Tag Archives: Animation Director

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Leo The Lion and the worst animation Netflix has to offer

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AV Club has an interesting article up about the worst thing Netflix has to offer and if that clip above is any indication of what they have it’s pretty terrible. (Apologies to anyone who worked on it.)

“The streaming-video market is propped up by garbage,” Feldman admits, but Leo The Lion is something special. The film, the story of a vegetarian lion who escorts a group of animals to a lake filled with milk, is already a cult sensation of sorts on Tumblr, where users contribute to an ever-growing thread about the film’s many inconsistencies, mistakes, and baffling details. The strangest aspect of the film may be that the dubbed dialogue and songs do not match up with the subtitles at all. Feldman’s theory is that the subtitles are a literal translation of the original Italian script, while the dubbing has been more localized.

You can read the entire article here.

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Adobe Animate CC 2015.2

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Animate-2015.2

Following Animate’s rebirth just a few months ago, Adobe’s latest update is actually attempting to include animators and artists, which a huge welcome change! The two biggest additions are allowing a layer to be transparent! I know that’s SO 1995 but at least they’re finally listening! Also a new inclusion is the Frame Picker which mimics Lipper and Keyframe Caddy but is now included in the Application itself. The one thing I’m hoping for in the next version is to have the Frame Picker set a keyframe when you select a drawing form it’s display. Also there is the new-ish Pattern Brushes, which is very similar to Illustrator’s brushes and while I personally have not found much use for them, they ARE an artists addition and you might find a need for them. Actually I take it back, I made wallpaper on a background once using them.

 

Frame Picker

(graphic symbol thumbnails)

Visually preview and choose the first frame for a graphic symbol. In previous releases, you could not preview the frames without getting within the symbol. This feature enhances the user experience for animation workflows such as Lip Sync.

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Layer Transparency

You can now skip manual workarounds and sketch on top of other layers right inside Animate. To set the visibility of the layer to transparent, Shift+Click on the eye column in the timeline.

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Pattern Brushes

Paint a vector pattern along the path or stretch to its entire length. You can use the integrated global library within Animate to use Art and Pattern brushes. In addition to the default brush presets, you can import new Pattern Brushes to your Animate document using the CC Libraries. See them in action here.

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“Scarlett” by The Studio NYC

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Scarlett is a short film depicting the inner struggle of a girl who lost a leg to Ewing Sarcoma, a bone cancer that occurs in mostly children. Amputation takes as much of an emotional toll as a physical one – especially for a child. We believe in the power of entertainment media to empower children through storytelling and role models. Visibility in media offers these children hope and a sense of belonging at a critical time where they may feel isolated by their medical condition.

A short film based on a true story that inspired a foundation.
scarlettcontraelcancer.com/give

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Character animation technique produces realistic looking bends at joints

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Bending of an elbow or a knee is common in most computer animations of human or animal figures, but current techniques often result in unwanted pinching or bulging near the joints. Disney Research has found a way to eliminate those artifacts even when the animation algorithm is running in real-time.

Jessica Hodgins, vice president at Disney Research, and Binh Huy Le, a post-doctoral researcher, were able to pre-compute an optimized center of rotation for each vertex in the character model, so those centers of rotation could be the basis for calculating how the skin around each joint is deformed as it is bent.

“It’s a very simple idea,” Hodgins said. “The pre-computation enabled us to significantly reduce the joint distortions that often plague these animations, preserving the volume of the skin surface around the joint. And this method can be dropped into the standard animation pipeline.”

Hodgins and Le will present their skeletal skinning method July 24 at the ACM International Conference on Computer Graphics & Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH) in Anaheim, Calif.

Computer animators will often use a virtual skeleton to control the pose of a character and then use a skinning algorithm to define the surface of the character. Two skinning methods, called linear blend skinning (LBS) and dual quaternion skinning (DQS), are widely used in computer game engines, virtual reality engines and in 3D animation software and have been the standard for more than ten years.

