zoober.net

Another amazing short by Nelson Boles

2011-09-06T10:22:00.000-07:00

This guy really knows how to take a seemingly simple idea and execute on it beautifully.

Mass Effect 3 and iAnimate

2011-05-09T12:03:00.000-07:00

With Dragon Age 2 out the door, I along with the rest of the BioWare cinematics team have moved on to the finale of the Mass Effect trilogy.

The Cinematic Animators up here at BioWare Edmonton and BioWare Montreal have been producing some amazing stuff for the series third installment. The project is incredibly ambitious and I can already tell that it is shaping up to be one of the best titles that BioWare has ever shipped.

I have also decided to enroll in some workshops over at iAnimate.net. I'm a couple of weeks into the program and so far I'm having a blast doing some character driven keyframe work outside of what I usually deal with at BioWare.

It's difficult to describe just how much I miss doing keyframe animation in Maya... There are a lot of working professionals in the different workshops at iAnimate and the caliber of the student work in the program has been truly inspiring and motivating. I should have some work in progress assignments to show here on the blog sometime in the future.

Dragon Age 2 Released!

2011-03-08T07:58:00.000-08:00

Dragon Age 2 on Xbox360 Playstation 3 and PC is out in stores now! The last year was pretty wild up here at BioWare for the Dragon Age team, but the game turned out great, I personally think it's a great iteration on the original Dragon Age.

Some Reviews:

5/5 Escapist Magazine
94% PC Gamer Magazine
90% Official Playstation Magazine
97% Time Magazine
95% Gamefront

Video Games | Dragon Age II | Exclusive Launch Trailer HD

Dragon Age 2

2010-09-11T18:45:00.000-07:00

Time for a long overdue update!

The latest project that I'm working on up here at Bioware is Dragon Age 2. We just recently released our first cinematic trailer while the Gamescom conference in Germany was going on.

Between Dragon Age 2 and my wife giving birth to a a beautiful baby girl in June, this summer has been quite the adventure. Schedules at home are starting to return to normal again and we're finally catching up on sleep, so I'm looking forward to having some time to animate at home once more and blogging about what's going on.

Great Honda Crosstour Ads

2010-01-22T08:05:00.000-08:00

Not sure why, but I love these advertisements for the new Honda Crosstour. Great music accompanied by some snappy graphic rendered animation.

*Update, added the "Snow Trip".

Long overdue update.

2010-01-07T09:36:00.000-08:00

Things have been crazy over the last few months. Tons of stuff going on up at Bioware in Edmonton. Dragon Age: Origins hit the streets in November and received an amazing reception! We have a 91 rating on Metacritic and have received some glowing reviews. I put just about 3 years of work into the title and it has been extremely satisfying to hear how much the fans are enjoying the game.

Immediately after wrapping up Dragon Age: Origins I was put to work on the first retail expansion for the game which we just announced this week. Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening.

I am proud to say that I was given a great amount of responsibility as the lone cinematic animator on the expansion pack. I had the pleasure of working directly with the talented writing and design crew to put together just under 8 minutes of the key cinematic scenes in the game.

It's quite rare these days to be given a script on a large project that you get to storyboard, animate and even light and composite. Bioware is one of the few big studios where an animator can actually take his own shots entirely from script to screen. It was a valuable experience and I can't wait to show some of the amazing new stuff we have coming down the pipe.

Annecy 2009 - Gobelins Shorts

2009-06-17T14:47:00.001-07:00

Another collection of great shorts by Gobelins for 2009's Annecy Animation Film festival.

More great shorts from the 2009 Cal Arts Producers Show

2009-05-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

A couple more great student films from the 2009 Cal Arts Prudcers Show.

A Werewolf Film by Noel Belknap

Study Hall by Jeff Liu

Just let your imagination run wild.

2009-05-13T12:39:00.000-07:00

When thinking about animation exercises and films that you would like to do at home, it's easy to limit yourself to pieces that don't offer many technical roadblocks. But you typically end up limiting the degree of creativity and freedom that you could put into your work.

And then you see something like this.

"This one time..." by Nelson Boles

Gary - Another great Supinfocom film.

2009-03-03T14:51:00.000-08:00

Gary by Clément Soulmagnon, Yann Benedi, Sébastien Eballard & Quentin Chaillet - gary-lefilm.com

The students at Supinfocom sure are flexing their muscles this year with original films that are really pushing great new styles for CG animators.

