“Powerless” Robot in a short film from Britain

Filed under Computer Graphics, Found on the Web

“Powerless” is a beautiful short film by digital animation students at the University of Hertfordshire. It’s got a dreamy dark palette and moody music, and shows us what a difficult time we can have when we set out to Meddle In Things That Man Was Not Meant to Wot Of. Or something. In fact, that’s not exactly what it shows us, but I can’t resist any chance to say that.

With a steampunkery robot and a solitary inventor in his woodsy cottage, not to mention all that copper and those antique gauges… what’s not to like?

New Robot Model, with a Turntable Animation

Filed under Computer Graphics, Works in Progress

(Revised, Nov. 29)

I’m finishing up a new robot character that I’m calling the “Myrmidon” – which, depending on your preference, makes him either an ant or an Homeric warrior. Actually I don’t think either of those is quite right, so we may need to add another definition.

At this point I’ve rendered out a turntable animation to make it easier to find the last little tweaks I want to make, after which I need to set him up with a skeleton and skin him. It. Whatever.

Click through if you’d like to see the animation (about 13.5 megabytes).

Whimsical Retro Robot by Brazilian Artist Fabio M Ragonha

Filed under Computer Graphics, Found on the Web

Here’s a playful retrofuturistic robot from the portfolio of Brazilian artist Fabio M Ragonha. It’s a 3DS Max/Photoshop creation. Whatever job this little guy’s meant for, he looks like he’s ready to put his nose – if he had one – to the grindstone. Or his shoulder to the wheel. Or something like that. I have trouble keeping my proverbs in order.

Ragonha’s portfolio site is on the petite side, but it’s full of some wonderful images. Go see!

Version 2 of World Machine Now Available for Procedural Landscape Creation

Filed under Computer Graphics

It was almost exactly a year ago that I discovered Stephen Schmitt’s World Machine, a procedural generator for 3D terrain. It’s a wonderful product. He’d already been at work for quite some time on the 2.0 version of this powerful piece of software and today I find that he’s just released it at last.

My own upgrade copy isn’t here yet – here are some gallery images from the World Machine site. Some of the new features I’ve been following on his blog include realistic beachfront erosion and a method for generating occlusion maps for the terrain – that, and some other new things he’s been working on, should be a big help in masking out different types of materials to appear selectively on the landscape. In fact the new version will even render out a color map, based on the terrain shape, though I’m thinking that better methods for creating masks is more in my line.

Anyway, as I say I haven’t been able to play with the new version yet, but based on the old one I think it’s going to be a terrific tool. Go look!

“Lighthouse” Animation from ProMotion Studios

Filed under Computer Graphics, Found on the Web

As part of Liberty Mutual’s “Responsibility Project” for short films, ProMotion Studios produced this beautiful short animation called “Lighthouse”. Very nice work – a good story, technically excellent, and with several very nicely observed character actions.

You can see it in low resolution here (Flash player), in high resolution here (Quicktime), and you may also want to visit the Responsibility Project site or ProMotion.

In Progress – an airship of the retro future

Filed under Computer Graphics, Works in Progress

Here’s a test rendering of the 3D model I’ve been working on – it’s the Airship Vindoclavian, a lighter than air dirigible that incorporates some steering propellers from an old Modern Mechanix & Inventions cover and an exoskeletal frame that’s unlike any that were ever used in zeppelins (German zeppelins used internal, four-spoked frames, while the US Navy’s dirigibles used a similar, but three-spoked frame that the German engineers disapproved of*).

That frame and another aspect of the design are really intended just to make the nature of the ship more apparent… so I have to figure out what crazy notions led to those changes. Because I’m not a rocket scientist, of course – just a rocket artist.

*given the relative failure rates of the US and German dirigibles, the Germans seem to have had a point there.

Back Off – I’m Doing SCIENCE

Filed under Computer Graphics, Works in Progress

Any mad scientist – and by that, I mean any OTHER mad scientist – will tell you that it’s not enough to cackle and prance insanely around the lab. Some lab assistants just don’t get the hint.

