The Gruffalo was created by Studio Soi and Magic Light Pictures for the BBC. The short 30 minute animated film combines both CGI and Stop-Motion techniques to create a stylistic look which is faithful to the original book
The animation was rendered to a HD tga sequence at a resolution of 1280×720. This was then output to an uncompressed Quicktime file which came in at a whopping 2.64GB! It was then converted for upload to the excellent Vimeo site through the Quicktime Pro Player using H.264 6000kbps video compression and AAC 44.1kHz 320kbps for the audio. This came in at a more respectible 46.3MB whilst retaining the best quality currently available for a compressed video.
Original image – Compressed H.264 with gamma bug – After correction
To get around the H.264 lightness gamma bug, open the uncompressed source movie in Quicktime and click through to Window > Show Movie Properties > Video Track > Visual Settings and set Transparency to Straight Alpha. Save this as a self-contained movie. This should now be fixed when compressing to H.264
For anyone who has experienced the following Quicktime compression problem… ’Error -43: a file could not be found’, save the new compressed file to your C: drive instead of any other drive letter, as the player doesn’t seem to like it.
Two more interesting CGSociety interviews with Image Engine. District 9 Part 01 Meet the crew and find out how they worked. District 9 Part 02 Texturing and Lighting.
District 9 is the feature film follow up to the award winning 2005 short documentry film entitled Alive In Joberg. The film is directed by former vfx artist and VFS graduate Neill Blomkamp and is produced by Peter Jackson. District 9 was developed after the collapse of the feature film version of the video game Halo which the duo were also collaborating on. The only footage released is a short cut of the Halo film.
Adidas invited directors to bring their own unique visions to a series of Adicolor commercials based on their creative response to the colours Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Pink, Black or White. Neill Blomkamp’s brief was Yellow and the following film was the result. Written in collaboration with Terri Tatchell who went on to write the screenplay with Blomkamp for the film District 9.
Excellent short animated film entitled Alma by Pixar animator Rodrigo Blaas
There are two main characters in the film. Mainly the girl, but also the doll shop itself, which takes architectual influences from Gaudi’s House in Barcelona, to become something out of the ordinary.
Even though the film is beautifully animated and rendered, it just goes to show that a good story will leave you wanting to watch it over and over.
My CGsociety portfolio featured on the weekley news letter under ‘Popular Portfolios’. I have currently only got one image on there but plan to put more up very soon. http://andywhiteley.cgsociety.org/gallery/
CGPortfolio is currently one of the best ways for anyone wanting to get their work noticed by industry professionals. It is highly recommended that you sign up. Registration is free although you have to pay an annual subscription to add more images and to access the video hosting features.
Machu Picchu Post is a short film created by 3 final year Supinfocom students. It tells the tale of a Peruvian boy and his pet lama and what happens when a mail plane loses some letters over the boy’s house. What stands out for me, is not only the overall design and excellent use of painterly camera mapped textures, but the cleaver direction of transitions between the normal and psychedelic worlds. The Machu Picchu Post CGsociety Article focuses on the production of the film, illustrated with concept art and wireframes. You can find more production designs on the Machu Picchu Post website.
Production Still From Pixar’s Short Film Partly Cloudy
Where do delivery storks get their babies from? This question is the basis of Partly Cloudy, the new short animated film by Pixar. The story features a stork called Peck who handles various dangerous baby animals sculptured by Gus the insecure grey cloud. Keeping with tradition, the short will be shown in cinemas proir to UP.
The CGsociety Article entitled Sky-High Talent introduces production artist Peter Sohn as a short film director at Pixar.
The Gruffalo DVD