Supinfocom Short - Yankee Gal

2009-02-17T12:21:00.000-08:00

Yankee Gal by Antoine Perez, Celine Desrumaux, Francois Pons, Gary Levesque - yankeegal.com

LISA!

2009-01-22T16:22:00.000-08:00

Love the look of this short film by Bertrand Piocelle and Marco Nguyen of "le building" fame. Just turn down your speakers before hitting play!

Galactic Mail!

2009-01-18T14:08:00.001-08:00

Galactic Mail, from the guys that made Sigg Jones. It is another action filled short film with some fantastic cinematic shots sprinkled throughout the piece. Looks like the whole thing was rendered on 2's and 3's which gives it a more classic 2D feel.

Check it out.

Galactic Mail from Asterokid.

Finally hooked on BSG

2009-01-06T18:58:00.000-08:00

After years of hearing about this show and never bothering to catch an episode on TV or rent one of the season's on DVD, I have finally taken a dive into Battlestar Galactica.

I'm still working my way through Season 1. The religion that the Cylons have adopted is a really interesting twist on the old "race of machines threatening to wipe out humanity" pitch.

Getting back into maya via Mass Animation

2009-01-04T19:02:00.000-08:00

Decided to open up maya over the weekend and tackle a few shots from the Mass Animation competition.

Voting in the contest is pretty aggressive so far, but after doing nothing but animating realistic humanoids for games for the last year, it was nice to do some cartoony stuff.

Feel free to toss me a sympathy vote if you're bored ;)

I love mixed media

2009-01-02T20:24:00.000-08:00

I really enjoyed this short film by Carlos Lascano. The whole thing has a really fun and beautiful vibe to it. I was also fascinated by the way he did the eyes on the 2D characters.

A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

Left 4 Dead

2008-12-14T17:01:00.000-08:00

My vice for the last couple weeks has been Valve's latest masterpiece, Left 4 Dead.

I can't recommend it enough, Valve's new game is a great ambassador for what I believe will be the next hot gaming genre, Co-op Survival games.

Gears of War 2 was also released just a few weeks ago with a similar multiplayer feature called "Horde Mode", where you and a team cooperatively play against waves of locusts. Horde mode in Gears 2 has also been the most popular online mode of play for that game in regards to total hours played. Seems like there may be a lot of demand for more games like this in the future.

Catch me online for some co-op action, Zooob on Xboxlive or Zoober on Steam.

Peter Crafts - Aniboom Competition

2008-12-02T10:03:00.000-08:00

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Peter Crafts, a good friend of mine has submitted his student film to the Aniboom Awards 2008 Animation Competition.

Pete is also currently looking for a new gig. Feel free to give him a shout.

ASIFA Archive - Ralph Bakshi

2008-11-26T14:46:00.000-08:00

Came across this video over on Keith Lango's blog. It's Ralph Bakshi explaining why how he got through the collapse of theatrical animation and what he thinks of the current state of the industry. I don't agree with everything Ralph says, but I love his point of view.

This was recorded in during the summer of 2008 at SDCC.

Still Alive

2008-11-10T18:01:00.000-08:00

Things are still kicking up in Edmonton at Bioware. We're hard at work trying to wrap things up on Dragon Age: Origins.

Despite all the time that I have been putting in at work, I managed to get married back in August and we'll be heading off to Italy next week for the old honeymoon. I should have lots of photos to share when I get back.

Stay tuned.

Le Ballon

2008-09-09T13:32:00.001-07:00

Great mashup of 2D/3D.

Chainsaw Maid

2008-08-18T08:16:00.001-07:00

Claymation animators are violent...

Dragon Age Teaser

2008-07-31T19:04:00.000-07:00

One of the teaser trailers for the game that I'm working on up at Bioware, called Dragon Age: Origins.

Dimitri The Stud

2008-07-08T12:55:00.000-07:00

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

2008-06-12T12:19:00.000-07:00

Another trailer was just released for the new "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" series. Looks like things are really coming along and I'm looking forward to seeing these episodes later this year.

A friend of mine, Kiaran Ritchie is over in Singapore right now doing some rigging for the series. He sounds pretty excited about it, so I'm hoping for the best.

Hunt you to the edge of the earth!

2008-04-22T14:33:00.000-07:00

Great comic....

