lost on folk nowadays.)

All in all: worth it, and I'll see it again.

This Weekend's Results...

I'll talk more about this project soon, but I wanted to post these now.



http://www.coherentlighthouse.com/commissions/TravellerCam.mov
http://www.coherentlighthouse.com/commissions/ObserverCam.mov

These movies were the actual deliverables. They are somewhat rough, primarily because of the level of haste required by the deadline (Monday, in fact).

More later.

Busy-ness Ahead!

I was anticipating getting some animation done this week, just not the sort I was just handed (y'know, stuff with an actual, rather aggressive deadline). (Details to follow after the weekend, after I know whether or not I can even talk about it.)

Things will be very busy this weekend. But, I hope, the good kind of busy.

CG History

The computer (I wish I knew who it was who originally said) is a stupid pencil with millions of colors. I'm rather late to the game in even appreciating the value of CG to filmmaking (that is, it took Jurassic Park to get my eyes clawed open).

After that, I was all about those awesome tools they used (I acquired one first in 1996; an Indigo R4000.) I still maintain and use a number of SGI machines: Octanes, an Indigo R3000, an Indy (which has an amazingly fast boot time), and an Indigo². (All SGI IRIX machines are named after animals like Sarcosuchus_imperator, Paradoxides, Helicoprion, Carcharodon; the Macs in my employ must make do with names like Tsuburaya, Miyazaki, and Harryhausen.) Modern SGIs make use of conventional CPUs and are Linux, rather than IRIX-based, so I tend to pay far less attention to such things (and there is nothing more demotivating to the acquisition of new hardware like the feeling you're getting something that can be found in a common PeeCee). I now concentrate on the systems I have (one of the Octanes and my G4 PowerBook) in order to produce. I have a long way to go. But, CG has come a longer way, so I don't feel so bad.

Some good stuff (good == historical):
Pencil Test. Made entirely on (several) Mac II computers. (For some reason, I'm having trouble locating a similar project done entirely on the PeeCee. Anyone know of one?)