But both have difficulty with certain poses. When an elbow is flexed, for instance, LBS can cause a volume loss at the area around the joint, resulting in a crease resembling a bent cardboard tube. When the forearm is twisted, a similar volume loss results in an appearance similar to a twisted candy wrapper. DQS eliminates those problems of volume loss, but creates one of its own – a bulging of the joint.

Pre-computing the centers of rotation, by contrast, improves the ability to properly weight the influence of each bone in the joint on the skin deformation, Le said.

The result is that the volume losses of LBS and the bulging associated with DQS are minimized or eliminated.

The method uses the same setup as other skeletal-based skinning models, including LBS and DQS, so it can be seamlessly integrated into existing animation pipelines. The required inputs are just the rest pose model and the skinning weights that also are required by the existing algorithms. The method also can fully utilize current graphics hardware (GPUs).

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For more information and a video, visit the project web site at https://www.disneyresearch.com/publication/skinning-with-optimized-cors/.

About Disney Research

Disney Research is a network of research laboratories supporting The Walt Disney Company. Its purpose is to pursue scientific and technological innovation to advance the company’s broad media and entertainment efforts. Vice Presidents Jessica Hodgins and Markus Gross manage Disney Research facilities in Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and Zürich, and work closely with the Pixar and ILM research groups in the San Francisco Bay Area. Research topics include computer graphics, animation, video processing, computer vision, robotics, wireless & mobile computing, human-computer interaction, displays, behavioral economics, and machine learning.

Website: http://www.disneyresearch.com
Twitter: @DisneyResearch
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DisneyResearch

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KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS – ‘I Don’t Got This’ Clip – In Theaters August 19

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO1y6CEeV_8

Take a sneak peek at the magical adventure by watching a recently released clip that showcases the bravery of Beetle, voiced by Matthew McConaughey.

Kubo’s quest begins nationwide August 19, 2016 from animation studio LAIKA and Focus Features

For additional materials, please download here:

Worlds Art I Teaser Art I Character Posters I Photography

Synopsis:

Kubo and the Two Strings is an epic action-adventure set in a fantastical Japan from acclaimed animation studio LAIKA. Clever, kindhearted Kubo (voiced by Art Parkinson of “Game of Thrones”) ekes out a humble living, telling stories to the people of his seaside town including Hosato (George Takei), Hashi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), and Kameyo (Academy Award nominee Brenda Vaccaro). But his relatively quiet existence is shattered when he accidentally summons a spirit from his past which storms down from the heavens to enforce an age-old vendetta. Now on the run, Kubo joins forces with Monkey (Academy Award winner Charlize Theron) and Beetle (Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey), and sets out on a thrilling quest to save his family and solve the mystery of his fallen father, the greatest samurai warrior the world has ever known. With the help of his shamisen – a magical musical instrument – Kubo must battle gods and monsters, including the vengeful Moon King (Academy Award nominee Ralph Fiennes) and the evil twin Sisters (Academy Award nominee Rooney Mara), to unlock the secret of his legacy, reunite his family, and fulfill his heroic destiny.

Director: Travis Knight

Writers: Marc Haimes and Chris Butler (“ParaNorman”)

Voice Cast: Charlize Theron, Art Parkinson, Ralph Fiennes, George Takei, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Brenda Vaccaro, Rooney Mara, and Matthew McConaughey

For more information, please follow us on social:

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#KuboMovie

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Hasbro Acquires Boulder Media Animation Studio

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Hasbro Acquires Boulder Media Animation Studio

Hasbro Expands TV and Feature Film Capabilities with Purchase of Irish Animation Studio

PAWTUCKET, R.I. — Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS) today announced that it has acquired Boulder Media, a multi-award winning Irish animation company based in Dublin. Boulder has produced a variety of award-winning series for Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Disney and BBC. As a wholly-owned subsidiary, Boulder will continue to produce animated series on behalf of third-party clients, in addition to producing animation projects for Hasbro’s best-known brands. Terms of the transaction, which closed on July 13, 2016, were not disclosed.