So when going “Muahaha!” doesn’t cut it; when Igor (or Igette) simply won’t leave you alone with your mastodon/cuttlefish hybrid, your Dissolvo Ray, or your mind-melting Psycho-Cyclotron, just state the obvious. Back off. I’m doing SCIENCE.

As before, recently, this was an idea for a t-shirt at the Retropolis Transit Authority and couldn’t be stopped before it had also become a poster, a coffee mug and a greeting card . And last but assuredly not least, an archival print.

Because the motto of my Secret Laboratory is “We waste no part of the animal! Muahahahaha!”

Cover Concept for my “Empire State Patrol” Project

Filed under Computer Graphics, Works in Progress

This is a concept piece for my huge, looming, and intimidating comics project, “Empire State Patrol”. Which I think will take about as long to finish as the cathedral at Chartres. Go on, look it up. I’ll still be here.

There’ll be a common layout for all ten covers, which I think will be pretty much what we see here, and I’ve added an illustration for a scene in the second chapter. Since this is the cover for issue #2. I’m probably not really done with it, but finishing things like this makes me feel like I might be getting something done. Silly, silly me.

That’s Jake Rothman up on the rock, Marco Lippi down below, and Clay Hooper out back. They used to be construction workers. Now they’re rocket pilots. Life’s just crazy that way.

Trees for Tomorrow – Retro Future Art Print at Celtic Art & Retro-Futuristic Design

Filed under Computer Graphics, Works in Progress

Here’s a public service poster from the Future That Never Was: the Retropolis Civilian Conservation Corps’ TREES FOR TOMORROW program endeavors to replace all the trees we foolishly chopped down before we realized that we needed them.

Under the watchful eye of a Corps member, even an inexperienced robot is able to plant a new, living sapling out in the wilds beyond the wind farms and thereby make his own investment in breathable air for Tomorrow. Which he won’t need to breathe, of course – being a robot – but that’s just proof of his selfless dedication to a good cause.

This sprung up (if anything that took this long can be said to have sprung) out of my thinking about how Retropolis can do better than we’ve done not only when it comes to flying cars and faithful robots, but in making sure our planet stays a nice place to fly our rockets around in. I’m ditching the worst mistakes of the retro future (highways? cars?) and trying to reimagine it into something that makes a lot more sense than what we’ve actually done. So far.

One of the things I like best about the future is that there’s still plenty of it, after all.

There’s an archival print and there will be a poster quality print – once a bug in my printer’s online system is resolved, so I can make it available.

Andy Murdoch’s Automatron Character Animation System, Now on Sale

Filed under Computer Graphics

Big-brained Andy Murdock has gone mad, I tell you, mad! with a deep discount on Automatron, his enormously powerful character animation system for 3DS Max (version 8 or later). It’s a system he designed based on what he needed for his ongoing film project Lots of Robots and it’s chock full of useful features and subtle enhancements.

I was one of the beta testers for the system and although I’m not the smartest tester in the world I was excited by the way it works.

Automatron uses a custom character rig that’s controlled through Maxscript. Once you’ve skinned your character to the rig you can use the Automatron controls to create custom walk and run cycles, pose all or part of a character, load and save any of those settings, and apply post-processing adjustments (like “Harryhausen”, a simulated stop motion effect). There are loads of options for additional IK targets and IK blending.

But wait! There’s more!

Automatron also has a crowd control system that’s been tested with up to 500 characters, and can animate characters moving across surfaces that are also animated. Now how much would you pay?

Normally you’d pay $149.00, which isn’t a bad deal, but through April 30th Andy’s dropped this to the low, low price of $49 – and although Automatron doesn’t require a license on a render farm’s nodes, the program can be licensed on two separate machines.

And if you haven’t seen Lots of Robots, well, you should, you slacker. The DVDs include Max tutorials for many of the techniques and effects he uses.