Mass Effect

2007-11-28T13:29:00.000-08:00

Mass Effect was released last week. Even if you're not really into RPG's, I think most people will really enjoy the cinematic experience that the game has to offer.

Check it out.

Kinetic Sculptures - Taking over a town near you.

2007-07-03T14:02:00.000-07:00

glumbert.com - Kinetic Sculpture

CalArts - Animation Program Goes Mocap

2007-05-18T08:13:00.001-07:00

Ghost Crooner

2007-05-15T10:28:00.001-07:00

Good ol'Conan.

Hot Fuzz

2007-04-27T10:33:00.000-07:00

By the Power of Grayskull!! See this movie.

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Bioware

2007-04-20T14:47:00.000-07:00

Spent most of last week flying around Canada and I am now happy to announce that I have just signed on with Bioware Corp. as a Cinematic Animator. I will be relocating to Edmonton, Alberta in a few weeks.

Bioware is known for their epic RPG games and have some impressive titles in development, inlcuding Mass Effect and Dragon Age.

Onion News - Now broadcasted in 811 countries

2007-03-29T13:17:00.000-07:00

Immigration: The Human Cost

"Until you live through it you have no idea how bad it can be......... Living in your summer home year round."

New Animation - Walkcycle

2007-03-04T16:48:00.000-08:00

I hadn't done a walk in a long long time. So I decided to whip one up this week for some practice.

Athletic Performance: Intelligent Believable Characters

2007-02-28T09:14:00.000-08:00

I attended this latest Vancouver ACM Siggraph event last night at the Vancouver International Film Centre.

Henry LaBounta and Eric Armstrong from EA Games gave a presentation called "Athletic Performance: Intelligent Believable Characters" which basically covered some new procedural animation technology that they have developed in house. This new tech handles blending character animation clips in games to give you a more believable and responsive on-screen performance.

As you all know, animation in games is generally different motion clips (walk/run/idle cycles) that are blended together as you tell your character to move around. Due the the fact that we want the characters to be responsive to the controls, the animation clips are often violently cut together as a character switches direction or action (run to slam dunk. etc.) which creates fairly obvious popping and feet sliding on screen. For the most part, you can't do much about this. Having a character instantly turn or stop when you give the command is needed for the gameplay to feel right.

However, with these new tools, blending these motion clips through procedural animation is getting quite a bit more efficient. They gave us a demo of their proprietary animation toolset to show us how animators could now tweak their cycles and actions while viewing the results in realtime. Their software essentially breaks the clips up into smaller chunks that are procedurally blended together.

This allows animators to slip in those actions involving characters planting their feet and pulling back on their center of gravity to slowdown and turn instead of jarring to a stop and returning to a fullspeed run cycle in another direction.

The results were quite impressive and definately added a lot more weight and believability to the characters on screen. While I don't see much of this being put to use outside of their sports titles at the moment, I can definately see it's implementation in other genres in the future.

Hopefully soon the days of floating characters sliding around the ground and popping between animation cycles will be gone from FPS and Fantasy titles as well.

Overall, good show. I belieeve that they will also be giving this presentation at GDC next week in San Francisco.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

2007-02-08T14:44:00.001-08:00

I came across this great video on youtube recently that tries to illustrate how the web has evolved into it's current landscape of community content driven websites.

I'm not a fan of the "Web 2.0" buzzword that it being thrown around, but I was definitely intriqued/impressed/inspired by this very artistic display that tries to break down how the web has changed overtime.

Cat Wash

2007-02-02T14:53:00.001-08:00

A bunch of these "Pet Spa" machines are popping up in pet stores across the states.... I wouldn't recommend putting your cat in one..

Purple and Brown

2007-02-02T10:41:00.001-08:00

I recently came across this hilarious series of shorts called "Purple and Brown" on youtube. They were produced for Nickelodeon UK by a few of the folks over at Aardman.

More...
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Night At The Museum

2007-01-28T01:41:00.000-08:00

Just got home from seeing Night at the Museum. I liked it. One of those family friendly adventure/comedy films that I haven't seen much of in the last few years.

3 monkey slap fights out of 4.

Don't trust Pinata's or Baby Panda's.

2007-01-12T22:12:00.001-08:00

Pan's Labyrinth

2007-01-12T21:47:00.000-08:00

Went to see Pan's Labyrinth tonight. It was a good movie overall. Not a "must see" in my book, but definately worth checking out if you enjoy a good fairytale thriller.