“At Hasbro, we’re building our brands through storytelling, and today, we’re telling richer stories across more platforms than ever before,” said Brian Goldner, Hasbro’s Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. “We are also reinventing traditional modalities of animation production, both creatively and financially. With Boulder, we will deliver the highest quality animation that will engage our audiences with deep storytelling and great characters in a very cost-efficient manner.”

Founded in 2000 by Robert Cullen, Boulder is one of the fastest growing animation studios in Ireland with approximately 150 full-time employees. Boulder will retain its brand and report into Stephen Davis who leads Hasbro’s entertainment and consumer products licensing division. In February 2016, Hasbro was ranked No. 3 on Fast Company’s list of Most Innovative Companies in Hollywood.

“As one of the largest independent studios producing animation in Hollywood, the time is right for Hasbro to acquire its own animation studio, allowing us to expand our animation and storytelling capabilities even further,” said Stephen Davis, Executive Vice President and Chief Content Officer, Hasbro. “In Boulder, we have found one of the most progressive, innovative and creative teams in the business. We are thrilled to partner with Rob Cullen, Pete Lewis, Jenni MacNeaney and the entire Boulder team as we significantly enhance the execution of our story-led Brand Blueprint strategy.”

“Boulder and Hasbro have ambitious plans for growth, and working together, we will substantially expand our team and our business,” said Robert Cullen, Creative Director, Boulder. “We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to bring to life the Hasbro stories and characters that mean so much to our team, and join a company that’s emerging as an entertainment powerhouse.”

About Hasbro

Hasbro (NASDAQ: HAS) is a global company committed to Creating the World’s Best Play Experiences by leveraging its beloved brands, including LITTLEST PET SHOP, MAGIC: THE GATHERING, MONOPOLY, MY LITTLE PONY, NERF, PLAY-DOH and TRANSFORMERS, and premier partner brands. From toys and games, television programming, motion pictures, digital gaming and consumer product licensing, Hasbro fulfills the fundamental need for play and connection with children and families around the world. The Company’s Hasbro Studios and its film label, Allspark Pictures, create entertainment brand-driven storytelling across mediums, including television, film, digital and more. Through the company’s commitment to corporate social responsibility, including philanthropy, Hasbro is helping to build a safe and sustainable world and to positively impact the lives of millions of children and families. Learn more at www.hasbro.com, and follow us on Twitter (@Hasbro & @HasbroNews) and Instagram (@Hasbro).

About Hasbro Studios and Allspark Pictures

Hasbro Studios is responsible for entertainment, brand-driven storytelling for Hasbro across television, commercial productions and short-form content. It develops, produces and distributes content based on Hasbro’s world class brands, including TRANSFORMERS, MY LITTLE PONY, and LITTLEST PET SHOP. Many of its series air on Discovery Family Channel and on networks and digital platforms in more than 190 territories globally. Since its formation in 2009, the studio has received ten Daytime Emmy wins.

On the film side through its film label Allspark Pictures, the Company has developed and produced a number of features based on Hasbro’s brands. Films in development or planned for release include OUIJA 2 (Universal), MY LITTLE PONY: THE MOVIE (Lionsgate), MAGIC: THE GATHERING (21st Century Fox), PLAY-DOH (21st Century Fox), TRANSFORMERS 5, 6 and 7 (Paramount) and the Cinematic Universe (Paramount) which includes GI JOE, MICRONAUTS, M.A.S.K, ROM and VISIONARIES.

About Boulder Media

Boulder Media is a multi-award winning Irish animation company based in Dublin. One of Ireland’s largest animation studios, it has produced many great shows for Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, BBC and Disney, including Wander Over Yonder for Disney, and Go Jetters and Danger Mouse for BBC. Learn more atwww.bouldermedia.tv/.

© 2016 Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved.